Shifting Spaces

FOR

IMMEDIATE

RELEASE

August 31, 2013

Contact: Brit Wallis

tel. 832-771-9797

brittany.wallis@gmail.com

Shifting Spaces premieres at Barnevelder October 18-19, 2013

Shifting Spaces is an evocative, dance performance inspired by visual art, collage poetry, translucency, and fluidity.

HOUSTON, TX- Shifting Spaces provides an evening of artistic collaboration through moving bodies and exquisite design with choreography by Teresa Chapman, visual art by Lucinda Cobley,and costume designs by James McDaniel. The evening length performance will premiere at Barnevelder Theater October 18-19, 2013 at 8pm.

Shifting Spaces is an evening of dance performance consisting of three related dances: Exquisite Corpse, Inflated Duet, and Sequences. All three manipulate costume and set design to shift the stage space and transform audience perspective. Shape, color, line, and motion appear and disappear as dancers maneuver between podiums or translucent screens in skirts designed to accentuate every move.

In Exquisite Corpse, dancers move between Cobley’s painted, moveable screens using broken bits of gesture, disjointed actions, and body part initiation. The Surrealist technique titled “Exquisite Corpse” initially inspired the choreography. “Exquisite Corpse” began as parlor game where each player contributes a phrase or image on a folded piece of paper without seeing the previous contribution. The result often leads to an interesting collage of poetry, or character figure when the paper is unfolded. Chapman uses these poems and figures in choreographic detail studies to construct phrases of movement for the dance. This work is a reflection of how Chapman often observes people. Chapman explains, “I am particularly sensitive to subtle shifts in facial expression and body language. Every day we experience a range of emotions, yet rarely share them verbally. The body however, does not lie and much can be derived from subtle shifts of weight, change of gaze, or slight twitches in the hand.” While initially inspired by the parlor game, the dance Exquisite Corpse focuses on particular body parts, the gathering and release of tension, and unleashed emotions.

In Inflated Duet, two bodies weave, interchange, and explore circular motion. “As I continue to define my artistic voice, I find that I am not interested in making grand, sweeping, statements about society or cultural imperfections. I seek to make dances that are juicy and luscious. I want the audience to leave the theater feeling satiated, as if they just enjoyed a fine meal. I hope to take the audience on a journey, riding waves of kinesthesia by sensing the swirls, shifts, leaps, and suspensions as if they too were dancing,” Chapman explains. With Inflated Duet, Chapman continues to explore subtle shifts in dynamics, and the acts of appearance and disappearance.

In Sequences, four dancers exchange gestures and voluminous choreography as they move between three wood pedestals of varying heights. They perform in floor-length hoop skirts designed by James McDaniel that offered a floating effect in quieter moments. The choreography was inspired by the manipulation of the skirt and by the words and paintings of Lucinda Cobley. Cobley’s recent collection of paintings (also titled Sequence) is the inspiration for much of the choreography and costume design for the dance.

Why Collaboration? Teresa Chapman, known for her full-bodied athletic dancing and choreography, is currently focusing on making dances that celebrate the strength and vulnerability of women, as well as subtle shifts of dynamics. “Lucinda seems like an appropriate fit,” Chapman says. Cobley’s translucent surfaces dwell in optical deception and color refraction. In her paintings, she “explores movement through the process of appearance and disappearance, whether it is the suggestion of an object or place, shift in color, shadow or light, the overall effect is sequential…similar to the motion of a physical body moving through space.” Chapman has been working closely with artist Cobley over the past year to develop new work that integrates dance with visual art. They collaborate by sharing inspirations, themes, and physical approaches to crafting.

The performance will feature some of Houston’s finest female dancers: Catalina Alexandra, Lauren Cohen, Roberta Cortes, Kristen Frankiewicz, Mallory Horn, and Brit Wallis. “Working with this set of exquisite dancers affords me the opportunity to give them a highly technical movement phrase, then request that they shape it according to individual choices of changes in speed and force. The result is a form of theme and variation that is both true to movement vocabulary, yet distinct to the dancer,” says Chapman. Emotion is therefore communicated through movement and the dancers’ approach to dynamics. It is sensual and purposeful, yet highly abstract.

