“Forces at Play” is our second show, based on some of our work from A Body in Motion, but also largely extended from the work we’ve done with teachers and students in workshops. Snow College was thoughtful enough to invite us to present some of our work at their colloquium series, which led us to think about how to re-work our ideas into a new presentation. Like so much of what we’ve done, this started with an idea and grew exponentially. Getting three dedicated dancers to work with us was essential to this work.

As we’re documenting this, we have yet to actually perform the piece, so we have yet to see what it becomes. But we have high hopes. There’s a certain clarity and focus to the work to go along with our whimsy, the dancers, and some essences of science that parallel practices of art. We’ll post more as this work becomes more distilled.

For now, here are the opening lines of Forces at Play. They’re accompanied by some action on the stage, but this might give you the feel for where we’re going:

When I first got pulled into this project, of course I was enamored with the way that dancers can float up to a balanced pose and contract back to the ground with the utmost grace. But, then there’s also this thing: dancers applaud for one another after a class – students never applaud after physics lab. But, what really strikes me is the practice of dance. The experimenting . . .  A getting a feel for nature; see how it can be poked and shaped. Because, while we’re beholden to nature,  we still get to figure out ways to make use of it . . .

And it continues. We get to model how art and science both interrogate nature and use it to give us a space to create. By the end, we’re wondering to ourselves if dance is something we “engineer,” and if a mission to Mars might be something we “choreograph.” We are adamant that arts and science are distinct, but we’re equally adamant that the practices of these fold into and support one another.

Stay tuned for more to come.