Archive for chris elam
January 18, 2008 at 1:13 am · Filed under SLOAN, dance, travel, los angeles, speaking, chris elam, conference, dance/USA, misnomer, jaki levy
It was recently announced that Chris Elam and Misnomer Dance Theater succeeded in their quest for Ideablob’s $10K monthly giveaway! You can see more details on their idea here, but basically it sounds like they are looking to use the money to develop a web site with lots of new tools for dance companies to use in presenting and increasing access and awareness on the web.
From the IdeaBlob Press Release:
“Our goal is to create innovative ways to expand our fan base and at the same time bring dance to theater fans and supporters when they are not able to make it to the theater,” explained Elam. “Ideablob has proven to be a perfect, non-traditional way to get support for our non-traditional idea of promoting artists and their work.”
Congrats guys!
And on that note, I thought I’d let you know what I’ll be up to this weekend.
I am co-facilitating a workshop on online video for dance companies at Dance/USA’s Winter Forum. The Winter Forum’s focus this year is on marketing and the use of technology.
What makes this information relevant to this post is that my co-facilitators are Chris Elam and Jaki Levy from Misnomer Dance Theater. The conference officially starts tomorrow, although most people arrived in LA today (myself included) and there will be an introductory sort of get together tonight. Should be an interesting new experience.
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
April 13, 2007 at 8:27 pm · Filed under misnomer dance theater, chris elam
Posted by Tony Schultz
Last night I went to see Chris Elam’s Misnomer Dance Theater and Keigwin + Company at NYU’s Skirball Center with our friend Tonya Plank. The two companies were well paired and together made an inspired presentation.
I met Chris Elam back in November of 2006 at a rehearsal of Dancing with Robots at Lemurplex. The details of this project, directed by fellow dance technologist Marlon Barios Solano, can be seen here on Marlon’s blog unstablelandscape.net/blog. I was impressed by Chris’ strength and vocabulary of movement. While talking, Chris communicated his interest in using blogs to interact with audiences. I told Chris about the gospel of Doug Fox and urged him to contact Doug.
Last night was the first time I have seen Misnomer perform. I must admit, I am partial to strangeness and Chris Elam is clearly adept in its manifestation. Future Perfect was danced by Brynne Billingsley, Jen Hasmer, Coco Karol and Luke Wiley with occasional appearances by Chris Elam. The lighting was designed by Burke Wilmore while Sarah McMillan and Lesley Wolf fashioned the costumes. The dance includes some clear landmarks that sketch a narrative structure: a floating ball, a repeated leg extension with foot-in-hand, the intermittent sound of a whirling breeze, etc. Despite the presence of these sign posts the dance is sufficiently abstract that it requires active participation on part of the viewer to aid in the structuring the dance’s reading. To use the language of Roland Barthes (care of Randy Martin), the reader is made into “a producer of the text”. I enjoy this responsibility and am happy to write it into the record. I recommend seeing the Saturday performance to anyone else who enjoys this type of active viewership.
I wonder what curiosities Chris Elam will have produced in the future.
Recent Posts by tony schultz
April 4, 2007 at 2:36 pm · Filed under websites, video, modern, contemporary, apple, RESfest, tronic studio, misnomer dance theater, chris elam, myspace, balinese dance
Posted by Sloan
Just a heads up about a dance company that’s doing some really interesting things both online and off…
I first saw them on myspace (a great way for companies to connect with more people). Then I found their website and blog, which is full of videos, info, rep list, calendar, tons of press. Very impressive. Chris Elam is the director/choreographer, (you can see a video interview of him here). He says he is heavily influenced by Balinese dance. (I took Doug there for his birthday a few years ago, but we were so destroyed by our jet-lag that we missed our one opportunity to see a traditional dance performance! ugh! maybe next time.)
So check out their videos, especially this one done by Apple about Misnomer’s collaboration with Tronic Studios (how cool!) for RES Digital Film Festival.
Their next performances are April 12 & 14 and NYU’s Skirball Center, followed by tours in the Ukraine, France, and Turkey.
Recent Posts by kristin sloan
