As we are adapting to a new reality with the Covid-19 pandemic. Technology more than ever is essential to keeps us connected to each other and allows us to have a sense of community and intimacy within our isolation. Technology allows us to maintain a sense of normality in our life – work, study, shop, socialize and even perform. I couldn’t imagine how we would get through this crisis without technology. We would probably feel much more alone and depressed.
When I first started to work on this project, I couldn’t have imagined this reality and how relevant and important this work will become. I am grateful for my research, creativity and to all the collaborators who help me create this unique project that now impacts and resonates in our hearts more profoundly.
I couldn’t agree more with how dancers Isabel Dayton describes her experience:
With what is happening today I feel even more related to the pieces content. I have found all forms of my world to be shifted entirely online. I feel as though I am consistently living inside the boxed edition
While the future is still uncertain at this present time. I feel that these ideas can develop further, adding ideas from our current routine during the home stay
I do hope that we can perform the piece again in a room or a stage and connect to audiences in what we refer today as the “Virtual world” but in the meantime perhaps I can come up with a virtual performance of the piece.
Rewind/Unwind
(Boxed edition) - Performed - February 21, 22,23 – 2020
(Extended Version) - Performed - March 12, 13 – 2020
Video and sound by Ori Flomin
Additional sounds by Azariah Felton
Performed by Rafael Cañals, Isabelle Dayton, Maclean Frey, Israel luis Miguel Harris and Kellyn Thornburg
Lighting design for Extended Version – Emmanuel Delgado
Performed at 5M Lounge and Jack Crystal Theater. 111 second ave. New York City
Rewind/Unwind is a multimedia performance event that explores the development effect/affect of everyday technologies on human interaction and intimacy. It plays between the overload of technologies and the emptiness one can feel with or without it.
The current Covid-19 crisis shed a new light and meaning to this performance project.
We are completely dependent on technology to keep us connected and protect us from complete isolation.
With Internet, computers and smart phones we can still continue to work, and socialize, yet the sensation of being in front of screens everyday has an exhausting effect on us and still cannot replace human interaction which we constantly crave.
This choreographic project is divided into two performance events in which I established close connections between performers and audiences.
The first performance – (boxed edition) - took place in a small room with only two performers and two audience members at a time. The idea was to take the audience on journey from feeling overloaded with media into a place of tranquility and peace of mind. I wanted to create the conditions which allowed the audience to experience the events while being part of the dance. Each performance was ten minutes long and repeated over four hours each night with a rotating cast.
The second performance – (extend Version) – a companion piece to Boxed edition, explored the same ideas of technology, media, communication and intimacy but placed the public back on their seats in the traditional setting of a proscenium stage and featured all five performers together.
By creating the two events I was interested to see the contrast that the audience can experience between being inside the small space in close proximity to the performers as opposed to the traditional way where the audience is at a distance and is an outside viewer.
My goal was to examine the different performance experiences for both audience and performers, and notice, which event resonates more in their memory, as a stronger experience. At the same time each performance held its own narrative and audience members could see only one of the performances and still gain a full theatrical experience.