Egg Cartons, Cotton Candy, and Living Sculpture

Excerpted from thINKingDANCE.net.

Photo: Johanna Austin
Photo: Johanna Austin

Cotton candy for all, toppling egg cartons and cell phones playing songs by P!nk and Ed Sheeran. Miller Rothlein’s newest work, From the Spot Where We/You/I Stand (Stood), invited the audience directly into the performing space. The invisible wall between viewer and performer was broken; human interaction was foregrounded and the viewer was given an active voice in the work.

Upon entering the White Space at Crane Arts Old School, I find egg cartons covering an asymmetrical space on the floor in the middle of the room. The performers, four dancers from the MIRO troupe and four children from their Girard College outreach program, stand atop egg carton pillars. They create a scene of living sculpture, bodies noticeably trying to stay balanced on their respective towers. The builder of the maze, young Damir Williams, begins to create paths through the egg cartons allowing us to weave through the performance space. A few of the adult dancers grasp the shoulders of observers walking by to help them balance, take a moment to simply embrace, or even play with their hair. In these intimate moments, the audience is completely integrated into the performance and the performer/viewer interaction helps shape the evolving space….  read the full article here
February 20-23, 2014, millerrothlein.org.

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