Designer
by Søren Paul

Red Eye Theater’s NW4W Festival

PRESENTED WITH Red Eye Collective

Designs By Søren: Lighting Designer, Festival Coordinator

WEEK 1: WIP

For  five  months  the  WIP  artists  have  received  full  access  to  the  theater,  technical  support,  as  well  as  feedback  from  their  artistic  peers  as  they  develop  their  pieces.  The  process  culminates  in  four  public  performances:  a  high-energy,  wildly  diverse  evening  featuring  a  15-minute  excerpt  from  each  of  the  five  selected  projects.

fitter perception by Alana Horton and Patrick Marschke – fitter perception is an examination of the fallibility and inscrutability of perception, using a projection of a computer desktop as stage and story. Drawing inspiration from Wikipedia’s “List of Cognitive Biases,” as well as cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman’s interface theory of human consciousness, fitter perception explores the anxiety embedded in the interfaces of our everyday lives and the emotional fragments ingrained in the liminal space between minds, bodies, and machines.Matryoshka by Anna Johnson – What happens when matter becomes conscious of itself? In this solo performance, Anna Johnson explores point of view, scale, and self-awareness through interactive video installation and live sound. The artist unpeels layers of memory and images as she wanders her psychic space, encountering past and future selves.USWE(I) by Arneshia Williams – In USWE(I) dance-maker Arneshia Williams weaves together movement, sound and spoken word to examine concepts of inclusion and exclusion, self and community, and where physical and spiritual realms intersect. Employing a distinctive fusion of African diasporic and contemporary dance forms, Williams leads us on a journey where historic and present day challenges give rise to a determined hopefulness.Term Frequency by Billy Noble – Term Frequency is an exploration of natural language and artificial intelligence. The work juxtaposes texts written by human hand with texts written using digital technologies like Siri, Alexa, and online chat bots.Scrap Meaning by Kaya Lovestrand – The duet Scrap Meaning employs the shared abstract capacities of dance and poetry to seek an elusive ineffable understanding. Through research into the poetics of words and space – relying on both intuitive and external logics it proposes a world where confusion is satisfyingly articulate.

WEEK 2:

Sharon Picasso’s new movement work for four, The Speculative Sentence, inserts chance as a factor in what is illuminated on stage.  Using motion detector lights, hand-held light wands and other practical light sources, the piece is a fascinating study of the spaces in between – the idea that we can’t necessarily choose what we reveal or hide about ourselves, and that often what connects us with one another can be equally random. Featuring dancers Brian J. Evans, Heidi Kalweit, Jesse Neumann-Peterson and Erin Thompson.In Here’s How (Refuted), Anat Shinar draws on a long-time obsession with self-help literature. Along with dancers Kara Motta and Kristin Van Loon, Shinar posits that minimal effort brings about maximal change, as long as one believes it can. Integrating movement, text, and installation, Shinar crafts a space in which clarity and disorientation overlap, reflecting how her struggle with anxiety manifests externally.

WEEK 3:

According to the news section of Paige Collette’s 1999 Catholic high school year book, “Scandal rocks the White House as President Bill Clinton is accused of perjury and obstruction of justice. In an impeachment trial before the U.S. Senate, President Clinton is acquitted of the charges.”  While Monica Lewinsky’s name isn’t mentioned in this blurb, she’s the figure who’s captured Paige’s imagination for years. Drawing upon cooking shows, the QVC, and music from the 1990s as inspiration, THE MONICA MEDITATIONS is a performance exploration of public scandal, private heartbreak, and resilience.
Queen Drea is an electronic musician who creates live, scores on stage. Her latest work, FROM BLACK WOMBS, is an Afro-futuristic dystopian tale about two orphaned sisters. Having lost their parents in a revolution against white supremacy, the siblings seek to establish a new America in response to the bleak world where black men are scarce because of the school-to-prison complex and the murder of unarmed men by police.

WEEK 4:

Carrying all she needs with her, Amal Rogers in her solo Guriga, assembles and then packs away a warm and personal home where she can dance, eat, bathe, and rest. Guriga is a sometimes inviting sometimes private ritual of the protection and power of home.

In her new solo, The Crapture, Dolo McComb sets out on a quest to discover the space where things become their opposites. From the bottom of the cauldron worn thin by grief seeps awe. Lady Death slips on a banana peel, giving birth to a dove.