Saturday, January 28, 2012

Site-Specific Viewpoints Performance with Opera del Espacio




Opera del Espacio is a collective of performing artists and designers whose site-specific work reveals new possibilities in public spaces by physically responding to architecture and the environment. Purposely brought to the community to create a live, interactive and re-envisioned experience of the particular space, our goal is to challenge our audiences to reevaluate the way they view the world around them.

Commonplace locations (doorways, stairwell, parking garages, sidewalks) are transformed by interacting physically with the space, and inviting the audience to participate in the celebration of the public space, thus redefining both the space itself and the individual and group experience and association of the space. 

Informed by Mary Overlie’s Viewpoints (www.sixviewpoints.com), we begin with the space itself – the architectural definitions of the space (horizontal, vertical, diagonal and spiral lines and shapes that create a space) - then incorporate the symbolic, associative and emotional responses to the space. The initial exploration often begins with quotidian movement and shape then expands into a group vocabulary and then into a performative event.Through this heightened awareness of the space and the people, things and “feelings” within the space, the performance created reflects the uniqueness of the location, its use, its relevance in our culture and society, and reveals a new perspective and relationship to the space.

And, although this work is created out of the postmodern aesthetics of deconstructionism and minimalism, the work is intended for the audience to be accessible, interesting, entertaining and interactive.