Performance Installation (The Seldoms: Power Goes), 2014

75 suspended chairs
Various type/image animations
Edit by Liviu Pasare
Premiere: Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Presentations:
XFEST - Southern Illinois University,
EdwardsvilleTexas Performing Arts - Austin, TX
Doudna Fine Arts Center - Charleston, IL
Grunin Center for the Arts - Toms River, NJ
Contemporary Dance Theater - Cincinnati, OH
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Purdue Convocations - Lafayette, IN
Dance Place - Washington, D.C.

The big idea behind this stagescape is to use the stage set AS the projection screen. By eliminating a traditional screen, the projected content becomes integrated with the visual whole and helps to transport the viewer from a stage reading to a personal experience. Here we positioned full-stage-scale projections in front of a 75+ chair installation to create a multi-layered, unconfined and immersive environment. The effect of the layering confuses depth perception, while the use of actual chairs expands the number of “performers.” Acting as community members, congress, allies or enemies, the chairs also reference the peaceful protest of sit-ins as well as becoming props for the dancers that can come out from behind the scrim. In one case they are raised and rotated to become television screens. Choreography and direction by Carrie Hanson; performed by The Seldoms ensemble; text by Stuart Flack; historian Michael J. Kramer; projection edit by Liviu Pasare; soundscape by Mikhail Fiksel; lighting by Julie Ballard and costumes by Jeff Hancock.