Blending movement and public art, New York-based choreographers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener transported audiences into a realm of sensory exploration with their site-specific dance performance ZENITH. Held April 18-19, the performance unfolded in and around the mesmerizing James Turrell “Twilight Epiphany” Skyspace at Rice University, seamlessly integrating dance and space through Mitchell and Riener’s improvisational techniques.
“Working in a public outdoor site always changes what is possible for a dance,” Mitchell said. “James Turrell’s Skyspace installation is both a reflective space which invites stillness and a place to pass through. It gave us a chance to explore the mundane realities of being sweaty humans in motion as well as the abstract material of scale and perspective. It offered an opportunity to experience dance in new ways — from above, far off in the distance, through the grass — with passersby intermingled.”
Following performances by Armitage Gone! Dance and Dušan Týnek Dance Theatre, Mitchell and Riener’s ZENITH is the third dance commission for the Skyspace organized by Rice’s Moody Center for the Arts. Featuring a talented ensemble including Morgan Amirah Burns, Marc Crousillat, Savannah Gaillard and Chaery Moon, ZENITH transformed the space into a living canvas of artistic expression guided by an original soundscape crafted by Thomas Arsenault, also known as Mas Ysa.
“Our favorite moments were the awkward interplays between the public passing through and the dancers performing,” Mitchell said. “There you are scrolling on your phone, on your scooter, on the path, on your way, and a dancer in luminescent clothing surges past you, running flat out, and starts spinning in the grass with a bird flying by. We tried to account for how the audience might take in these disparate, simultaneous realities.”
“Bringing dance to the Skyspace has been an ongoing priority for the Moody as it activates a well-known space in unexpected ways, giving our community an innovative avenue to experience public art,” said Alison Weaver, the Suzanne Deal Booth Executive Director of the Moody. “Rashaun and Silas presented an amazing performance that you couldn’t experience anywhere else.”
The two-day performance concluded with a free movement workshop “Hour Selves: Moving into Being” that guided participants through Mitchell and Reiner’s choreographic process.
This convergence of art within art spotlighted Skyspace as a free public art installation on the Rice campus that offers daily light sequences at sunrise and sunset that invite visitors to immerse themselves in a meditative journey of light and sound.
Learn more about upcoming events at the Moody here.
