About this project

Shannon Gillen & Guests, a dance theater company based in NYC has been invited to bring their latest project WALL to Miami, Florida as part of PULSE Art Fair in December. This project involves dance artists Xan Burley, Janna Diamond and Stephanie Miracle, in addition to sound artist Brian Whitman. In effort to cover costs related to rehearsal space, costumes, sound amplification, roundtrip airfare, hotel accommodations, and most importantly the dancers' commission, we are seeking the fundraising powers of Kickstarter and you. We aim to raise $3000 here as part of a larger budgetary goal of $10,000.

There are some great ways we'd like to reward you for your support, including a post-event cocktail party in NYC, in December. At which, we'll present a section of WALL, as well as an excerpt from the company's next upcoming work, 'CLAP FOR THE WOLFMAN' (to premiere at Dance New Amsterdam's APAP in January). There will be drinks, delicious snacks, live performance, and tons of merry-making! There are plenty of other fun rewards for donating, so check out the level that works for you. Our heart felt thanks!

SHANNON GILLEN & GUESTS - The company utilizes different physical and contextual standpoints within a space to construct layered feeling states. These feeling states are rooted in questioning the emotional life embedded in form, content and location. Rigorous choreographic experimentation and a commitment to the emotional spontaneity of the moment are ultimately what shape the context and performance of the work. Being expressionistic by nature, the creative process is indelibly shaped by the presence of the performers, currently Xan Burley, Janna Diamond and Stephanie Miracle. www.shannongillen.com

About WALL:
WALL contends with the body’s condition in pressurized states and explores the physical and psychological relationships a person experiences with the plane of a wall. Imagining the body as a magnetized vessel existing within the confines of a magnetized terrain, the performers will experience directional influence; their bodies will fold, smash and levitate as though guided by an outside force. As the performers succumb to pressure, spatial and narrative relationships take shape in orbit. During this act, a kind of loneliness is exposed, a loneliness that exists only when the urgency within oneself is less than the power outside of the body. This work examines the physical will against such force and also when the force releases, states of complete collapse.

About the Composer:
WALL is presented in tandem with a sound installation by Brian Whitman. From 2001 until 2005 Whitman taught computers essentially how to ‘hear’ music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. During this time, he generated an album that is the ‘rendered output of a piece of software that listened to hundreds of songs and tried to compose its own new standards.’ Whitman’s investigation with the root sound connection between oneself and one’s memories, is deeply fascinating to me. His idea that sound could be the ‘hidden variable linking some version of me to some imperceptible memory’ is essentially the auditory version of the ‘feeling states’ my dance work seeks to explore.

More information on PULSE Art Fair:
PULSE Miami will return to the Ice Palace December 2 - 5, 2010, for its sixth edition, the first with new Director Cornell DeWitt. Presenting over 80 of the world's premier contemporary art galleries and a dynamic cultural program, PULSE Miami 2010 connects art enthusiasts to works by leading and emerging contemporary artists. http://www.pulse-art.com/miami/

Photography by Corrine Furman