History of the Future, 2022
December 1-3, 2022 at Mitchell Hall’s Black Box Studio
Debra Loewen brings together guest artists, Flora Coker, John Schneider, and Simone Ferro “together again at last for the first time” sharing moments from their lives in a collage of movement stories.
A stage of crumpled piles of newspapers visions a future world of constant change in Katelyn Altmann’s reflective choreography. Jenni Reinke explores concepts of time and motion (cycles of tides, the pull of gravity, inertia, etc.), expanding possibilities for movement invention. with Dan Schuchart’s sci-fi questions inspire movement with a twist when performed to a podcast mix of futurist conversation.
History of the Future is a four-chapter dance about memory, presence, connection and our collective capacity to embrace time’s relentless pace. In consort, four choreographers chase a dance that awaits beyond dancers. Tableaus repeat as phrases loop and evolve while a podcast plays. A last-chance table offers “feel-good-about-tomorrow” messages for old people, a dancer disappears, a tango entangles. Five-second actions flash moments from the past; dancers perform “maps” of their wild and beautiful movement history. Each chapter is a history for the next, propelling dancers head-long in a quest for the self they were long ago.
