STREAMING

IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 5, 2011

Sondra Peron, Northampton Arts Council, Arts Adminstrator and Public Art Project Director, speron@northamptonma.gov or 413-695-3196

 Arts Council Announces Special Performance October 15th

Northampton, MA—The Northampton Arts Council is excited to present, STREAMING: a public viewing of the Underscore (a dance installation), a special performance at the Hosmer Gallery in Forbes Library, on Saturday, October 15, from 2pm to 4pm. This event is free and open to the public.

For the first time, the Northampton Arts Council’s biennial juried exhibition, Follow the River: A Juried Exhibition and Performance, at the Hosmer Gallery, will feature performance in the gallery. This special event is held in conjunction with the new public art project on the Route 9 railroad bridge. The new artwork, Water Music by David Teeple, consists of 18 stainless steel panels, which represent the surface of water and a blue aerial map of the Connecticut River. The theme for this biennial is derived from Teeple’s piece. The Northampton Arts Council and Teeple have worked together throughout the course of this year creating programs for the community designed to raise awareness of the importance of water and arts in the Pioneer Valley; this exhibition and performance is just one part of a larger public art project.

For the last two years, a group of local dancers called The Thursday night Underscore +/- group has been gathering weekly to explore the body-mind states and compositions that are generated during an Underscore practice. The Underscore is a long form dance improvisation developed by Nancy Stark Smith. It has been evolving since 1990 and is practiced all over the globe. The form includes contact improvisation and allows for a full spectrum of energetic and physical expressions. Like water, the Underscore embodies a range of forms and changing states. Though not designed as a performance structure, it offers rich and often inspiring views of the human and artistic phenomena inside dance improvisation. The Underscore is rarely observed by those not participating in it.

STREAMING, a public viewing of the Underscore, offers a glimpse into a living world —somewhere between a 3D moving art installation, a visit to the zoo, a boat ride down the river, and your living room. Over two hours, the dance will move through a broad range of dynamic states, including long periods of very small, private, and quiet internal activity and other times of higher energy and interactive dancing.

The Thursday night Underscore +/- group (not all dancers will be present at the Oct 15 performance): Heather Anderson Jones, Jeff Bliss, Brando Brandes, Neige Christenson, Patrick Crowley, Krista DeNio, Spirit Joseph, Rythea Lee, Shira Lynn, Anneliese Mordhorst, Lani Nahele, Rose Oceania, Jen Polins, Saliq Frances Savage, Nancy Stark Smith, Dey Summer, Lailye Weidman, Stephen Yoshen