Absence: a History
a suspicious attempt at reconstructing a past without proof
Concept, Direction, Text and Film: Alexx Shilling | alexx makes dances
Brought to life by: Sarah Jacobs, Aaron Kahn, Carol McDowell, Madison Page (2013)
Dorothy Dubrule, Sarah Leddy, Carol McDowell and Nguyen Nguyen (2015)
Original Music: Julio C. Montero, Jr. with Gabriel Ramirez
Additional Film: Alexx Shilling with Henry Shilling
Additional Text: Marianne Hirsch and Susan Sontag
If dance is ephemeral and fleeting and photography a way of preserving moments that have the potential to become significant as they outlive our momentary actions, Shilling’s Absence: a History meets us at the intersection between dance and photography. In an exploration of the significant, the stage becomes a laboratory for memory; full of holes, the ensemble re-constructs photographic images both still and alive in an effort to re-imagine a fragmented past where absence and loss have reigned in the choreographer’s post-memory.
PERFORMANCE ENGAGEMENTS:
Pieter Pasd November 14, 2015
Highways Performance Space July 10-11, 2015
homeLA: Mt. Washington; May 2013
Glorya Kaufman Hall, UCLA; April 2013
Absence: a History
a suspicious attempt at reconstructing a past without proof
Concept, Direction, Text and Film: Alexx Shilling | alexx makes dances
Brought to life by: Sarah Jacobs, Aaron Kahn, Carol McDowell, Madison Page (2013)
Dorothy Dubrule, Sarah Leddy, Carol McDowell and Nguyen Nguyen (2015)
Original Music: Julio C. Montero, Jr. with Gabriel Ramirez
Additional Film: Alexx Shilling with Henry Shilling
Additional Text: Marianne Hirsch and Susan Sontag
If dance is ephemeral and fleeting and photography a way of preserving moments that have the potential to become significant as they outlive our momentary actions, Shilling’s Absence: a History meets us at the intersection between dance and photography. In an exploration of the significant, the stage becomes a laboratory for memory; full of holes, the ensemble re-constructs photographic images both still and alive in an effort to re-imagine a fragmented past where absence and loss have reigned in the choreographer’s post-memory.
PERFORMANCE ENGAGEMENTS:
Pieter Pasd November 14, 2015
Highways Performance Space July 10-11, 2015
homeLA: Mt. Washington; May 2013
Glorya Kaufman Hall, UCLA; April 2013
The first event in the homeLA series brought dance process to the modern and expansive architecture of Chloë and Tim’s home which poetically takes in its landscape merging shelter with surrounding natural elements. Boisterous group dancing in the living room, subtle dancing in guests’ peripheral vision in the marginal space between the home and its sloping backyard, fluorescent lights lining an empty pool forming a dancing set, ritualizing sunset in sound and movement, and much more called in the inaugural homeLA event.