Distributed March 25, 2003 |
News Service Contact: Mary Jo Curtis
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Arts collaborators present Video, Technology and Performance April 4-6 Video, Technology and Performance, the seventh annual Festival of Art and Technology, April 4-6, 2003, brings together a multidisciplinary group of innovators exploring new concepts and interactive technologies for live performance. The festival begins with a free presentation of “Falling Up” and “Future of Memory” April 4 at 8 p.m. in Stuart Theatre. PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Audiences will catch a glimpse of the future of stage performance when Brown University presents the seventh annual Festival of Art and Technology – titled Video, Technology and Performance – April 4-6, 2003. Sponsored by the Music Department, the Department of Theatre, Speech and Dance, the Creative Arts Council and the Lawton Wehle Fitt ’74 Artists-in-Residence Program, the festival focuses on the creative use of video projection and emerging technology in theatrical performances, according to Todd Winkler, festival director and chairman of the Department of Music. 
Future of Memory “This event will bring to Brown a multidisciplinary group of innovators in dance and theater, projection specialists, video artists, directors, composers, engineers and inventors who are exploring new concepts and interactive technologies for live performance,” Winkler said. “These are people who are tops in the field, and I’m thrilled we have them coming.” The highlight of the weekend festival is its opening concert, which will feature performances of “Future of Memory” by Troika Ranch and “Falling Up” by Winkler and Cindy Cummings, on Friday, April 4, at 8 p.m. in Stuart Theatre, 77 Waterman St. The program combines dance, music and theater with interactive digital media and movement-sensing systems that allow performers to direct and control accompanying sound and a backdrop of video images. Troika Ranch, a New York dance theater company, was founded by artistic directors Mark Coniglio and Dawn Stoppiello in 1994. Their mission was to create digital dance and theater in which the media elements share the spontaneity of the human performers on the stage. Their company is now considered a leader in interactive performance. Using special software programs, the dancers in “Future of Memory” – a dreamlike evocation of the experience of memory – manipulate sounds and images in real time. “Falling Up” uses a similar technique to explore concepts of gravity, flying and related metaphors in a collaboration of dance, music, theater and video. Winkler is a composer, multimedia artist and the director of Brown’s MacColl Studio for Electronic Music; his work has received attention at festivals throughout the world. He has collaborated in both the United States and Ireland with Cindy Cummings, a performer, choreographer and tutor in Cork. Cummings has worked extensively in theater, film and television and is currently involved in two national dance research groups in Ireland. The festival will foster an exchange of ideas, with specialists discussing artistic concepts, set design, motion capture, computer animation, interactive sound, sensing systems and live video processing, said Winkler. It continues with a series of public lectures and performances by innovators and pioneers in dance and theater on April 5. The April 5 events include:
Video, Technology and Performance concludes April 6 with what Winkler describes as “a think tank session” for invited participants only. All other events, including the April 4 concert, are free and open to the public. For further information, visit the festival Web site at www.brown.edu/Departments/Music/vtp.html or call (401) 863-3234. ###### | ||||
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