Premiere: November 30-December 2, 2017 at Triskelion Arts, Brooklyn, NY Length: 20 minutes Choreography: Erin Carlisle Norton with the dancers Music: Ralph Lewis (premiere) Porl Gordan (BAM Fisher) Dancers: Premiere: Maggie Beutner, Rachel Gill, Léla Groom, Caitlin Bailey, Ashley Peters, and Jenny Gram (additional performances Genna Mattena and Larissa Asebedo) Design: Gwen Charles Costumes: The Company Photos: Gwen Charles
“American Dawn” draws inspiration from a poem written by choreographer Erin Carlisle Norton’s grandfather Thomas John Carlisle “America Dawn” from 1976, inspired by a Louise Nevelson sculpture of the same name from 1959/67. A dance inspired by a poem, inspired by a sculpture.
In this work the three collaborators Erin Carlisle Norton (dance), gwen charles (visual art) and Porl Gordon (sound) together transgress borders between dance, art, sound, and design, creating a cityscape environment that juxtaposes beauty and decay through a variety of images and movement sections. “America Dawn” encapsulates the female presence as both a physical form and as a multifaceted and emotionally complex entity; the dance fuses structural and sculptural bodies with movement that is pure abandon, intricate, and chaotic. The performers use crunchy plastic tarps both as garbage refuse danced through like rubble on the streets and as an ethereal inflatable plastic bubble to dance within. Shadow and glare are projected from handheld lights. Performers, all in beige, wear floating translucent tulle adornments on the neck and wrists while the percussive and temporal soundscape of the original score grounds the work, pushing the edges of the relationships between time and space. Overall, “America Dawn” lifts and brings to the stage the original sculpture’s textures and proportions, the poems’ optimism and cyclicity, and the beautiful and muted architectural cityscapes of both. The collaborative work intertwines all of these sensorial elements, fully realized through thephysically strong, exacting, and emotive dancers/performers of The Moving Architects.
Performances
Second Saturdays at Central, Central Presbyterian Church, May 12, 2018
NimbusPRESENTS Offline+ at BAM Fisher, Brooklyn, NY, April 21, 2018
Triskelion Arts Presents, Triskelion Arts, Brooklyn, NY, November -December 2017
Grounds for Sculpture Private Event, Gladwynne, PA, November 11, 2017
