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Dance of the Auroras - Fire in the Sky Part I: The Sun / Virtual Sun
Concept/Choreographer: Maida Withers
Photo by: Adam Peiperl
Background: Cyberworld by Tania Fraga, Brazil
Photo of: Joseph Mills, Maida Withers Dance Construction Company
Artist's Statement
Withers has created a significant and distinctive body of work for Maida Withers Dance Construction Company, over 75 dances of breadth and vision involving a process of experimentation, innovation and collaboration. Her choreography includes works for stage, video, film, and site-specific performances. Many of her stage works feature science, technology, and new media. Music is always commissioned and performed live. Projects are often epochal in nature and involve extensive periods of research and investigation often requiring international travel.
Her most recent work, Dance of the Auroras - Fire in the Sky, explores the relationship of science, technology and the arts, through an evening-length work in four parts: Part I: The Sun / Virtual Sun; Part II: Solar Wind towards Magnetosphere; Part III: Magnetic Storm Seen from Above; Part IV: View from the Earth. This poetic journey through space uses real-time interaction (dancers using the wireless mouse on stage manipulate and control projected images) with cyber worlds, movies, and images of the sun and the aurora seen as natural phenomena. In addition to the stage performance, representatives from NASA and ESA joined with the company for a performance at the Smithsonian Einstein Planetarium.
Withers most recent work, Maida on Maida in the Universe, is a one-woman show juxtaposing Withers life's work and the latest theories of the origin and demise of the universe, using images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The intersections between art, science and technology and our place in the universe are explored in this interactive, multimedia performance.
Artist's Bio
Maida Withers, choreographer, dancer, videographer, is Founder and Artistic Director of Maida Withers Dance Construction Company of Washington, DC (1974). Withers is a Columbian Professor (distinguished professor) of Dance in The Department of Theatre and Dance at The George Washington University. Withers has been a leading figure in dance in Washington, DC since the 1970s. She has been presented in all of the major houses, including the Kennedy Center, Lisner Auditorium, Warner Theatre, Dance Place, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian, Washington Project for the Arts, and has been presented by Washington Performing Arts Society, District Curators, and others. Withers' video art works have been exhibited in Europe at the IMZ, at AFI, Kennedy Center for Women in Film, DC Environmental Film Festival, others. Withers and the Company have toured in Norway, Russia, Brazil, Venezuela, Poland, and France, The Netherlands, Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Hong Kong and China, Mexico, Guatemala, and Germany. Withers produces the DC International Improvisation Plus+ Festival of music and dance annually since 1995.
Maida Withers
800 Twenty-first Street NW, Suite 220
Washington, DC 20052
Email: m.withers@verizon.net
Telephone: 202-994-0739; Fax: 202-994-9403
http://www.maidadance.com
Dance of the Auroras - Fire in the Sky Part II: Solar Wind towards Magnetosphere
Concept/Choreographer: Maida Withers
Photo by: Linda Lewett
Background: Cyberworld by Tania Fraga, Brazil
Photo of: Kannon Dance Company, St. Petersburg, Russia
Maida on Maida in the Universe
Concept/Choreographer/Dancer: Maida Withers
Photo by: Adam Peiperl
Background: NASA Hubble Image
Photo of: Maida Withers
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