When three cinderblocks are swinging across the stage, following the choreography is a matter of life and death. Dancers in Elizabeth Streb’s troupe have learned that lesson. So when we heard that one of her troupe’s alums was showing his work at the Ruffin Gallery, C-VILLE staff hopped in the family Toyota and drove on down to the U.
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At the Ruffin Gallery, Henderson stands next to “Pharaoh’s Fury.” For the piece, he followed the Midway carnival company to Indiana and South Carolina, mounting cameras to the center of the swinging ship to catch riders at the ride’s exciting moment. |
Aaron Henderson is the alum in question. (He’s filling in for Vivian Moyer as new media professor at UVA.) He says that Streb’s work “draws more from sports than ballet, but still takes place within the traditional proscenium.” The company’s logo says “STREB,” all caps and pinched in the middle—riffing on Everlast, the boxing-glove manufacturer. And indeed, the performances are as much boxing as they are ballet; dancers narrowly avoid an I-beam that’s whipping across the stage, and bellyflop from spinning structures that look like giant hamster wheels.
With New York-based artist Mark Beasley, Henderson designed three STREB pruductions, including STREB: RAW, which is coming to the Paramount Theater on March 5. The show’s visual design relies on small cameras and sensors that are attached to dancers. The dancers are like “joysticks” that manipulate the visual backdrop—when they move, it moves.
His show, “Midway,” which just closed at the Ruffin Gallery, furthers Henderson’s interest in movement. The show takes its name from the carnival company—they’re the folks who fold down roller coasters and Gravitrons onto the backs of tractor trailers. Henderson convinced them to let him install cameras on a few rides, which he’d leave running and pick up later in the day, full of footage.
In “Pharoah’s Fury,” he mounted a camera to the center of a swinging ship, and captured the riders as they reached the joyous summit of their journey. The footage rises on one side of the gallery—woahhh!—disappears, and rises again on the other side of the room, with a new batch of riders, gloating like the last.
For “Gravitron” Henderson installed cameras inside a—you guessed it—Gravitron. Just as the ride spins fast enough to suck riders against its walls, the spinning room becomes an impromptu performance space. In the Ruffin Gallery, the footage scrolled across two flatscreen TVs on the wall. The riders remain upright, but become performers as they test the limits of a gravity gone vertical. (All this bug-like behavior is accompanied by a bug-in-your-ear score by Ted Coffey, a UVA music professor.)
Henderson will be at UVA through the end of the academic year, continuing his work with STREB and on personal projects. Henderson says his next work “will be a more personal exploration” of the same themes. “Let’s just call it the tattoo project for now,” he says. You’ve missed his work at Ruffin, but check out some of his work at the Feedback blog.
Book ’em
The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities held a press breakfast (banana bread! coffee!) last week, where they unveiled some details about the Festival of the Book. The Fest’s 16th year of no-holds-barred, eye-popping literary mayhem will run from March 17-21, and most of it’s still free.
Real heavy hitters include Colum McCann, the Irish writer whose Let the Great World Spin won a National Book Award last year. The Southern Environmental Law Center is sponsoring a panel that’ll feature Lee Smith, bestselling novelist and O. Henry Award-winner who grew up in Grundy, Virginia. She’ll discuss what the destruction of the Southern environment means to the Southern literary tradition. Friday night will feature poets galore, all at different points of their career, from Virginia Tech’s Nikki Giovanni to Major Jackson, poetry editor for the Harvard Review.
There’s also plenty of local fare at the feast. Anna Alter, daughter of local artist Lee Alter, will be reading her new children’s book, Abigail Spells. Former Charlottesvillian Kate Atwood will discuss A Healing Place, the book she wrote about the loss of her mother. Down from the ivory tower comes UVA psychiatrist Bruce Greyson, who will talk about his work on near-death experiences. Local author Kevin Quirk will discuss Brace For Impact, about the survivors of Flight 1549, which crashed into the Hudson River last year.
Headline events at Culbreth Theater are free—but can be reserved in advance for $10 at its box office until noon on the day of the event. Everything at the Paramount is $10. You also need (more expensive) tickets for the luncheons. Visit vabook.com for details.
Feedback Session
Feedback recently traveled to Virginia Recording Arts to catch the IllVille Crew at their practice space. They’re preparing for a show Saturday at the Southern with the Rhythm Administration and the Dubsettors. By the looks of it, the Crew is in top form—click here to see for yourself.