Shifting Spaces will be presented at Barnevelder Theater (2201 Preston St. Houston, Texas) on Friday, October 18 and Saturday, October 19, 2013 at 8pm. Tickets are $12 for students, $18 for general/advanced and $20 at the door. To purchase tickets, please visit: www.chapmandance.com or call 713-297-1529.

 

Artist Bios

Teresa Chapman is an Associate Professor at the University of Houston where she teaches dance technique, aesthetics, dance kinesiology, and pedagogy.  As a performer in Houston, she has worked exclusively with Karen Stokes Dance.  In addition, she has performed in works by other Houston-based choreographers such as Toni Leago Valle, Erin Reck, Amy Ell, and Becky Valls.  In the past, she has danced for various artists in Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington DC (Liz Lerman Dance Exchange), and New York (KDNY).   Chapman is an independent choreographer.  Her work has been presented at DiverseWorks Art Space, Miller Outdoor Theatre, Barnevelder Theater, the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center, Contemporary Art Museum-Houston, Wade Wilson Art, and the Cunningham Studios in New York City.  Her work has been commissioned by the University of Nebraska, West Virginia University, UC Santa Barbara, and Bucknell University.  She has received multiple internal UH grants and has received external funding from Houston Arts Alliance Individual Artist Project and Fellowship grants to support her work.  In 2010, she was the recipient of the Ross M. Lence Teaching Award for the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.   In 2011, she was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure at the University of Houston.  Chapman received her MFA in Dance from California State University, Long Beach.

Lucinda Cobley is a British painter living and working in Houston, Texas since 1998. She received her Post Graduate Diploma in Illustration from Central Saint Martins College of Art in Design in London and a B.A. in Glass Design from North Staffordshire Polytechnic in Stoke-on-Trent. She has exhibited work in London and throughout the UK, and in the USA (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Marfa, and New York). Portfolio includes published work in magazines, brochures and her work was selected by juror Terrie Sultan, Director of The Parrish Art Museum in New York to be featured in New American Painting #84 in 2009. In 2010 ‘Shadows Sequence i-ix’ was selected by curator Karen Shaw for an exhibition entitled ‘See Through’ as the Islip Art Museum in New York. Dealing with a reductive form of abstraction, her paintings focus on color and light, with glass, vellum and plastic used as translucent supports. She is represented in Houston by Wade Wilson Art and recently her work became part of the MFAH permanent collection and is currently on view there until the end of January 2012 in an exhibit called ‘Synthetic Supports: Plastic in the New Paper.’ www.lucindacobley.com

James McDaniel, Costume Designer, is a third year MFA design student at the University of Houston. Last year, James designed and constructed costumes for the professional dance production of Regifting Lions at Barnevelder Theater. For theater, James has designed costumes for Our Lady of 121st Street, The Narrator, Mother Courage and Her Children, and the Emerging Choreographer’s Showcase for University of Houston. He has previously designed for New Worlds Theater Company’s production of Under the Cross in New York and The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Charles Ives Concert Park in Danbury, CT.

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FACT SHEET

WHAT: Teresa Chapman presents Shifting Spaces

WHEN:  Friday, October 18 and Saturday, October 19, 2013 at 8pm

WHERE: Barnevelder Theater, 2201 Preston, Houston, TX 77003

HIGHLIGHTS: Lucinda Cobley visual art, James McDaniel costume design, and some of Houston’s strongest female dancers including Catalina Alexandra, Lauren Cohen, Roberta Cortes, Kristen Frankiewicz, Mallory Horn, and Brit Wallis.

Ticket Prices: 12$ for Students, 18$ for General/Advanced, and 20$ at the door. To purchase tickets online please visit www.chapmandance.org or call 713-297-1529

This project is supported through the Innovation Grants program of the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, which is funded in part by the Houston Endowment, Inc.  Teresa Chapman is also a recipient of an Individual Artist Grant Award. This grant is funded by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.