For its second spring weekend of digital works, The Place has partnered with Chisenhale Dance Space to curate a festival under the theme, How Do We Tune In To Sensation?
In this period of global and societal change, we are spending more time than ever apart and online. As we increasingly experience the world digitally, how do we stay connected to our senses in real life? What have we lost and what have we found in this shift of being? How does this differ from person to person?
This specially curated programme offers a range of different lived experiences of touch, sight, sound, attention and movement, inviting to reflect on felt, sensate experiences, and asking, when distance is a necessity, how can dance and performance remind us of what makes us feel alive?
The festival, running from 18 Feb – 21 Feb 2021, features audio works, short films, recorded performances, live online performances and a panel discussion.
All non-live digital content will be available to listen to and watch until 4 March.
An Absurdist Archive of Isolation: a full-body workout radio play is an experiential and genre-blurring new work for solo audiences to listen to or read at home. Guided by the creators Bridget Fiske, Joseph Lau, Stelios Manousakis and Stephanie Pan, the piece encourages physical participation and interaction with the environment the audience members are in, through movement, electronic music and contemporary storytelling. (18 FEB)
A mixed bill of short films explore sensation through the lenses of different embodied experiences. (19 FEB). All films are captioned.
Maelstrom Under Glass is the first film project of newly formed company Yewande 103 led by choreographer and writer Alexandrina Hemsley. Commissioned by DaDaFest, the film uses movement, text and collage to explore re-embodiment after prolonged dissociation, trauma-healing and repair. A BSL version is available.
STIMMING by Susanna Dye and Manon Oimet is a captivating series of films created to scope out Susanna’s embodied experience of neurodivergence, exploring how it can feel to live in a world that is too loud, too bright, too fast and too tight, and how the neurodivergent body moves in order to regulate this sensory and emotional experience. The project gets its name from stimming movements, the rhythmic and repetitive movements that people do to regulate the sensory and emotional input from the environment.
Tobi Adebajo is an Anti-Disciplinary artist who works in various creative and communal spheres with a primary focus on movement, sound, visual and written works. Transitions I : Movement in Spirit leaves presumptions and assumptions of bodies at the door, to witness embodiments in textures and sound that pay homage to the form/less vibrations of life, pain and movements in flux.
The Screensaver Series by Janine Harrington is inspired by the obsolete screen-saving programmes of early computing. Creating a space of active rest, this kaleidoscopic video essay shows a dance unfold and fold back in on itself as the performers appear to move in perfect symmetry, attempting to emulate a “background” state in which the movement of vibrant colour and hypnotic patterns are foregrounded.
In the evening, a live online panel discussion will reflect on the themes of the festival, and explore how we stay connected to our senses in a digital world. Panelists TBC. (19 FEB)
Using a unique blend of cutting-edge technology and choreography, Scored in Silence by the Deaf performance artist Chisato Minamimura, unpacks the hidden perspectives of Deaf people from the handful who survived the atomic bomb atrocity in Japan 1945. (20FEB)
On 6 August 1945, an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first atomic bomb over Hiroshima. Three days later a second was dropped on Nagasaki. More than 317,000 people were killed directly or indirectly by the bomb’s effects. Based on Minamimura’s orginal research, Scored in Silence captures the true accounts of those who lived through and survived this horrendous catastrophe.
“It brilliantly blends sound, light, animation, vibration and sign language” – Darren Henley, CEO, Arts Council England
“The testimonies defy the imagination. It is a powerful and heartbreaking piece of storytelling, emphasising the isolation experienced by deaf people” – Colin Hambrook, Editor, Disability Arts Online
Scored in Silence will be available to watch for 24 hours and the performance is BSL interpreted and audio described.
A live Q&A session will be held on Zoom on 20 Feb, hosted by Amy Bell. The Q&A is BSL interpreted.
The Microscope Sessions (21 FEB) is a durational performance inviting a live audience to witness together a painting emerge in real-time through an evolving game of consequences, cross-pollination and contamination.
Connecting online through Zoom, artists Rhiannon Armstrong and Tim Spooner use their cameras as microscopes to focus on the paper they create on instead of themselves.
Audiences can tune in throughout the day – morning, lunchtime and evening (9am, 2pm and 8pm), to see how three paintings unfold
“an extraordinary meditation on connection, conversation, and staying together in a world of Zoom calls and remote work” – Robin Kwong, Newsroom Innovation Chief, Wall Street Journal.
More information about the programme can be found here https://www.theplace.org.uk/whats-on/collections/how-can-we-tune-sensation
