Project In Motion has participated in the Indiana performance season since 1998 and the New Mexico performance season since 2000. Here is a brief highlight of some of our recent endeavors.
In 2010 collaborations with performance artist Mei Ling Po Mckay and video artist Robert Yee brought about a Chinese-Mexican influenced piece entitled Fu Xi: He Who Taught Men To Fish With Nets. Dancers perform in the air and on the ground while video projections flow out onto the screen and their bodies. Po Mckay and Yee's heritage and visual aesthetic are embodied in images of swimming jellyfish, koi fish caught in nets, a calligraphers brushstrokes, as well as unique photographic selections.
River Sounds Remembered (2009) is comprised of a number of solo aerial fabric performances. The presentation draws inspiration from poet laureate W.S. Merwin. Become (2008) is a meditation on political thought versus action. Set to spoken word as well as collaboratively composed musical accompaniment, Project in Motion draws heavily on its modern dance roots for the aerial choreography.
In 2010/2011 our Music in the Air season included a series of live musical partnerships. Project In Motion performed alongside the nationally known band Cracker as well as a joint project with members of Liquid Cheese.
The Palace at Night (2010) a series of vignettes comprised of aerial and terrestrial dance pieces inspired by the work of Alberto Giacometti, debuted in the spring of 2010. Choreographed by Hilary McDaniel-Douglas and dancers, performers relay scenes from inside the custom built, minimalist "palace" framework. At one end of the "palace" a winged creature rises beyond the reach of her lover while a man hangs in confinement below. Another section holds a mother conjoined with the palace, as well as a strange pod that is beginning to transform. The Palace at Night was performed this season at ACDFA hosted by NMSU as a local professional dance company, at the Pantages Theater in Minneapolis, and also at The Gin performance Center.
A reunion concert with cellist Gideon Freudmann was a great success in spring 2011. Freudmann created the music Tuscany which was danced in the 2000 season and was also performed by PIM as a part of their Young Audiences workshop series The Physics of Dance. Tuscany, created in 1998, uses motion captures of the dancers' movements as animated background projections. The 2011 performance was filled with audial and visual delicacies provided by Freudmann and Project In Motion as well as a new look at Tuscany.