Jody Sperling/Time Lapse Dance presents Melting Ice/Changing Winds: Dance and Music of Climate Change at The Center at West Park, Sanctuary Theater, April 8-10, 2019

Melting Ice/Changing Winds: Dance and Music of Climate Change continues the collaboration between choreographer Jody Sperling and composer Matthew Burtner, both acclaimed for their creative engagement with climate. The program features the premiere of Wind Rose, visualizing and sonifying winds patterns that are changing dramatically along with the earth’s atmosphere. Wind is the breath of the planet, and though invisible, its swirling rhythms drive the forces of life.

A wind rose is a meteorological tool that graphically represents wind speed and direction at a particular location. This new collaboration creates a unique wind rose in the performance space, sculpting and sounding the airflow so the audience can simultaneously feel, see and hear the dance unfold. The five dancers act as soundmakers, whipping and slapping the air with their Loie Fuller-inspired costumes and vocalizing audibly throughout. In performance, Burtner samples the dancers’ soundings and remixes them live with other electronics drawn from wind data.

The program also features Burtner and Sperling’s first collaboration, Ice Cycle (2015) which was inspired by Sperling’s experience dancing in the Arctic while participating in a polar science mission. The full-company work transports the icescape to the stage and aims to express the dynamism and fragility of Arctic sea ice.

Lastly, the program includes Northern Sky. Burtner’s music layers rhythmic vortices based on Fibonacci patterns while Sperling’s solo whirls in a meditative journey towards transcendence.

Ice Cycle (2015). Photo by Filip Wolak

Ice Cycle (2015). Photo by Phyllis McCabe