Recycled Space » Dance

inFluxdance show this coming Sunday, help spread the word!

Benoit Beauchamp — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:32:19 +0000

I just wanted to let everyone know that there will be this amazing dance company this coming Sunday at the Paramount Theatre in Charlottesville. We will need help filling this place as you may know, there are a lot of seats at the Paramount! We have currently only 30 seats sold through the Paramount box office which isn’t surprising but it’s nerve racking for inFluxdance.

If you come to the show, you will be entertained, that I promised you.

An inFluxdance show is not an ordinary dance show. What is different is how we try to mix various elements and put them in a melting pot that we call dance theatre. This coming sunday you will be seeing dancers from all over but mostly from Charlottesville as there is one piece which was choreographed by a UVA students with many UVA dancers. We have a piece based on the Lorax, one piece on body image, and a piece about being boxed in with labels. Theatrical in nature, inFluxdance pushes the boundaries of interdisciplinary dance to illuminate how humans strive and connect through movement as language.

As always, the show is fully accessible to both Deaf and hearing audiences. I have created a Facebook events to help spread the word.

Feel free to come in and say hi.

I’m annoyed.

Benoit Beauchamp — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 01:19:40 +0000

I just saw the Pina Bausch show at Royce Hall which is part of the UCLA live series. I’m a big fan of their theatre series. I just read the review from LA Times of Pina Bausch show and it was somewhat good but disjointed (the review). No linear train of though and somewhat bias review because of the name of Pina Bausch. It didn’t go anywhere. Also, what irritates me more is that in my mind, inFluxdance is doing a show that is more relevant to me, something that has more meaning. In the review it says something along the line of being relevant but I beg to differ… Whales in Japan doesn’t affect me … It’s poetic yes, but not relevant at all. There was an enormous tail of a whale on stage which looked cool but was more of a sculpture then anything else. I felt like the movement itself was nice only because the performer where the one pulling it off. I didn’t see any mind blowing performance… I didn’t see meaning… I wish I did.

On the up side, it was funny. ..

I sometimes think that big name choreographer just doesn’t do it for me. I expect more.

Introduction To Working With A Lighting Designer

Benoit Beauchamp — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 14:31:44 +0000

I will be lighting the upcoming UVa dance show at the Music Resource Center on Thursday and Friday (Free). It occurred to me that most of the choreographer never did talk to a lighting designer. There is a dance program at UVa which is new of this past year. This is the indirect reason why I’m here in Charlottesville. My wife, Rose, is the dance teacher at UVa. I digress! The program only consist of dance classes at the moment so therefore none of them really had an introduction to design which most BFA program do have. UVa being UVa, it doesnt have this. So, I did google for a quick introduction text about how to talk to a lighting designer and of course I found couple of interesting links. I did find the obvious wikipedia article on stage lighting and lighting design which is helpful to some extent. They do cover part of the process but it’s geared towards concerts more then anything else. Then I found this article by Jeffrey E. Salzberg titled “How to work with a lighting designer” which is good but not really relevant to a first time dance show for a brand new dance program without a proper theatre aka, only have 8 lights to play with. I also found another website called stagelightingprimer.com which gives a basic introduction to lighting for students.

When it comes down to it, I need to skip a few steps and talk basic with students. A round up of terms we use in theatre like position, instruments name, color and the most important thing, have them realize that the lighting designer is the person to thrust for lighting the piece. If you don’t thrust him, he/she shouldn’t have been hired in the first place. Their first piece should gives them a taste of what it takes to do a show and at the same time, not being excessive. It will be an easy lights up, change of lights and lights down. 20 minutes each for setting light cues, … lets go!

Finding Space For A Dance Company

Benoit Beauchamp — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 14:27:51 +0000

Getting a dance company to do work and have performances is not as easy as it seem. Having a space would help tremendously. Creating is only half the battle and I think its the easiest part. In addition, to have audience seeing the work is what to some extent is difficult. It’s not even getting people to come see the show it’s actually finding a space to have a show. inFluxdance is not in a position right now to buy or rent a space. Unfortunately, we have to be able to pay our bills first which we barely are able to do. Imagine a company that’s working in two different cities. Talk about challenges! I believe that in this day and age we actually need to be associated with people that we can work together in multiple cities no matter where they are. Airplane ticket cost are somewhat low but could be even lower. inFluxdance will be rehearsing in multiple cities for the following months. We have dancers and choreographers coming from various cities. Expect us to be on the road every weekend. Well almost everyone, someone has to water the plants and that will be me. The challenge lies in finding space that is affordable for a up and coming dance company. I haven’t been in rehearsing in New York but I assume it’s even worse there. School and churches are part of the solution which might be a surprise but they help us by charging a small fee to rent their unused gyms or other various large rooms. Theaters and dance studios have spaces that are available to rent but most of those are somewhat expensive. I only wish there was some sort of registry for all of those venues that rent their space. The spaces that are not really advertise. That would make my life easier.

