Title: Out of Thin Air: Lightness
Premiere: February 4, 5, 6, &7, 2010, University Dance Company, Power Center, Ann Arbor. Presented in theUM Dance Department’s major annual production,
“(Re) Visonary Dances” a program of four dance works,
Duration: 13 minutes
Digital collage of text and music*: conceived by Jessica Fogel
Sound design: Michelle Chamuel
Set design: Kasia Mrowzewska
Costumes: Rebecca Baygents Turk
Lighting design: Mary Cole
Dancers: Daniela Blechner, Abra Cohen, Shanna Cruzat, Samantha Goltz, Allie Harris, Sean Hoskins, Logan McClendon, Julie Meehan, Parisa Shahbaz, Kalila Kingsford Smith, Briana Stuart, Michaela Wood
Understudies: Sammi Rosenfeld, Cara Zonca
Music and text recordings include the following:
1. Alceste, HWV 45: Gentle Morpheus, by GF Handel
Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood & Emma Kirkby
2. Excerpt from Lava, by Daniel Bernard Roumain
3. Excerpt from (W) as Light as a Feather, by Vicki Brown, Album: Seas and Trees
4. Excerpt from Lightsome, by Lauren Newton and Patrick Scheyder, Album: The Lightness of Hearing. I am
using only about 1 minute of that piece, which is 6:05 total.
5. Excerpt from Swallowtail Schooner, by Vicki Brown, Album: Winter Garden--again only about 1 minute of it.
6. Excerpts from an interview with Nobel Prize winning physicist Frank Wilczek:
http://cdn.conversationsnetwork.org/ITC.TN-FrankWilczek-2008.10.09.mp3 Using about 3 1/2 minutes of a 25
minute interview.
7. Excerpts from a documentary: You Tube Video: The God Particle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fg16j5hbvY&feature=fvw (about 1 minute of this)
8. Excerpts from a documentary entitled Do You know What Time It Is?
http://www.documentary-log.com/d210-do-you-know-what-time-it-is/ (about 1 minute of this.)
Program note:
“In modern physics we’ve discovered that the division of the world into light and matter is superficial; there’s only one thing, and it’s more like the traditional idea of light than the traditional idea of matter. That’s the Lightness of Being.”
— Frank Wilczek, Nobel Laureate Physics, 2008
“[K]nowledge of the world tends to dissolve the solidity of the world, leading to all that is minute, light, and mobile.”
— “Lightness,” from Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino
Description: This work was inspired by hot topics in the field of particle physics occurring at the time I was researching and rehearsing the dance, especially the race to discover the Higgs boson. I was drawing upon the enormous excitement building at CERN. Interviews with leading physicists, gleaned from video, radio programs, and television news reports, including a radio interview with Frank Wilczek, the 2008 Nobel Laureate in Physics, form part of the score for the dance. Wilczek describes the space around us as anything but empty— “an effervescent medium full of lively interactions between virtual particles--quantum fluctuations.” Italo Calvino’s essay “Lightness” in his 1985 book Six Memos for the Next Millennium also informs the work. Solidity is dissolved and space becomes an entity filled with charged activity.
The faculty choreographers had been forewarned by University Productions that our Power Center programs were too dark and heavy for our audiences. Irritated that we were being asked to entertain, I decided to free associate on the notion of lightness versus heaviness. I put a NY Times tracker on any story that mentioned “lightness.” From this I got fashion articles about transparent garments, which became inspiration for Rebecca’s stunning organza silk costumes; articles about wine and food; and articles about theoretical physics. I was thrilled to work with Kasia as set designer, who took some of the particle collision patterns I had been studying and transferred them to a transparent curtain that hung across the stage. Words gleaned from an interview with Michio Kaku, included in the score of the dance, inspired for me the idea of a floating chair that hung above the stage, emphasizing the space between particles. As the dance began, the audience sat in darkness, hearing my voice quoting Kaku: “Atoms are essentially empty space. Now how can we reconcile that with the fact that matter appears to be solid?….Now, you may think you're sitting in your chair, but actually that's not true.” Then the chair floated into view on stage. A feather was released from above, and a dancer began a feather blowing game as other dancers entered. Even in searching for music, I searched for titles with “lightness” referenced. One of the music excerpts I used, an experimental violin score by Vicki Brown, was entitled “(W)as Light as a Feather.” This dance built upon my long interest in creating dances inspired by developments in physics, beginning with Connoisseurs of Chaos, created in 1990.
Choreographic journal
Fogel remarks for December 2009 informal showing
Program
Photos by Peter Smith below.
