Marfa Live Arts Presents Lower Left Performance Collective in Secondary Surface Rendered

Media Contact:
Leslie Scates
lotusburger@sbcglobal.net
713.824.1197  

Marfa Live Arts Presents Lower Left Performance Collective in Secondary Surface Rendered

August 14-15, 2015

Marfa, Texas

 

 

Marfa, Texas – Marfa Live Arts presents Secondary Surface Rendered by Lower Left Performance Collective, on Friday and Saturday, August 14-15, 2015, at 7:00 PM, at theCrowley Theater in Marfa, Texas.   Secondary Surface Rendered is choreography informed by far west Texas landscapes, geological time and human kinetic processes. Designed as a performance installation in Marfa’s Crowley Theater, Secondary Surface Rendered manifests visual and movement art forms, evolving through time and space, leaving material traces of the ephemeral danced moment.  Given freedom to construct personal time frames and viewpoints during the performance, audiences act as their own curators engaging with emergent live visual art forms as they journey through the work.

Coining the performance as a destination dance event, Lower Left is asking audience members to travel to Marfa (which they have been wanting to do anyway!) in order to immerse themselves in a new experience. Lower Left invites the audience to explore Marfa with its majestic Chihuahuan Desert landscapes as part of the event that culminates in the performance. Marfa is an excellent weekend get-away vacation, which allows participants to leave behind the mundaneness of daily life and immerse themselves in nature. “In the beautiful surroundings of Marfa at close to 5,000 feet of altitude in the Big Bend region,” Martin states, “with low humidity, one is always comfortable in the shade during the day and nights are delightful under the darkest skies in the lower 48.  Before the invention of air-conditioning everybody that could went to west Texas to enjoy the wonderful climate.”

Secondary Surface Rendered addresses geologic time as it encompasses both the cataclysmic and the durational; the slow passing of time interrupted with sudden shifts. The traditional viewing experience is expanded to include the ability of the audience to traverse through the theatre, witnessing and encountering the performance installations from various perspectives. Scates notes, “Sitting and observing from the theater seating is a choice, not a given.  The performance is an installation in that the performance occurs and evolves in multiple locations in the space, and is created in response to those spaces.”The dance continuously moves through the space, leaving the trace of its passing much like the wind leaves the trace of its passing on stone cliffs. These sensations of different time frames are expressed through movement within a late afternoon performance event that ends with the sun setting over Marfa.

Secondary Surface Rendered features works created and performed by Nina Martin (Marfa),Margaret Paek (New York), Kylie Phillips  (Austin), Leslie Scates (Houston), and Kelly Dalrymple-Wass and Andrew Wass (Berlin). Composer Loren Dempster creates an ambient sound score for the hour-long piece. Secondary Surface Rendered premieres Friday and Saturday, August 14–15, 2015, at 7:00 PM, presented by Marfa Live Arts, at the Crowley Theater, corner of El Paso and Austin streets in Marfa, Texas. Performances are free and open to the public. For more information, visit marfalivearts.org.

 This program is made possible by the generous support of the Permian Basin Area Foundation, City of Marfa, and Crowley Theater.

 About Lower Left
Lower Left Performance Collective is dedicated to the spontaneous combustion inherent in the collaborative process, choosing to rely on the combined artistic vitality of its artists rather than the hierarchy of the traditional dance company. Lower Left artists span five cities, three countries, two continents, continually sourcing a range of environments and cultures that inform the creative/making processes put to use by the collective. Following this collective model, both artistic and organizational aspects are centered around an openness and spontaneity that have become Lower Left’s trademark.  www.lowerleft.org

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