Site-Specific Choreographic Projects
Instructor: Professor Simone Ferro
In Fall 2014, seventeen students in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program of the Department of Dance, in the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, had the opportunity to interact and build strong artistic relationships with students from UWM School of Architecture and Urban Planning under the guidance of Prof. Arijit Sen, and with students of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD) under the tutelage of Prof. Jill Sebastian. The movement explorations of the dancers derived from this partnership were primarily inspired by their experience of Milwaukee’s Washington Park neighborhood. Together they learned about the architecture, neighborhood history and current community spirit and leadership. The student dancers translated and embodied those experiences into kinetic movement explorations under the guidance of UWM Dance Professor Simone Ferro.
Over a period of four months, Ferro and her young artists met with community members, heard personal stories of the neighborhood, became familiar with historical maps, architecture, as well as the everyday challenges, and the movement of Washington Park residents in space (e.g., traffic patterns and people’s mobility within the neighborhood by car, bus or walking). Their goal was to translate their acquaintance with community into site-specific dances that were informed by the themes of citizenship, the social usage of space, values, race, and community resiliency and transformation.
By the end of April 2015 five different performance projects were accomplished with this group of students – each project having different goals and outcomes due to the nature of the site and its possibilities for choreographic construction.
The first performance project was a series of outdoor “interventions” in October 2014 when students occupied public spaces in the Washington Park neighborhood and performed dance scores that were both choreographed and improvised for each location. Four sites were chosen for this project, a) the Gardens of Villa Frederick Koenig on 32nd Street, b) a patio and vacant lot next door to the Amaranth Bakery and Café at 33rd and Lisbon Avenue, c) the alley just behind the Amaranth Bakery and Café and d) the an open lot and community garden next to Rosalind Cox’s home at the corner of 35th Street and Galena. These events were called “interventions” because they intervened in the normal use of the neighborhood space; however, the dance movement in each of the four cases was elaborated and informed by the characteristics of the location (e.g., the nature and organization the space, its customary usage), as well as by the time of the day the work was performed.
The second performance project consisted of a set of site-specific indoor performances in December 2014, where students adapted their group intervention materials to four different locations. This strategy involved a variety of scenarios for students to adapt and present their choreographic explorations. The locations were chosen for the specificity of their architectural meaning in the history and community life of the neighborhood. Each location represented one aspect of neighborhood life – a private home, an empty home awaiting restoration, a café, and a community art center. Each dance was performed with the intention of honoring the architecture of the area and the evoking unique atmosphere of its social use within the neighborhood. Four teams of four students each selected the locations and analyzed their physical properties and movement possibilities (photos of the four teams and descriptions of their chosen sites are below). They then worked out their movement ideas in a rehearsal space at the university under the supervision of Professor Simone Ferro. When they took the movement back to the space, they had already mapped out the basic movement possibilities (scores), and were able to perform onsite with a combination of choreographed and improvisational movement.
The third performance project was a concert version of their work produced in February 2015 on the Mainstage of the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. This version was a compilation of the choreographed structures developed in the two site-specific projects, integrated into a single 15-minute dance work. In this version, the production employed classic proscenium stage with lighting and technical effects, a sound track compiled by a DJ with roots in the Washington Park neighborhood, and projected video to evoke a sense of passing/commuting/inhabiting/embodying the Washington Park neighborhood.
The fourth performance project was a rendering of the concert version performed in late February of 2015 in the atrium of the Milwaukee City Hall. As in the previous performances, the dance work was transformed to embody the specific nature of the space in which it was performed. An important goal of this performance was to use the dancers’ movement to highlight the unique elements of the City Hall architecture in which it was performed; however, just as important was the goal of honoring the Washington Park Community as a vibrant part of the city.
The fifth performance project is another site-specific rendering of the basic elements of the piece – this time performed in an industrial/office space in the 3rd Ward of Milwaukee during Gallery Night events in April 2015. This version of the dance is highlighted by the work of three photographers who accompanied the creation of the dance project from the beginning. Jeff Pearcy, Rikki Thompson and Meredith Watts photographed its development from the earliest rehearsals at UWM, and they accompanied the dancers through the multiple site-specific events, and through the technical and dress rehearsals leading up to the Mainstage event. The photographers’ intent was to document the work of the dancers and choreographer from start to finish -- from the moment when the first basic movement phrases were developed through all the site-specific and concert versions of the choreography. The photographers documented this unique collaboration as a project and neighborhood partnership, but through a lens that focused on the athleticism, commitment and talent of the dancers.
