Marginal Evidence (an interactive experience of dance-making)
October 1 – November 14, 2015
First Thursday Opening Reception, October 1, 2015 | 6:00-8:00 p.m.
On Saturday, November 7, 2015, 3:00 p.m., the White Box will host a panel discussion with paleontologist Theodore Fremd, artist Sara Huston, and Mark Johnson, a criminalist with the Portland Police Bureau. Q&A will follow
Marginal Evidence is a visual installation about the intimate act of choreography. Using set design, text, illustrations, diagrams, photographs and video projections, Longstreth creates an interactive experience, which reveals the usually invisible aspects of dance-making. In collaborating with film-maker, Dicky Dahl, and composer, Loren Chasse, she has created multiple points of entry for visitors to engage with a specific creative process. As visitors move through the three rooms at the White Box, Longstreth engages you through tactile, aural and kinesthetic means. Part forensic investigation, part archeology dig, Marginal Evidence lets you in on a private process and in so doing, reveals the dynamic inner life of archival materials.
“Capturing and recording dance can be frustrating. The techniques available fail to catch the squeak in the floor, the dancer’s sharp intake of breath, the audience’s presence. These limitations coupled with a keen interest in the creative process led me to question whether the act of making a dance leaves a trace and if it could be made visible. When a performance is over, what remains? Using a forensic lens, I have looked back 20 years to excavate my choreographic process to see what I could find.” -Katherine Longstreth
Katherine Longstreth’s work has been presented in her native New York City at Dance Theater Workshop, David Parker/The Bang Group, the Brooklyn Arts Exchange, the Harkness Center for Dance, the 92nd St. Y, Performance Mix, Broome Corner, Context, and Dixon Place. In Portland, Oregon, her work has been presented by Conduit and Studio 2 and featured in Ten Tiny Dances at PICA’s TBA Festival, Hand2Mouth’s Risk Reward Festival, and The One Festival at the Headwaters Theater. Other programming include: Piccolo Spoeleto, Charleston, CounterPulse, San Francisco; and Fringe Festival of Independent Dance Artists, Toronto, Canada. She has facilitated Fieldwork artist workshops in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, New York, and Portland. Currently she serves on the board of Troika Ranch and the NEW Residency at Studio2. www.katherinelongstreth.com
Dicky Dahl co-wrote and produced The Ballad of Ramblin’ Jack, a documentary portrait of cowboy folksinger and raconteur Ramblin’ Jack Elliott that won the Special Jury Prize for Artistic Achievement at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival and received wide theatrical distribution. His short film The Curio was an official selection of the 2011 Portland International Film Festival. His full-length version of The Curio is set for a 2015 release. He is the co-founder of Great Notion, a Portland, Oregon-based filmmaker cooperative devoted to supporting sustainable careers in cinema for its members as well as bringing feature film-level quality and creativity to commercial video production. http://wildroostermovies.com
Loren Chasse is a sound artist and educator who has performed and presented his work at international sound art and film festivals, as well as at San Francisco’s De Young Museum and the Berkeley Museum of Modern Art. He has published over fifty recorded works on various experimental record labels. For the past three years, he has been composing for Portland’s TopShake Dance Company.