Unleash Your Imagination with Jody Oberfelder Projects

We want you to have the inside scoop, so in the weeks leading up to the 2015 Guelph Dance Festival, the artists will take you behind the scenes and you will hear from the Co-Artistic Directors about their creative vision. You can stretch your boundaries and unleash your imaginations before the Festival even starts! So go ahead, follow your instincts and read on...

This week on the blog, NYC-based choreographer and dancer Jody Oberfelder shares the story of how her piece for the Festival has evolved. You do not want to miss this unique experience as part of Stage B. Get your tickets for the performance on Saturday June 6 at 8pm through the River Run Centre Box Office!

Jody: What does dance have to do with the mind? The brain is everywhere in the body. Tracking, encoding, perceiving, the dance of neurons is happening all the time. 

I first met Catrina von Radecki and Lynette Segal in a Skinner Release based workshop taught by Stephanie Skura in NYC. It was the week after my piece about the heart, 4Chambers, had closed following 86 performances. It felt so good to move, go to a blank page, and begin again both physically and mentally. I talked afterwards to our Canadian guests about the nature of our performance installation. Small audiences were lead through four rooms, having different experiences of their hearts through different modalities: visual, tactile, physical and psychological.  It ended with a pulsing room: dancers dynamically rushing at the foam, and red curtained covered walls. I didn’t realize that Catrina was the producer of a festival. She was intrigued with the nature of this piece and sought to bring it to Guelph. We found a great space, but unfortunately it was not fully accessible. When asked “Do you have another piece you could do?” I said, “Yes”, quite heartily, as I was deep into the next process.

My research on the heart led to the brain.

Film still from "Dance of the Neurons".

In June 2014, I began to host brainstorming sessions/salons in my living room, with neuroscientists. They seemed just as game as I was to dialogue and envision an art piece culled from our discussions. I continued to research, and dive into scientific text. There were so many entry points. Finally, in early fall, I had to start somewhere. The first “rehearsal” was sifting through index cards. Mary suggested, “Why don’t we stand up and move?” Initiating this process: a chance to drop the brain down and see a bodily interpretation of the brain, the mind, proved the immediacy of your body at your fingertips, so to speak: the instantaneous connection of the physical with the cerebral.

Continuing back and forth conversations, we’d Skype into our rehearsals neuroscientists Dr. Weiji Ma, Dr. Gary Marcus, or Ed Lein (from the Allan Institute), who’d view and offer suggestions. They were also our fact checkers. Having non-dancers contribute in such an important way changed my own process. The ‘material’ of this study – of the mind – rising up and ‘materializing’ while choreographing has been a bountiful and imaginative process.

Jody Oberfelder Project dancers in rehearsal at Dancetheatre David Earle.

I call The Brain Piece a “choreographed experience”. Thinking of experiment and experience as similar, our end result being not data, but living breathing present artifacts of discovery, it is my goal to engage audiences in such a way so that they notice their own brain activity. People who come will translate and connect with their own brains and bodies.

Jody Oberfelder Projects is currently in the studio creating new material with three Canadian dancers – Lacey Smith, Robert Kingsbury, and Lynette Segal – augmenting our NY cast – Ben Follensbee, Mary Madsen, and Madeline Wilcox.  A New Music USA grant enhanced collaborations with composers Daniel Wohl, Sean Hagerty and Angelica Negron. Set is by Ioannis Oikonomou, and film is co-directed by Eric Siegel.

Local and international dancers together at last! The cast of the Brain Piece after their first full rehearsal.

Want a quick preview? Here’s a clip of a film segment that kicks off the show. Tickets for Stage B, featuring Jody Iberfelder Projects, can be purchased now through the River Run Centre Box Office. Interested in several shows? Purchase a Theatre Pass (3 shows) or Stage Pass (2 shows) and save up to 15%!

Dasein Dance Theatre comes to the CSA Nooner

On Wednesday, November 21, at 12pm, Dasein Dance Theatre brings their evocative work to the University Centre Courtyard, University of Guelph. Guelph Dance asks choreographer Lacey Smith how she developed the three pieces she is excerpting for this CSA Nooner, how she adapted them to perform in the Courtyard, and what’s up next for Dasein.

Lacey: The pieces we’re presenting for the CSA Nooner were all developed at different times between 2007 and 2012.  Each work has a life of its own and began with very different themes and questions in mind.  By revisiting each of these works in preparation for this show I have begun to recognize a unifying quality emerge.  A very strong sense of yearning is pulling through each of these works in various forms.  In Unframed Portraits the three women yearn to be heard and felt. In my solo, Unsettled Dust, I yearn for a lost loved one and in Emergence there is a paradoxical yearning for closeness/comfort and for independence.  As an artist it is refreshing to see that the sensation/emotion/experience of one idea can be explored in so many ways and reminds me how simple and complex we humans are.

Hannah Goldberg, Whitney Mah and Brandy Ostrosser perform Emergence. Photo: Lacey Smith 

At first the thought of performing these works in the University Centre made me think of all the potential problems with a space like this (the noise of a busy area, the hard floor surface).  Then I realized that this would be a good learning experience and challenge as a performer and choreographer.  Instead of the audience entering the performers’ space—as happens in a traditional theatre setting—we (the performers) will be entering into the audience’s space, an intriguing twist for performance artists. 

I chose to remount these works in their original state and not alter them for this space.  The audience will see the works as I have seen them throughout the creation and rehearsal periods, intimately and free of elements such as lighting.  Although I haven’t changed the choreography, I’ve been observing the pieces from three sides, as they will be seen at the University.  We’ve tried to consider our spacing more three dimensionally and have considered the range of our energy and experience within the work to prepare for this performance environment.

Sandra McCulloch performs Unframed Portraits. Photo: David Hou

Dance provides infinite possibilities to explore and dig into what we experience in our lives here on this earth.  Dance provides a never-ending opportunity to learn and share in a community of passionate and giving people and evokes things that are entwined deeply in our Being.  When I dance I am experiencing life with my whole self in that moment.

Lacey Smith performs Unsettled Dust. Photo: Caitlyn Vader

We will also be performing Emergence at Dance Ontario’s DanceWeekend in January.  Following, we will be presenting, FLUX 2013, a full evening of work by Andrea Nann and Lacey Smith in London on March 23^rd at Palace Theatre.

You can follow Dasein on Facebook or Twitter to find out more about their upcoming events:

www.facebook.com/groups/daseindance/

twitter.com/DaseinDance

Lacey Smith is the founder and artistic director of Dasein Dance Theatre in London, Ontario, where she began her journey in dance over twenty-five years ago. After completing a BFA (Hons.) in Performance Dance at Ryerson University, Lacey created works for Dance Ontario’s Creative Partnership and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal’s First National Choreographic Competition. She is currently working on the creation of Eunoia with Fujiwara Dance Inventions in Toronto. She is an associate artist with pounds per square inch performance, under the direction of Gerry Trentham. In London, Lacey has produced two full-evening dance productions and frequently teaches and creates work for local youth. She is a co-founder of London Dance Collective, where she teaches open community classes and facilitates workshops. In 2011, she began a mentorship program for young dancers.