NightDriving

Photo: Philip Channing

The curtain rises. Suspended over a darkened stage, ghostly apparitions slowly twist and spin. A dancer bursts into view, quickly joined by another dancer. Watching the complex interplay of movement between the dancers, it slowly dawns on you – one of the performers is live, and the other is a projection on a transparent screen covering the stage.

As more dancers appear on the stage, more video dancers appear on the screen, images transforming from soft and ethereal to bright and colorful, weaving threads of digital imagery into the intricate tapestry of contemporary dance.

NightDriving is a new performance work from choreographer Lisa Naugle and video designer John Crawford, with music by Alan Terriciano. This twelve-minute piece integrates contemporary dance with digital video technology. Premiered in February 2003 at University of California, Irvine, it is now available for restaging in other venues as a group work for ten to twelve dancers. See the NightDriving Overview for a more detailed introduction to the piece, and see the Production Summary for technical requirements.

Inspired by a short story by Italo Calvino, NightDriving connects choreography for the stage with choreography for the camera, exploring interactions, in space and in time, between dancers and projected imagery. Video imagery is projected on a large transparent scrim stretching across the front of the stage. On the scrim we see the video, and behind the scrim we see the dancers, live on the multi-leveled stage, sharing the visual environment with the projections.

More about NightDriving:

NightDriving Overview (PDF, 7 pages)

Production Summary

Inspiration

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