Zentrum Paul Klee Bern Founded by Maurice E. and Martha Müller and the heirs of Paul Klee
Theater & dance 08.10.2016 – 09.10.2016

Forum

Daniel Belton Equilibrist

Saturday 08 October 2016 15:00
Sunday 09 October 2016 11:00 / 15:00

Daniel Belton & Good Company Arts in association with Zentrum Paul Klee present

Live Cinema Transmission
Live Dance
Live Electronics

EQUILIBRIST “Der Seiltänzer” (liveset) feat. motion sensor performance by Daniel Belton & Tom Ward supported by Stuart Foster, Josh Lewis with Donnine Harrison, Jac Grenfell & Dr Anthony Ritchie.

Daniel Belton and Thomas Ward (live performing artists) 
Stuart Foster and Josh Lewis (spatial interactivity - programming and sensors)
Daniel Belton and Good Company Arts (Projections)

Equilibrist

For this performance Daniel Belton and Good Company fuse live tracked sensor dance utilising video mapping, projection and sound to create a unique live cinema event at Zentrum Paul Klee. The work responds to and dialogues with Paul Klee’s lithograph “Der Seiltänzer”.

With “Equilibrist”we are investigating and expanding ideas around balance and projection. Parameters set by screens, cameras and mapping technologies alter how the human body is perceived in space and in time. A type of cinematic collage emerges where the evolving work transforms, retimes and aligns itself during live digital transmission.

The climax for “Equilibrist” is that it leads us to more possibilities for reading space; opening thresholds of dimension, and rediscovering the game of balance. Using analogue and digital recording methods we live-capture and re-project dance in a way that produces a memory sensation within the image. Through the eye of the camera we are looking for the interior essence of dance, and at how gravity can affect a choreographic relationship to line. This is sculpturally expanded upon in our film, and enhanced through motion capture with live performance. The theme of balance was an important one in Paul Klee’s art, and it was a subject which he also emphasised to his students during his time as a teacher at the Bauhaus. Several of his works feature a tightrope walker, and in a lecture Paul Klee stated; ‘The tightrope walker with his pole is a “symbol of the balance of forces.” He holds the forces of gravity in balance (weight and counterweight). He is a pair of scales.’

Digitally redrawn elements of Paul Klee’s work become the virtual scaffolding for a new search with the human figure in space - as projected film and live sensor processed performance combine. Realtime effects make physical traces, echoes and displacements which are triggered through the performance. This creates a tension in the work which sustains it. Nothing is in a state of stasis. The relationships are subject to pressures and changes.

All performance is time based, and we measure time through movement.

“Klee’s awareness of dualism - of the extremes between order and chaos, tragedy and comedy, the horizontal and the vertical - is central to his philosophy of art” Margaret Plant 

Paul Klee’s colleague, Oskar Schlemmer talked about the emblems of abstraction and mechanisation in art. He said ‘Among the emblems of our time are the new potentials of technology and invention which we can use to create altogether new hypotheses and which can thus engender, or at least give promise of, the boldest fantasies’.

Good Company Arts was founded by Arts Laureate and artistic director Daniel Belton and producer Donnine Harrison in 1997. The company creates dance theatre works and makes films featuring human movement with fine arts. Project based and working from New Zealand - the group has an international reputation for innovation with choreography, visual art, design, music, animation and film. Duration of this performance: 25-30 mins featuring Daniel Belton, Tom Ward, Stuart Foster and Joshua Lewis.

goodcompanyarts.com