“Intimacy in Performance” is a collective creation project supported by the Ohio State University Department of Dance, the Experimental Movement and Media Arts Lab (EMMA), and Naccarato Dance.  Graduate and undergraduate students are collaborating with facilitator Teoma Naccarato to create live and virtual sketches that integrate movement, video, light, sound, and interactive media to explore the theme of intimacy in performance. Outcomes of this performative research will be shared  throughout the fall 2011 by means of site-specific performances, as well as a public blog. In December the artists will organize a public sharing of work at EMMA.

Facilitator: Teoma Naccarato

OSU Dance Participants: Joyelle Fobbs, Jill Guyton, Brian Koenig, Owen David Lawrence, Clara Martinez, Ellen Maynard

Choreography & Performance: Teoma Naccarato
Original Music: Cassie Norton & The Incredibly Clever Flying String Quartet

Piece Description: (25mins)
Gently between us is an intermedia dance piece that explores emotional and physical intimacy, mediated via technology. By manipulating four cameras on stage, the dancers connect and depart in flesh and video projection, negotiating geographical and emotional distance. The piece addresses ways in which corporeal and virtual realities coexist, coalesce and contrast one another, assembling and crumbling binaries of body/mind, absence/presence, virtual/real, and corporeal/spiritual.

 Collaborators:
Artistic Director & Choreographer: Teoma Naccarato
Performers: Quentin Burley, Fional Lundie, Cheryl Rosario, Erik Speth
Media & Lighting Designer: Shawn Hove
Composer/Live Musician: Tristan Seufert
Video & Projection Operator: Stephanie Danyi
Rehearsal Director: Abbie Zbikowski
Stage Manager: Nicole Gross
Advisors: Norah Zuniga Shaw and Bebe Miller

Director, Editor, Choreographer & Composer: Teoma Naccarato
Dancer: Hannah Naiman
Rehearsal Director: Julia Male

Special Thanks: Desh Fernando & Dan Schellenberger

Eclipse is shot entirely in close-up from a bird’s eye view, with a suffocating proximity to the performer.  Lying in the dirt, she squirms and rolls as if with fever, while light dances across her body.  At times she falls passive as a disembodied hand lifts dry, fall leaves from her chest.  Throughout, the video creates a disturbing sense of disorientation, as the source of light and the intrusive hand are unidentified.

Director, Choreographer & Editor: Teoma Naccarato

Performer: Lisa Ferrugia Atkinson (Hands of Michael Morris)

Original Music: Teoma Naccarato

The Muse was created in dialogue with E.E. Cummings’ poem “Somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond”.  The solo unfolds as a negotiation between the assembling and crumbling of shapes,words and  images, evoking a female muse who is not easily pinned as erotic or innocent, young or old, strong or fragile.

Choreographer: Teoma Naccarato

Dancer: Meredith Hurst

Original Music: Teoma Naccarato

Poem: “Somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond”

Written & Recited by E.E. Cummings

Entry was created shortly after dancer Kaitlin Clipsham gave birth, and investigates the profound physical/emotional/mental transformation she experienced throughout pregnancy and in the early months of motherhood.  The solo materialized via improvisation techniques inspired by Gaga Movement Language, Theater of the Oppressed, and Authentic Movement, as well as writing exercises and discussion.  Video facilitates an intimacy and contextualization of Clipsham’s journey, set within a Church courtyard.

Director, Choreographer & Editor: Teoma Naccarato

Dancer/Collaborator: Kaitlin Clipsham

Music: Rachel’s Band

In The Meeting Place, two divided friends join in the malleable site of the screen, where time and space bend to enable a final close encounter.  Through the fragmentation, layering and movement of images on screen, the absence/presence of the performers in a concrete meeting place is uncertain, leading the audience to question the boundaries between imagination

Director, Choreographer & Editor: Teoma Naccarato

Performers: Michael Morris and Maree ReMalia

Original Music: Teoma Naccarato

Choreograpy: Teoma Naccarato

Dancers: Kaitlin Clipsham and Karl Notargiovanni

Original Music: Teoma Naccarato

Uner the Cherry Tree was created on-locaiton in Toronto’s Cedarvale Ravine, a site of childhood play and memories for the choreographer.  Adapted for the stage, the movement vocabulary remains infused with texture and images from outdoors.

Choreographer: Teoma Naccarato

Dancers: Jessica Boone and Theresa Elwell

Original Music: Teoma Naccarato

Lighting Design: Alex Powers