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Inkiling
Magazine (continued)
On the surface it does seem like an unlikely pairing, a modern dancer spending
a week in the company of forest ecologists. Yet you seem to be taking it in
stride.
I come from a family of artists and scientists, so to me this is what I’m
used to. It’s not a stretch. The idea that artists and scientists can
work together and really have impact on each other’s work, it could
be really hokey and dumb. It could be really spacey and hippy-dippy. I understand
the skeptics but I also think it is really worthy work.
Tell us about your upcoming performance.
I was inspired to create “Biome” while I was on a birding trip
with my mother in Panama in 2002. We went to Barro Colorado Island, which
is part of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. What struck a chord
with me was this intense network in nature. And I was thinking how in humans
technically and culturally we’re always trying to copy nature. Even
in art we’re always trying to copy nature, because no artist can make
anything nearly as beautiful and complex and interesting as nature does all
over the place.
I understand that a key step in developing your performances, which
bring art and science together, is to hold “Capacitor Labs.” Tell
me about these experiments and what you have planned to help “Biome”
along.
It’s basically a think tank where I invite a specific group of scientists
and researchers into a round circle meeting with the dancers, composer, set
designer, costume designer, film makers, etc.
With “Within Outer Spaces” I couldn’t visit the moon and
hang out in outer space to do the Capacitor Lab. And then when I did a show
with geophysicists on the deep Earth, “Digging in the Dark,” we
couldn’t exactly take a little trip to the Earth’s core to fuel
our creative process. But the nice thing about “Biome” is we can
go to the jungle. So we’re hosting our next Capacitor Lab in Costa Rica
this fall.
What is one of your goals in creating “Biome”?
I want to create an intimate show in which we envelop the audience and set
them in an environment that takes them out of their usual life.
