Show: Elements Program

Program, Air, Earth, Earth's script, Fire, Water, Slideshow, Main

Elements, an original work by The Digital Performance Group
http://performancegroupmd.tripod.com/blog

About The Digital Performance Group
The Digital Performance Group is made up of seven artists and performers working with and intrigued by technology (including faculty, staff and graduate students from the Art, Dance, Music and Theatre). The earliest incarnation of the group began meeting two years ago at MITH, to discuss the need for an outlet for artists and scholars working with digital media to create digital projects together.

Last spring we began to take shape in our current form around the goal of creating a new collaborative work. Our starting place was to explore technology as a connection between each other and our environment. Using the framework of the four elements allowed us to work in smaller scene groups to express our aesthetic, personal, and political concerns. We met weekly to discuss the format of scenes, technology needs, and developing media content. In January, we work shopped the piece with dancers and rehearsed scenes online with Jimmy and Beth from the University of Utah.*

Elements is the outcome of our collective process. The work would not exist without the multiple contributions of each member. Brandon has been our interactive media glue; Karen has given an ideological spark which her dancers embody; Mike gave us much more than sound; Moira was ever the muse; Aaron lent his dry wit and video skill; I have contributed words, ideas, and drive; and Paul has been essential in every stage of putting this project together from gathering technology, to finding space, compiling media, running tech, and being a voice of encouragement.

With our assembled skills, technologies, and imagination we have been able to achieve something beyond the abilities of a single artist or unit. I am pleased that we have created both a unique collaborative process and digital performance.
-Nadja Masura, coordinator

There will be a 15 minute talk-back after the show.

*April 1st will be “Interplay: Dancing on the Shores of Packet Creek” a multi-site online performance (for more information on Art Grid see Another Language www.anotherlanguage.org). Local location TBA.

The Digital Performance Group

Project Coordinator/Performer........................Nadja Masura
Technical Director/Lighting Design ................Paul D. Jackson
Choreographer.................................................Karen Kohn Bradley
Artist/Performer...............................................Moira Jackson
Interactivity Specialist/Artist............................Brandon Morse
Sound Design...................................................Michael Sparrow
Video Editor/Performer....................................Aaron Tobiason

Additional Performers
Dancers.............................................................Nilay Arioz
.............................................................Ryan Chrisman
.............................................................Mari-Elise Gates
..............................................................Eliza Larson
.............................................................Katerina Paramana
Online Performers/Co-writers...........................Beth & Jimmy Miklavcic

Tech Crew: Nicholas M.Grove, Nudh Suanpan, Vogue Wilborn, DPG
Voice-overs by members of DPG

Thanks
We would like to thank the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Our very special thanks to the Dance Department & Paul Jackson for making this performance possible. Thanks also to Dick Bell, Miso Tunks, Howard Zin, the Democracy Project, and Peter Rogers. To the sprits who have gone before us and continue to touch our lives, to future artists who will continue pushing boundaries of art and technology, and especially to the idealists of the present, those important few who have believed in this collaboration--we give our thanks.

Descriptions of each scene, from the program, can be read on their individual (video) pages...