Libby Gardner Concert Hall, University of Utah
NOWHERE collaborators:
Charlotte Boye-Christensen, Choreographer
Nathan Webster, Architect
Adam Bateman, Artist & Performer
Cole Adams, Lighting Designer
Jesper Egelund, Musician and Composer (Denmark)
Steingrimur Rohloff, Composer (Iceland)
Laura Cutler, Organist
NOWHERE DANCERS:
Katherine Lawrence, Dancer
Tara McArthur, Dancer
TJ Spaur, Dancer
Brian Nelson, Dancer
NOW-ID’s third major site-specific performance of contemporary dance and design will take place July 17th & 18th in Libby Gardner Hall and its surroundings.
NOWHERE is an exploration of place. It is an exploration of immigration and emigration and what it is to be of a place, and to not be of a place. Together with local and international collaborators, the company will compare and contrast spiritual architecture, landscape, and the ever-changing concept of home.
NOWHERE explores the alignment of personal dreams and experiences with a more collective contemporary experience of space, artifact, and story. The evenings will be composed as a collage of dance, installation, film, and original composition. It will feature four dancers, an organ player, as well as the return of FEAST musician/composer Jesper Egelund performing on double bass. Local artists as well as artists from around the world will create a space of ritual as they turn over various facets of cultural identity and place.
Coming from their respective Denmark and Canada, NOW-ID founders Charlotte Boye-Christensen and Nathan Webster bring their unique perspective on Utah as artists who’ve come to this place. The idea of NOWHERE and the conceptual seeds for the performance came out of a conversation Boye-Christensen had when she was recently home in her native Copenhagen. The experience caused her to see her connections to her native culture in a fresh way, and caused her to ask:
““Where do I actually belong? What ties you to a place?””
She said that she started thinking of NOWHERE (now here) as the “present state of mind. I’m here. Therefore I commit to this place?”
In contrast to Boye-Christensen’s experience of having come to a foreign landscape and culture is the parallel narrative of Utah-based contemporary artist and NOWHERE collaborator/performer Adam Bateman. Leading up to the July performance, the project will follow and gather imagery from a multi-month walk Bateman is embarking on this spring. The walk begins at a spot just outside Omaha, Nebraska, “historically known by my Mormon ancestors as Winter Quarters,” Bateman says. The journey encompasses over 1000 miles leading “to my current home (and ancestral home) of Salt Lake City.”
NOW-ID will explore with Bateman what it is to be of a place, leave, and return. “I'm excited to be a part of this project with NOW-ID,” Bateman says. “Dance is highly sculptural, spatial, architectural. I've wanted to help choreograph a dance performance for a long time but from the perspective of a sculptor. This project in particular not only provides me with that collaborative opportunity to explore dance spatially and formally, but to explore the idea of place as it relates to travel and movement—a perfect intersection with my work of the last couple of years. Travel and movement are central to Utah's locational and cultural identity.”
The performance will be an exploration of intrinsic and extrinsic commitment we develop for different geographies. Audience, artists, and dance/music push and pull at where the West is now. A background to the exploration of place and commitment to a place is the anxiety of being a contemporary artist fighting against the perception and resultant (relative) cultural isolation of Utah from the national creative conversation, whether for artists who come to this place or return here.
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OFFICIAL hashtag: #EXISTNOWHERE
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FILM
Click above to play film created by Nathan Webster and Charlotte Boye-Christensen / Edited by Jan Andrews / Music by Alex Ollo / Footage from Marfa, Texas and Salt Lake City, Utah.
SPONSORS
NOWHERE is made possible with generous support from: Utah Division of Arts & Museums / The George and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation / The Kanter Family Foundation / Danish Songwriters Guild / Danish Arts Foundation / Lunatic Fringe / Paul Mitchell School of Salt Lake City / V-Project / New City Movement / Modern Architectural Systems / KCPW / City Weekly and more. Please inquire at info@now-id.com regarding sponsorship opportunities and rewards!