| Prev - Secret Laughs | Body of Water | Next - Entanglement |
Composer Antony Flackett aka DJ Flack added some music for the piece
Stephen Buck manipulated video imagery through Isadora software
Sara Marhamo (Industrial Stitchers Guild) created the costumes
Copyright 2011 by Dawn Kramer
The documentary video above shows the galleries and parts of Message in a Bottle then follows with the live performance onstage. To see the videos that are being projected on the walls, go to http://dawnkramer.info/Recentwork/SilentVideoPoems/SilentVideoPoems.html
Body of Water is a two part video installation. It begins with single channel projections on three screens showing several silent video-movement poems made in different parts of the world, including the coast of Maine, Kyoto, Japan, Westwood, Massachusetts and the Ligurean coast of Italy. These short site-specific videos envision the human figure at a small scale or more embedded in our marine/terrestrial environment, thus imagining a better balance between the two.
It is followed by a performance by Dawn Kramer in a video projection environment. Body of Water explores the delicate relationship between human beings and the sea. The earth's surface is covered with about 71% water, with less than 1% of it available to support all living things. The human body is filled with 55%-78% water that is remarkably similar to seawater in its chemical composition. Humans and the sea are deeply connected, yet the negative human impact on our oceans has been vast. The work also continues exploring the mysteries of Buddhist philosophy, questioning the boundaries of “self.”
Body of Water was started in a residency at the Liguria Study Center where Dawn was a Fellow of the Bogliasco Foundation in the Fall of 2010. The work has continued with the support of the Studio for Interrelated Media at Massachusetts College of Art and Design and the MassArt Foundation. We thank them very much.
The six single channel videos: Silent Video/MovementPoems
Poesia Liguria, shot on the coastal rocks of Nervi, between Bogliasco and Genoa.
Pool, shot at The Center at Westwoods in Massachusetts.
Haiku, shot at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.
Honen-in
Shunko-in
Taizo-in
The above were shot at three temples in Kyoto
with the assistance of a grant from the
Massachusetts College of Art and Design Foundation.
Reviews
"This elaborate marriage of video and dance is nothing short of brilliant. I wish the documentation of “Body of Water” had been included in the ICA show, and I hope that audiences have the chance to see the production in the near future. The performance I saw concluded with themed refreshments including water chestnuts, watermelon and good old Boston tap water, which, Kramer notes, is perfectly safe to drink. "
--Christine Temin, Art New England, Jan/Feb 2012 in a review of Dance/Draw at the ICA and Body of Water
"Sometimes humorous, sometimes merely elaborately colored by the moving projections, she turned upside down like a starfish, bobbed along as if pummeled by brilliant moving droplets from a spewing fountain, and was dissolved in the streams pouring ceaselessly from a row of identical faucets. "
--Debra Cash, Dance on Camera Journal