A dancer kicked her leg in a poised position and twirled around on stage while an entranced audience watched a background projection screen of a human skeleton.
The AnARTomy program, which was performed this past weekend and will be performed again this weekend at the U, also had more than two different performances simultaneously around the world. The shows consists of dance moves contrasted with projections of human bones, mimes and a computer-generated orchestra organized and controlled in Indiana. The performance plays in Wales, United Kingdom, Indiana and Alaska with the U’s dancers presented as a projected image in those places.
“In our minds, art and technology cannot be separated and they shouldn’t be,” said Jimmy Miklavcic, a communication professor and founding executive director of Another Language Performing Arts Company, which helped organize the production.
The company, which had its first performance in 2003, kicked off its introduction of “InterPlay: AnARTomy” this past weekend at the U’s Intermountain Network and Scientific Computation Center.
AnARTomy depicts the human body through a creative mixture of artistry and technology.
“I am inspired by doing InterPlay,” said Cory Anderson, a U alumnus who graduated from the film program and is now director of photography for AnARTomy. “We do not have a script, and we have little structure; it is mostly improvisational work that we create in the moment.”
The performance includes all types of fine art and technology, from mime work to sketching, 3-dimensional animation and access grid.
“What you see when you are viewing the mime live in Wales is not what you see when you are here viewing the moving sculptures live,” said Beth Miklavcic, founding artistic director of Another Language. “You can’t see the whole performance through just one outlet.”
With more than 31 performers and technologists broadcast in the auditorium from different regions of the globe, each one provides an important role in the outcome of the performance.
The Miklavcics consider this work pushing the lines of technology as they alter the traditional forms of art.
“Theater is no longer a static form,” said Russel Hendrickson, a senior in mass communication at the U and documentation-Web caster for AnARTomy. “That is what we are creating here with Interplay.”
The company will continue its performances April 3 to April 5. For show times and tickets, visit www.anotherlanguage.org.
“The vocabulary to describe what we do is indescribable,” Jimmy Miklavcic said. “The only way to understand is to come and experience the performance.”
Richard PaysonTheresa Kulikowski poses during Thursday night?s rehearsal in the INSCC Auditorium. InterPlay is a show allowing students to practice using specialized computer and audio visual to create a performances based around the human body.