In Fall 2014, seventeen students in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program of the Department of Dance, in the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, had the opportunity to interact and build strong artistic relationships with students from UWM School of Architecture and Urban Planning under the guidance of Prof. Arijit Sen, and with students of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD) under the tutelage of Prof. Jill Sebastian. The movement explorations of the dancers derived from this partnership were primarily inspired by their experience of Milwaukee’s Washington Park neighborhood. Together they learned about the architecture, neighborhood history and current community spirit and leadership. The student dancers translated and embodied those experiences into kinetic movement explorations under the guidance of UWM Dance Professor Simone Ferro.
Over a period of four months, Ferro and her young artists met with community members, heard personal stories of the neighborhood, became familiar with historical maps, architecture, as well as the everyday challenges, and the movement of Washington Park residents in space (e.g., traffic patterns and people’s mobility within the neighborhood by car, bus or walking). Their goal was to translate their acquaintance with community into site-specific dances that were informed by the themes of citizenship, the social usage of space, values, race, and community resiliency and transformation.
By the end of April 2015 five different performance projects were accomplished with this group of students – each project having different goals and outcomes due to the nature of the site and its possibilities for choreographic construction.
The first performance project was a series of outdoor “interventions” in October 2014 when students occupied public spaces in the Washington Park neighborhood and performed dance scores that were both choreographed and improvised for each location. Four sites were chosen for this project, a) the Gardens of Villa Frederick Koenig on 32nd Street, b) a patio and vacant lot next door to the Amaranth Bakery and Café at 33rd and Lisbon Avenue, c) the alley just behind the Amaranth Bakery and Café and d) the an open lot and community garden next to Rosalind Cox’s home at the corner of 35th Street and Galena. These events were called “interventions” because they intervened in the normal use of the neighborhood space; however, the dance movement in each of the four cases was elaborated and informed by the characteristics of the location (e.g., the nature and organization the space, its customary usage), as well as by the time of the day the work was performed.
The second performance project consisted of a set of site-specific indoor performances in December 2014, where students adapted their group intervention materials to four different locations. This strategy involved a variety of scenarios for students to adapt and present their choreographic explorations. The locations were chosen for the specificity of their architectural meaning in the history and community life of the neighborhood. Each location represented one aspect of neighborhood life – a private home, an empty home awaiting restoration, a café, and a community art center. Each dance was performed with the intention of honoring the architecture of the area and the evoking unique atmosphere of its social use within the neighborhood. Four teams of four students each selected the locations and analyzed their physical properties and movement possibilities (photos of the four teams and descriptions of their chosen sites are below). They then worked out their movement ideas in a rehearsal space at the university under the supervision of Professor Simone Ferro. When they took the movement back to the space, they had already mapped out the basic movement possibilities (scores), and were able to perform onsite with a combination of choreographed and improvisational movement.
The third performance project was a concert version of their work produced in February 2015 on the Mainstage of the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. This version was a compilation of the choreographed structures developed in the two site-specific projects, integrated into a single 15-minute dance work. In this version, the production employed classic proscenium stage with lighting and technical effects, a sound track compiled by a DJ with roots in the Washington Park neighborhood, and projected video to evoke a sense of passing/commuting/inhabiting/embodying the Washington Park neighborhood.
The fourth performance project was a rendering of the concert version performed in late February of 2015 in the atrium of the Milwaukee City Hall. As in the previous performances, the dance work was transformed to embody the specific nature of the space in which it was performed. An important goal of this performance was to use the dancers’ movement to highlight the unique elements of the City Hall architecture in which it was performed; however, just as important was the goal of honoring the Washington Park Community as a vibrant part of the city.
The fifth performance project is another site-specific rendering of the basic elements of the piece – this time performed in an industrial/office space in the 3rd Ward of Milwaukee during Gallery Night events in April 2015. This version of the dance is highlighted by the work of three photographers who accompanied the creation of the dance project from the beginning. Jeff Pearcy, Rikki Thompson and Meredith Watts photographed its development from the earliest rehearsals at UWM, and they accompanied the dancers through the multiple site-specific events, and through the technical and dress rehearsals leading up to the Mainstage event. The photographers’ intent was to document the work of the dancers and choreographer from start to finish -- from the moment when the first basic movement phrases were developed through all the site-specific and concert versions of the choreography. The photographers documented this unique collaboration as a project and neighborhood partnership, but through a lens that focused on the athleticism, commitment and talent of the dancers.