Exzeb: Artism

Digital art and interactive storytelling applied to a live dance performance using Kinect motion capture and video mapping.

A collaboration with Exzeb Dance Studio in four acts.

Exzeb with Artism is defying our senses, playing with time and movement to touch us through our perceptions. Merging pure classical dance techniques and new technologies, Artism extends the stage and our senses in several new dimensions. Keeping the performance at heart, it uses innovation as an instrument and as a movement itself with energy being revealed and played by the dancers.

Demonstrating rather than telling the play conveys us to an intimate place, where choreography and dancers will confront their complex relationships, their social and human condition, to become themselves within their art and lift up the audience through this experiential journey.

Pushing and ignoring boundaries, Artism offers an exhilarating perspective of performing arts able to move traditional and new audiences in serving its art with respect.

The performance has four parts – 4 PERCEPTS of movement:

Percept 1: The first part of the performance explores pure movement. One dancer performs solely on stage with all lights on, bare of any artifice.

Percept 2: Movement contains a three dimensional aspect impossible to visualize, to perceive as a spectator. For the second perception 4 dancers will be on stage, while 360-degree videos are projected to complement the live performance. By doing this, there will be no blind spots and the spectators would be able to see every aspect of the performance.

Percept 3: This part assesses the relevance of evolution in movement. While dancers perform on stage, motion capture data is applied to a 3D model of a human being who undergoes reversed evolution, which will then be projected simultaneously on the back screen. The dancer is constantly followed by the projector’s spotlight.

Percept 4: Nothing happens if nothing moves, and nothing is ever in absolute rest.
Through video mapping and tracking projection, every movement of the performers will be the trigger for a change on stage. The stage will respond to the fluidity of the performers’ movements, reacting to the velocity, speed and dynamism of their bodies.

Artism will premiere as part of the Revolution! 2014 Festival, on Feb 13 at The Place in London. For more information and to book your tickets click here.