IMMERSIVE WORK
Open Dance Project has been creating immersive dance theater since its inception in 2015. These annual performance experiences deal with real-world subject matter – looking inward at the personal emotional experience in the midst of significant social and historical events.
ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE: A TEMPEST IN THE GALAPAGOS
PANOPTICON
All the Devils Are Here collides Shakespeare’s The Tempest with the true story of an unsolved murder in the Galapagos in 1929. This immersive dance theater performance follows the failed attempts of a nihilist couple, a conservative family, and a baroness and her two gay lovers to escape the world of man on the uninhabited island of Floreana. Their conflicting visions of Paradise, sexual and moral “rightness,” colonial instincts, and social and psychological demons lead to disaster and provide a rich canvas for a poignant examination of basic human rights, social justice, and power structures.
Panopticon is an hour-long immersive production choreographed by Annie Arnoult in collaboration with the performers and inspired by Open Dance Project’s research into the sci-fi world of retro-futuristic dystopias. Set in a world where “citizens” are constantly being watched, a la George Orwell’s 1984, Panopticon follows two would-be lovers struggling with their desire for physical and emotional intimacy in a world where deep, human connection is forbidden.
DADA GERT
'BOUT A STRANGER
DADA GERT an immersive work of dance theater conceived and choreographed by Annie Arnoult. The show is inspired by Valeska Gert (1892-1978), a pioneering Jewish dancer/performance artist/film star in Weimar- era Berlin. Audiences will be integrated into the performance space by walking throughout the site-specific, multimedia set designed specifically for the Moody’s Lois Chiles Studio Theater.
Open Dance Project’s ‘Bout a Stranger transforms the black box theater at MATCH into a three dimensional mediascape that chronicles the “dust bowl troubadour’s” dynamic personal and creative life in movement, text, song and video. Beyond Guthrie’s music, ‘Bout a Stranger draws on and incorporates excerpts from the “Woody and Lefty Lou Show,” Guthrie’s poetry and columns in mainstream and leftist media, recorded interviews by Alan Lomax, excerpts from Woody Guthrie’s autobiography, Bound for Glory, and extensive liner notes, sketches and artwork that accompanied the artist’s published recordings.