Events Calendar

Phelan + Gray + Boyt Thesis Concert

April 13, 14, 15 at 8 p.m.
Space Place Theater

A University of Iowa Department of Dance thesis concert featuring the work of Katie Phelan, Darrius Gray II, and Sean Thomas Boyt.

The following works will be performed:

Exposing Layers
Choreography by Katie Phelan, in collaboration with the dancers
Exposing Layers is a performance that uses a live camera to capture dance on a proscenium stage and projects it on a downstage scrim. The audience can see through the scrim’s projection to observe dancers and camera movement upstage. Today, internet access has made unveiling digital art techniques a secondary performance through tutorials and “behind-the-scenes” explanations. This work is situated in a constant “behind-the-scenes” point of view. It is a performance of method, as well as a performance of the relationship between live action and real-time feedback. It makes the “cause and effect” visible on the stage and scrim, which offers a viewing experience that is different from solely stage performance or cinema. The choreography considers a dialogue between the stage performers and mediated bodies on the scrim to ask how they co-exist. Knowledge of the inscribed dancing body is used to create movements of the camera as an extension of the body.

finis.
Choreography by Dhari Piekarska, Alvon Reed, Darrius Gray II
Performance Phenomenology: Unpacking the notion of Lived Embodied Experience. This piece is a portrayal of contrasting movement practices derived from sources of trauma, discrimination, social anxiety issues, and self-acceptance in collaboration with other artists with similar experiences.

Seanshuuraku
Choreography by Sean Thomas Boyt
A play on the Japanese word for ‘concluding performance’ ('???' or senshuuraku), this new dance work situates the stage and live performance as opportunities for self-expression and transformation. Specifically, this dance proposes a means for the titular Sean to imagine and build an environment where bodily agency, presentation, and safety are all possible and probable. Can this dance be the final occasion where they use the theater and the edge of the proscenium to take refuge from the outside world? Using improvisational scores, task-based choreography, and interpretive movement, the adjoining cast of dancers will negotiate differing situations both as individual bodies and as members of a larger group. As experiments, these dance scores prescribe limitations that alter their performance: the successes and failures in each iteration are made visible to the performers and viewers alike. In lieu of protective armor when addressing the potential dangers and embodied traumas of the outside world, Seanshuuraku's ensemble devises and explores other modes of adornment and self-couture to develop blueprints to best outfit themselves for the world.

Exposing Layers will use theatrical strobe lighting effects.
Please be advised, the final work in this production, Seanshuuraku, contains full nudity.

Tickets:
This concert is free and open to the public. All seating is general admission and tickets are not required. Masks are welcome.