Seven weeks of firsts in the arts spanning dance, new media, music and performance art reach a dramatic finale in downtown Providence this weekend as FirstWorks Festival presents the world premiere of "Seven Veils" by Lostwax Multimedia Dance in a four-performance run at Perishable Theatre, Nov. 10-13. Voted Rhode Island's best dance company in the Providence Phoenix 2011 Readers' Poll, the Providence-based Lostwax has toured in Europe and Asia, and has regularly sold-out local performances for the FirstWorks Festival.
In "Seven Veils", choreographer Jamie Jewett and his team of cross-disciplinary collaborators interweave voices, dancer and video projections in a richly visual re-imagining of the story of Salome as based on author Thalia Field's adaptation. Video projections by R. Luke DuBois and choral music by Alexander deVaron provide an often humorous score for Jewett's quirky contemporary dance. It's all there: the dungeon, the palace, the dance, the seductions and betrayals - the re-imagined "veils" of Salome's story. Each evening's performance will include an Artist-Up-Close conversation, taking FirstWorks' audience deep into the creative process.
"Jamie Jewett and Lostwax have thrilled FirstWorks' audiences with their extraordinary explorations at the intersection of live performance and the image-world of digital media", said FirstWorks Executive Artistic Director, Kathleen Pletcher. "In ‘Seven Veils', this team of wildly creative artists is re-telling the fascinating story of Salome and her "Dance of the Seven Veils" with a fresh perspective. Providence earns its stripes as a creative capital with this debut."
FirstWorks presents the world premiere of Lostwax Multimedia Dance in "Seven Veils" at Perishable Theater, 95 Empire Street in Providence, R.I. Performances take place Thursday, Nov. 10 through Saturday, Nov. 12 at 8 p.m.; and Sunday, Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $16 in advance, $24 day of performance through the FirstWorks Box Office: www.first-works.org, 401-421-4281.
About Lostwax Multimedia Dance
Founded in 2000 by Jamie Jewett, Lostwax creates multi-media dance theater works exploring the dramatic relationship between live performers, the saturated image-world of digital culture and the human imagination. The Boston Globe called the work of Lostwax a "standout... fluttering and curves within a world of information overflow. The artists' interplay of a moving body and cinematic images, as well as their use of reflections is mind-opening." while The Boston Herald said Lostwax is "refined, mysterious and technically sophisticated." Jewett's works "Snowblind" (2003) and the excerpt "Species" (2004) were chosen as among Boston's ten best works by the CRASH/arts' annual choreography competition "Ten's The Limit". Jewett's works for Lostwax have been shown throughout the Northeast as well as in Europe and Asia. "BLINKING", Lostwax's most recent evening length work, a commission from the FirstWorks Festival, premiered in October of 2010 and enjoyed sold-out performances in Providence and New York. More info at www.lostwax.org
About FirstWorks
Beginning with an unprecedented collaboration with Providence's Department of Art, Culture + Tourism, FirstWorks was launched in 2004 as a vehicle to build community, reach underserved audiences, and present extraordinary arts programs that elevate Providence's national profile. In the seven years since, FirstWorks has produced 21 groundbreaking arts festivals, attracted more than 95,000 participants, presented over 300 international artists and innovators, engaged more than 100 nonprofit community organizations and schools, and grown into a multidimensional arts organization recognized with eleven National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grants.
About the creators of "Seven Veils"
Jamie Jewett (Choreographer) is the director of Lostwax Multimedia Dance, a multi-media dance theater company that seeks to examine the visceral cusp between installation, performance space and narrative through the use of technology. Jewett has been an artist in residence at HERE Center for the Arts in New York, at STEIM in Amsterdam, and currently at Perishable Theater in Providence, RI. His works such as "After the Fall" (Danspace at St. Mark's), as well as "Seven Veils" (HERE), "Rest/Less" (HERE), "Snowblind" (University of Michigan IMMEDIA commission), "Kindly Bent to Ease Us", and as far back to the evening length works "Glyph" (1996) and "Cloud In Trousers" (1997) utilize interactivity, cinematic imagery and live video. His ongoing collaborations with author Thalia Field also include an online multimedia piece, "Zoologic". "Mudra", with Matthew Peters Warne, was featured at the 2007 Spark Festival Gala Concert. His recent work "MELT" was a commission from the FirstWorks Festival in Providence, where it premiered. Jamie received his BA in Dance and Buddhist Studies from Naropa University, an MFA in Dance and Technology from the Ohio State University, an
MA from Brown University's MEME@Brown program. He also completed his Ph.D. in New Media and Performance at Brown. He currently teaches at Dean College and the Rhode Island School of Design where he also directs research, technology, and computing for the Digital + Media graduate program. Jamie is a 2010 State of Rhode Island Choreographic Fellow. In 2011 Lostwax was voted "the best dance company in R.I." by readers of the Providence Phoenix.
Alexander deVaron (Composer) holds degrees from Connecticut Wesleyan University and Indiana University (MM) and Temple University (DMA), where his teachers included Alvin Lucier, Richard Winslow, Eugene Brien, David Dzubay, Maurice Wright and Richard Brodhead. His works have been performed In Canada, Europe and throughout the United States. He is the 2003 winner of the Network For New Music Poetry Project competition, and his music has been featured by such ensembles as the Tufts New Music Ensemble, the Seattle New Music Ensemble and the New England Conservatory Cammarata. Over the last twenty years, Mr. deVaron has combined his study of music with the study of Buddhism and meditation. Over the course of these years, he has worked closely with the composer Peter Lieberson to explore the meeting place of these two traditions. In 2001, he wrote the musical score for the play "Prajna", performed at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.
R. Luke DuBois (Projection design) is a composer, artist, and performer who explores the temporal, verbal, and visual structures of cultural and personal ephemera. He holds a doctorate in music composition from Columbia University, and has lectured and taught worldwide on interactive sound and video performance. He has collaborated on interactive performance, installation, and music production work with many artists and organizations including Toni Dove, Matthew Ritchie, Todd Reynolds, Michael Joaquin Grey, Elliott Sharp, Michael Gordon, Bang on a Can, Engine27, Harvestworks, and LEMUR, and was the director of the Princeton Laptop Orchestra for its 2007 season. An active visual and musical collaborator, DuBois is the co-author of Jitter, a software suite for the real-time manipulation of matrix data. He appears on nearly twenty-five albums both individually and as part of the avant-garde electronic group The Freight Elevator Quartet. DuBois has lived for the last fifteen years in New York City. He teaches at the Brooklyn Experimental Media Center at NYU's Polytechnic Institute. His records are available on Caipirinha/Sire, Liquid Sky, C74, and Cantaloupe Music. His artwork is represented by bitforms gallery in New York City.
Thalia Field (Author) is a poet and playwright. Her books include "Bird Lovers, Backyard" (New Directions, 2010), "A Prank of Georges" (Essay Press, 2010), "Ululu (Clown Shrapnel)" (Coffee House Press, 2007), "Incarnate: Story Material" (New Directions, 2004), and "Point and Line" (New Directions, 2000). The recipient of an NEA Commission/Development grant for her opera, "The Pompeii Exhibit", Thalia has worked on several collaborations with composers and interdisciplinary artists and edited a special issue on experimental music-theater and dance "scores/texts". Thalia is currently on the editorial board of the interdisciplinary literary journal, CHAIN, and on the creative writing faculty at Brown University.
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