The theme of GHOSTDANCE centers on our relationship to the spirit world -- to the voices and stories of our ancestors, both recent and ancient. The world of daylight and the senses confronts the realm of memory, dream and death. Drawing upon the cultural palettes of Mexico and the United States, the work evokes this mysterious middle world through movement, sound, text, music and visual design, creating a landscape of interactions, collisions and revelations.
GHOSTDANCE is designed for the outdoors, with audience members seated on all sides. The dance is visually lush, the space decorated with brightly colored baskets, flowers, bones, musical instruments, and other objects gathered to evoke both a Mexican cemetery during the Dia de los Muertos, and a lavish carnival. The space is also contains long swaths of textured paper, which evoke a landscape of enormous fallen bodies. Costumes are an eclectic blend of decayed white formal wear, with brilliant flashes of color. The sound design, by Ms. Oliveros and Bob Bilecki, creates an eerie, haunting kaleidoscope of music and woven fragments of gathered sounds. Ms. Oliveros intends that the voices fly and fall like wind through the space, drawing the audiences listening attention from one area to another in concert with the movement of the dance.
Following its debut in Mexico and New York, GHOSTDANCE was developed in Russia with the support of the Trust for Mutual Understanding. In Russia, dancers and actors explored the memories, songs and culture surrounding their own relationship to past and present.
photos by Pam White
photos by Pam White
