WORKSHARING: MICROGRAVITY

Sparrow Dance is delighted to invite to a sharing of the cross disciplinary artistic research and action performance project MICROGRAVITY

Friday the 18th of November between 1600 – 18:30
Program:
16:00 – 16:15 Artist talk/ presentation of the project
16:20 – 17:40 Open participation in the Action Performance MICROGRAVITY

17:45 – 18:30 Unofficial hangout/ feedback

Dansk tekst her.

IMAGINE..

What if you could hold an astronaut in the palm of your hands and carry it safely to its next mission? What if you could be that astronaut yourself? Traveling to a distant planet or moon? What can our body tell us about space that our mind alone would never

understand? Microgravity is a cross disciplinary research project questioning the evolution of our species on their way to outer space…

SOLUTIONS AND VISIONS..

Microgravity brings together different artistic disciplines and technologies such as XR and Vertical Dance to create immersive choreographies that take place in and out of this world. The only people today that participate in discovery and decision making of the great out there (outerspace) are real astronauts or billionaires that can afford trips to the tip of the earth’s atmosphere. With Microgravity we want to democratize accessibility and development of future technologies and create artistic and fantastical simulations that offer excess to astronaut-like embodied experiences. Our wish is that more people, especially young people, have access to reflect on our future with the wisdom of the body, the senses and the practice of empathy in the forefront of contemplation.

BACKGROUND AND PARTNERSHIP..

Microgravity is initiated by Esther Wrobel the artistic director of Sparrow Dance who began exploring the relation between participatory experience, space travel and vertical dance during her thesis MFA project Tiny Astronauts- Looking for Awe and Wonder finding Curiosity at ‘Den Danske Scenekunstskole’ in 2019-20. Equipped with tools from Vertical Dance and inspired by the book A Neurophenomenology of Awe and Wonder: Towards a Non-Reductionist Cognitive Science (New Directions in Philosophy and Cognitive Science) , Esther created one on one Action Performances that simulate going to two different moons in our solar system and allowing participants for a short time to become astronauts and play with moonlike gravity. The core idea was to activate sensations of awe and wonder. However, the project soon showed the important role of curiosity and imagination for bodily learning, discovery and play. Since then Microgravity has become an official research project, with funding from Statens Kunstfond for a series of curated residencies at Åbne Scene at Godsbanen and was invited to present at the NOFOD choreography conference in July 2022. For the research phase currently happening (Throughout 2021-22) Sparrow Dance has created an artistic and economic partnership with The animation workshop/ Via University college in Viborg; TAW/VIA had integrating Microgravity as a study case under the umbrella of immersive storytelling and is funding Virtual Reality environments hand painted by Michelle Kranot with implementation and development by Khora: Virtual and Augmented Reality Studio. Towards the end of 2022 SpaCe, the scientific center for Space Research of Aarhus University will join as a dialogue partner.

THE TEAM..

Esther Wrobel (Vertical/Dance artist and choreographer)

Michelle Kranot (film director and animator)

Tanya Rydell Montan (dance artist and climate activist)
Lucia Jaen (dance artist and feminist activist)
Yann Coppier (sound artist/composer and researcher)
Dr. Einav Katan- Schmidt (adviser/philosopher and dance researcher) Paula Pena (filmmaker)