Benoit Beauchamp — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 00:26:27 +0000

A friend of mine, The Greatfruit Collective, is doing a show at the Unknown Theatre in Hollywood. They are based in LA and they are definitely worth going to watch. I have worked with them in the past and will hopefully work with them in the future. The group of people involve in the Greatfruit are worth putting on your watch list. I hope if you in are in Los Angeles and you stumble upon my blog, please go see them. They blend multimedia, text and whatever they can in a well mixed groovy piece. Here is part of an email from Alyson;

THE GREATFRUIT COLLECTIVE PRESENTS:

COLLISION COURSE
January 25th - 28th
And February 1st-4th
Showtimes are at 8pm, Sundays at 6pm
Presented at - Unknown Theater in Hollywood
Tickets are on sale now at www.unknowntheater.com

The GreatFruit Collective combines dance, storytelling, live sound and video design in a new theatrical extravaganza. Collision Course is a surreal multimedia exploration of the anxieties that exists in the 21st century. Come watch the experiment as particles and waves collide in the forms of bodies, sound, and an approaching 18-mile meteor. Choreographed and directed by Alyson Boell, written and directed by Alexander Marchand, sound design by Bob Bellerue, video design by Levi Brewster, and performances by Wanda Gala, Christopher Anderson, and Kate Fox.

Dance Video

Benoit Beauchamp — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 21:33:59 +0000

It occured to me that in order to create an excerpt of a dance piece it may need to have different things for different people. Just looking in my household, Rose wants more dance then I do. I want more theatrics or in other word, I want more of a storyline. I don’t know what the proper balance is and I actually don’t know what people are looking in a dance video.

What are you looking in a dance video?

Help me make a better excerpt of dance videos for inFluxdance.

Ma Belle on YouTube

Benoit Beauchamp — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 05:35:21 +0000

I finally got to edit one piece from the First Fridays series at the McGuffey Art Center. I’ll be working on two other pieces and whenever I’ll be done, I will put them on YouTube. Like I said before, if anyone has a better idea then to put them on YouTube, let me know. I would love to ear it.

..YouTube

First Fridays Pictures

Benoit Beauchamp — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 14:37:07 +0000

Here is a picture of a set from our last show, an inFluxdance work in progress presented by Miki Liszt dance company at the McGuffey Art Center. It’s under the umbrella of the first fridays series. I had the chance to mingle after the show and talk to some of the audience. There was a great turn out and again sorry for the confusion about the time of the show. I hope no one showed up at 7:30.

For the complete set of the pre-show and show pictures, you are more welcome to go look at my set on flickr. I hope you’ll enjoy the photos. I will try to put the video online as soon as I find time to do it.

Dancing Text Messages, Interactivity On Stage part 1

Benoit Beauchamp — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 19:49:15 +0000

Interaction on stage isn’t a new idea but it usually relates to the technical side of the theatre, ie sound, lighting and scenery. Motion detectors trigger an event which causes something to happen. The idea of interaction with audiences, well, thats also been done but mostly in amusement parks or those pesky television shows that give audiences a choice to make. There is also another layer. Merce Cunningham’ s new work, eyeSpace uses ipods and lets the audience pick their own music while watching dancers. I didn’t see the piece but theoretically, there might be crucial moments that need highlighting with sounds which are missed because of the audience having control over the music. Adding on top of this layer, there is also sound coming from the theatre loudspeaker. Everything put together and you have a normal day outside with what I’m sure is a well choreographed dance. The interaction of the audience isn’t exploding but imploding. The audience is taken to a cocoon level. The headphones and ipods create a fifth wall. Not exactly what I have in mind when talking about interaction with audiences.

One other thing that I would like to try with audience interaction is with cell phones. Who doesn’t have a cell phone? I do know one person that didn’t have a cell phone for a long time but changed his mind when he got hit by cupid. I would love to have a system of computers and cell phones connected to a lighting or sound console where people can send a text message to a particular number. This system could either trigger visual changes, musical changes or have the actual text message displayed on monitors or through a video projector. I’m sure geeks and kids would love this but maybe not the one who pays the bill. These triggers could also dictate the movement of the dancers on stage either through the arc of the dance or to give them a note on their intent. For Example, lets say someone sends a text message saying; “Peace on earth”. The dancer who gets the text message can extrapolate this message to be more peaceful. It could also move to another level, for example, a message that has certain logic like brightness could bring the lights to a higher intensity. There might be something more useful in the future but until then I believe that text messaging is one way that can lead to interactivity on stage with the technology available today.

Charlottesville Dance

Benoit Beauchamp — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 23:08:39 +0000

There is a new dance forum for people living in Charlottesville, VA. It’s called Kinetic Current via yahoo groups. I don’t know every dancer, choreographer, dance enthusiast yet in Charlottesville but whoever is reading this blog, let’s pass the information along. Here is a blurb written by Denise who is under playing Charlottesville spiciness.

Hi and Welcome to our new dance forum for Charlottesville, “Kinetic Current”. We have tons of dance to offer you with totally cool choreographers, dancers, and teachers. Look below for dance class schedules, upcoming performances, workshops, jams, critiques, reviews, and discussions on dance. Brace yourself for we are about to ROCK your dance world! AND we welcome you to participate! Yes, believe it or not, it’s all happening here in our own very fabulously hot little Charlottesville! Oh what a gem it is.

What’s our mission? To inspire the Charlottesville dance scene to move and grow together, to facilitate a sense of community amoungst us movers, and to create a forum for communication and discussion about dance in C’ville and elsewhere.

Who are we? Anyone interested in Dance in C’Ville.

OUR GOAL IS TO SPIKE SOME LIFE INTO AN ALREADY VIBRANT DANCE COMMUNITY. JOIN US! WE WILL HAVE A BLAST!