EKHO
Portland Ballet Theater, Portland, OR
2012
-
Inspired by the Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus, Ekho was a ballet production made in collaboration with Christopher Stowell, choreographer and director of Oregon Ballet Theater. Ekho premiered October 13-20, 2012 at the Keller Auditorium in Portland, OR. Fourteen suspended vertical forms made of perforated Tyvek fabric set the stage. The forms varied from 3 feet to 6 feet in diameter and telescoped vertically as high as 24 feet. As the dancers crossed the stage, the forms rose intermittently above them, and dropped intermittently to the ground plane. During the ballet, dancers performed amongst and inside the spinning, perforated forms. (The forms were spinning from the movement of air on stage and lit from within by integrated LED lights). In the final scene, each form gradually descended to the stage floor, slowly encompassed a dancer then collapsed, encasing the dancers in abstract white mounds.
EKHO
Portland Ballet Theater, Portland, OR
2012
Inspired by the Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus, Ekho was a ballet production made in collaboration with Christopher Stowell, choreographer and director of Oregon Ballet Theater. Ekho premiered October 13-20, 2012 at the Keller Auditorium in Portland, OR. Fourteen suspended vertical forms made of perforated Tyvek fabric set the stage. The forms varied from 3 feet to 6 feet in diameter and telescoped vertically as high as 24 feet. As the dancers crossed the stage, the forms rose intermittently above them, and dropped intermittently to the ground plane. During the ballet, dancers performed amongst and inside the spinning, perforated forms. (The forms were spinning from the movement of air on stage and lit from within by integrated LED lights). In the final scene, each form gradually descended to the stage floor, slowly encompassed a dancer then collapsed, encasing the dancers in abstract white mounds.
Fabricating the perforated fabric forms was accomplished in a manner similar to the way the Elephant Bed sculptures were created. Wood jigs were built to guide volunteers to score and fold precut sections into uniform tapering rings. Instead of manually cutting the shapes, as with the Elephant Bed, these shapes were laser cut (along with thin horizontal plywood rings instead of the corn-based plastic rings of the Elephant Bed). Strands of LED lights were integrated into the interiors of the forms with power lines running up through the top support lines of the sculptures.
PROCESS