Odorido: Walking Meditations

In Process

Working Cast: Ellen Deutsch, Joshua Stafford, Dan Keding, Luke Chiang

In this collaborative piece, a dancer and several martial artists work together to craft a work about the dance-like qualities of Iaido, the Japanese Zen art of swordsmanship. Recent explorations have included increased awareness and sensitivity to such things as movement, shape and line, patterning, and spatial relationship. In addition to movement exploration the cast also engages in discussion about the work and about the relationship between their two arts.

~~~~~

Up To Chance (The Dungeons & Dragons Dance)

Conceptualized

Brainstormers: Ellen Deutsch, Joshua Stafford

Up To Chance is a work dealing with the similarities between the chance-based gameplay mechanics of tabletop Roleplaying Games (RPGs) and the chance games used in the composition of many modern choreographic works. The concept of using dice rolls to determine the outcome of various situations is a familiar one to many choreographers, who often use chance games to determine things like program order, music selection and improvisational themes. In Up To Chance, the very choreography itself will shift with the dice. The choreographer will work together with an experienced Dungeon Master to craft the event. A group of avid Dungeons and Dragons players will sit around the table and roleplay, as a group of dancers translates the happenings at the table into a movement piece. At certain junctures, the dancers’ next steps will have to be determined by the dice rolls at the table, with each dancer’s respective roleplayer calling out the results of his roll to let his dancer know what her next move is. Since the very fabric of the dance hinges upon a roll of the dice, each run of the work will result in a completely different piece.

~~~~~

Osmose

Conceptualized

Brainstormer: Ellen Deutsch

Osmose takes its inspiration from the world of molecular physics, and illustrates several concepts integral to that field through the medium of dance. Over the course of the evening the dancers would alternately form an epoxy, create a nuclear reaction, mingle with each other through osmosis, and fall victim to the chain reaction of polymerization. A single hand-hold would denote a single bond, while both hands held would indicate a double bond. By recreating the wonders of molecular movement on a life-size scale, Osmose would seek to make this enthralling subject understandable for artists and scientists alike.

~~~~~

Red Light, Green Light

Conceptualized

Brainstormers: Ellen Deutsch, Kinsey McCartor, Alex Mitchell

This collection of site-specific dance vignettes would explore the curiosities of urban planning and pedestrian and motor traffic in the Champaign-Urbana campustown area. The vignettes are performed sporadically all over campustown with the intent that passing drivers and pedestrians will bump into several dances in the course of one trip. Some vignette concepts:

• Four dancers perform solos at each corner of a large intersection with a 4-way walk. When the walk signs come on, the four travel into the center of the street and perform a brief contact quartet, always being careful to travel back to their corners before the walk sign runs out.
• Alex Mitchell, in his fedora and elaborate silver belt buckle, takes the full 60 seconds of allowed walk time to traverse the five foot crosswalk at the corner of Sixth and John. He moves in super slow-motion, using every last moment of those sixty seconds and just barely making it to the other curb in time.
• Several dancers line up on a sidewalk during bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic, each in line with one car. They perform improvised movements as they endeavor to stay beside that car for as long as possible, giving the person in the car their very own personal dance piece.

~~~~~

Child’s Play

Conceptualized

Brainstormer: Ellen Deutsch

For Child’s Play, the cast would create the movement vocabulary by playing several rounds of the popular game Twister, then rehearsing and codifying the resulting contortions to create a complex dance full of kaleidoscopic intricacies.