Next week, Wednesday through Saturday, August 20-23, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet will present its next work, The Copier, an installation piece by Jill Johnson. I have high hopes for this one, as Johnson is a protege of William Forsythe, one of contemporary dance’s most forward-looking, innovative, thought-provoking masters (imho of course), and former dancer with his company, Frankfurt Ballet.
The dance, the final of Cedar Lake’s installation projects, is intended, in Johnson’s words, to examine “the impact of our culture of repetition and routine and what happens when we break from it… Now that we can create perfect duplicates of photographs, music, even livestock,” she asks, “do we put a greater value on things that are organic and made by hand, or do we prefer the perfection of a seamless copy?”
Yesterday, the company invited bloggers to a rehearsal where I took these pictures.
Bottom one is of Johnson herself talking to the dancers; sorry so blurry — I didn’t want to disturb anyone with my flash.
Since it wasn’t a full dress rehearsal, but dancers practicing on their own and being coached by Johnson in groups one at a time, it was hard to get a sense of how it will look when performed, but we’ll see next week.
Evan (Dancing Perfectly Free) attended several practice sessions and blogged about them here, here, and here. There’s also an interesting back and forth between her and Doug Fox of Great Dance on the meaning and forms of audience participation in such an installation. Here’s Doug’s post, and here’s Evan’s response.
To receive a blog-reader discount to next week’s performances, visit Smartix and use code “BLOGCP”.
