Event Description
The Drexel University Armory will play host to the East Coast premiere of the 2015 revival of Available Light, produced by Pomegrante Arts and presented in conjunction with the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design as part of 2015 Fringe Festival, audiences will experience this rarely seen, monumental work at a scale not seen since its premiere thirty years ago.
Lucinda Childs, one of the most celebrated choreographers of the modern era, revives her seminal 1983 collaboration with composer John Adams and architect Frank Gehry. Within the large, open confines of the Drexel Armory the Gehry-designed set is built anew, with two industrial platforms for dancers (three on top, eight on the bottom), along with chain link fencing, and a lighting design that plays off the natural surroundings of the space. The music by John Adams was inspired by the variations of natural light on a landscape. Created on synthesizers played by Adams, along with some ghostly horns, the score exists only as a recording (not to be played live) with all its sonic dynamics becoming carefully crafted arrangements.
Available Light is about space, time, and the interaction of dance, light, sound, and architecture. Movements and patterns are exchanged between the dancers of the upper level and the bottom level in a choreography that continually evolves at subtly shifting angles at exquisitely arranged intervals. The full effect is that of a complete work of art, beyond a singular viewpoint, a deeply realized artistic encounter that creates a world of its own and is a joy for the senses.
Available Light was originally commissioned by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in 1983 as the inaugural event for the museum’s Temporary Contemporary interim exhibition space. Curator Julie Lazar sought to unite visual art with dance “to create a performance that enabled the audience to see the underlying forms of each individual’s work, in the context of a completely integral artwork.”
On September 12 at 6pm join Fringe Arts for a pre-show panel with creator Lucinda Childs, original curator Julie Lazar, and critic and historian Suzanne Carbonnea.
This presentation of Available Light has been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
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