Blurred Bodies brings Grammy®-winning vocal band Roomful of Teeth and Pittsburgh’s Attack Theatre dance company together at Carnegie Mellon University’s Chosky Theater for an evening that expands the expressive potential of vocal music and dance.
Blurred Bodies is a world premiere music and dance immersion into ten musicians and six dancers’ sounds, minds, and breath. “The connection between the vocalists and the dancers is the crucial element of this performance,” says Attack Theatre Co-Artistic Director and Choreographer Peter Kope . “We’ve worked with many musical styles in live performance, but this is our first vocal band. Roomful of Teeth brings so much rich, dark, deep, and mesmerizing musical storytelling that they fit right into our artistic aesthetic and curiosity.”
This partnership emerges from the 6th International Conference of Dalcroze Studies. Pittsburgh will host this gathering of Dalcroze scholars and practitioners from five continents from August 2-5, 2023. This conference is a global, transdisciplinary forum open to viewpoints from education, the arts and humanities, and the social, health, and life sciences.
Emile Jaques-Dalcroze states that music must be “in the body” in order to be truly felt and relevant. This performance explores the contrasts and intersections between the sound bath experience of the music and the visceral sensations of the dance. Dalcroze Eurhythmics explores the relationship between music and movement, emphasizing the body’s role in our musical experience.
Dr. Stephen Neely, Chair of the ICDS6 Organizing Committee and Director of the Marta Sanchez Dalcroze Training Center states, “I wanted to create an opportunity for these world-class performers to discover if there are actually any true lines between music and movement. If the lines between hearing and moving are blurred through the body, then the terms “musical” and “music” gain new meaning.”
It. has been so fabulous to work with Roomful of Teeth and their music on this project. I hope that the audience will feel that same overwhelming feeling of connection,” adds Attack Theatre Co-Artistic Director Michele de la Reza.
Neely concludes, “So we ask, how might our mundane interactions be reinterpreted as music? What are the ‘gestures’ of our mundane lives? The answers to these questions have impact for performance studies in music and dance, but also for any fields interested in interaction, experience, or community. How do we design a more beautiful interaction? I hope this performance will further the investigation toward these answers.”
TICKETS AND DETAILS:
Blurred Bodies, featuring Attack Theatre and Roomful of Teeth is on stage on Friday, August 4, 2023, at 8:30 pm in the Philip Chosky Theater on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University Ticket Prices: General Admission: $40 Student/Senior/Artist Admission: $25
For more information and tickets, visit www.attacktheatre.com/blurred-bodies
Categories: Arts and Ideas, Preview, Show Previews
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