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TESSERACT
CHARLES ATLAS
Choregraphy : Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener
Exhibition world premiere
Opening 12 April from 6 p.m.
13 April – 23 July 2017
5th floor - Panorama
Friche la Belle de Mai
41, rue Jobin
13003 Marseille
Presented by Triangle France, in partnership with marseille objectif DansE
Commissioned and produced by Victoria Brooks, EMPAC/Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Co-commissed by Triangle France.
Curated by Céline Kopp
With support from SCIC Friche la Belle de Mai, and [MAC] Musée d’Art Contemporain de la Ville de Marseille.
Triangle France and Marseille Objectif DansE are pleased to announce the world premiere exhibition of Charles Atlas’s new work TESSERACT o. His first ‘dance-video’ in over a decade, this radical stereoscopic 3D video results from several years of development, collaboration, and intense artistic and technical research and production at EMPAC, Troy, NY.
A tesseract is a shape that inhabits four dimensions, which, as people of a three-dimensional world, we cannot fully visualize. We can read about hyperspace from science fiction stories or about four-dimensional space-time in physics publications, but what about experiencing it? As an extra-dimensional geometry regularly referred to in the cultural spheres of literature and film, the tesseract, from which Charles Atlas’s unearthly aesthetic tour de force takes its title, embodies the expansion of the human imagination into higher dimensions.
A six-chapter work of science fiction, TESSERACT o traverses a series of hybrid and imagined worlds. Each environment combines a specific set, choreography, and camera motion to encompass pas de deux and ensemble pieces, choreographed and performed by former Merce Cunningham dancers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener. Filmed with a mobile camera rig that moves with the choreography, the raw footage was digitally manipulated by Charles Atlas to combine animation and distinctive video effects that reach through otherworldly dimensions beyond the theatrical and cinematic realm. World renowned for his textural “glitch” music aesthetic, Austrian musician Fenesz composed the score of TESSERACT o. For this exhibition premiere at Triangle, Atlas architecturally mirrors the extra-dimensionality revealed by the image by transforming the gallery space with a monumental, geometric sculptural
screen that places the viewer at the center of the artwork.
A consistent pioneer of the synthesis of technology and performance, Charles Atlas has worked at the intersection of the moving image, visual art, and choreography for over four decades. Since his first collaborations with choreographer Merce Cunningham in the 1970s, Atlas’s moving image work has been seminal in defining a vivid cinematic language for articulating dance on screen and deliberately eschews the documentary model of dance films through an active, mobile camera that mediates our experience of movement in space. In his videos, the camera is not just witness but also dancer, creating an image wholly inseparable from the dance it records.
Brooklyn-based choreographers Silas Riener and Rashaun Mitchell are driven by the potential of choreography to reach beyond the limits of its inherent language. Their collaborative work revels in the possibilities of the highly articulated dancing body where current and historical influences and aesthetic forms are collapsed into a hybrid physical and visually charged language.
BIOGRAPHIES
Charles Atlas was born in St. Louis, MO in 1949; he has lived and worked in New York City since the early 1970s. His work has been exhibited domestically and internationally in such institutions as Tate Modern, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Recent solo exhibitions include The Contemporary Austin; the New Museum, New York; the De Hallen, Haarlem; and Bloomberg SPACE, London. In 2013, The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired his video Teach, one of his best-known collaborations with Leigh Bowery. In January 2015, Prestel Publishing released Charles Atlas, the first major publication on Atlas’ work, featuring writings by Stuart Comer, Douglas Crimp, Douglas Dunn, Johanna Fateman, and Lia Gangitano.
Since 2010 Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener have created dance in response to complex and active spatial environments, often merging elements of fantasy, absurdity, and quiet contemplation. Their collaborative work revels in the possibilities of the highly articulated dancing body where current and historical influences and aesthetic forms are collapsed into a hybrid physical and visually charged language. Their work takes many forms, from site-specific installations, improvisational dances, traditional proscenium pieces, to highly crafted immersive experiences. Together they have been part of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Extended Life program, City Center Choreography Fellows, and have been artists-in-residence at EMPAC, Mount Tremper, Wellesley College, Jacob’s Pillow, and Pieter LA. Their work has been presented at MoMa PS1 as part of Greater NY, The Chocolate Factory, New York Live Arts, Danspace Project, the Vail International Dance Festival, REDCAT, ICA Boston, and the O Miami Poetry Festival.
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Credits
TESSERACT is a two parts work: TESSERACT o, a stereoscopic 3D film, and TESSERACT O, a performance superimposing the space of dance with live cinematic production.
TESSERACT o was commissioned and produced by EMPAC/Experimental Media and Performing Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and co-commissioned with Triangle France, Marseille. The world premiere exhibition of TESSERACT o will be presented at Triangle France in
Marseille on April 12, 2017, curated by Céline Kopp. This exhibition is made possible by a partnership between Triangle France and Marseille Objectif DansE, as well as support from [MAC] Musée d’Art Contemporain de la Ville de Marseille, and SCIC Friche la Belle de Mai.
TESSERACT O was commissioned and produced by EMPAC and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and co-commissioned by MCA Chicago and On the Boards Festival, Seattle. TESSERACT O is supported by NEFA National Dance Project award. The premiere of TESSERACT O will be presented at Walker Art Center on March 21, 2017.
Charles Atlas, TESSERACT, 2016. Choregraphy: Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener. Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine Gallery. Photo credit Mike Bello
Charles Atlas, TESSERACT, 2016. Choregraphy: Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener. Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine Gallery. Photo credit Mike Bello
Charles Atlas, TESSERACT, 2016. Choregraphy: Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener. Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine Gallery. Photo credit Mike Bello
Charles Atlas, TESSERACT, 2016. Choregraphy: Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener. Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine Gallery. Photo credit Mike Bello
Charles Atlas, TESSERACT, 2016. Choregraphy: Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener. Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine Gallery. Photo credit Mike Bello