Expansive Mayhem

The interpretive dance performance seeks to evoke the experience of a concussion and does so by clustering six dancers on a side of the stage using red lighting to suggest a sense of the inside of the speaker’s head. When the dancers are clustered, swaying semi-coherently, they evoke the sense of a brain function normally, but as the piece progresses it begins to unravel, as the dancers spiral out of control. Their disjointed movements as they each dance on their own, spread around the stage mimics the cognitive impact of a concussion, echoed by the language hovering over them. The dance performance concludes by returning to normal function, urgently, as one of the dancers runs around the reorganized collective, as if trying to hold them together by sheer force of will as the screen and stage fade to black, leading us to wonder. Has the brain been healed? Has normal language function returned?

“Expansive Mayhem”
Choreography: Julia Tedesco and Ellie Sanna
Poetry: Loss Pequeño Glazier (“Io Sono At Swoons “)
Music: Jai Uttal and Ben Leinbach
Dancers: Melissa Hunt, Marika Matsuzak, Stephanie Ohman, Sammi Pfieffer, Samantha Will, Jessica Viglianco

(Source: Leonardo Flores, I ♥ E-Poetry)