Chronotope (noun): “the representation of time and space within the work of art, wherein time thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movement of time, plot, and history.” M.M. Bakhtin
These past two months, Applied Mechanics has been in collaboration with University of the Arts students through a residency program called the Incubator, to create an immersive performance called CHRONOTOPE: ROUGH DRAFT. The mechanicians, joined by Sam Tower (who performed with us in Vainglorious in 2012), are performing and creating with the students to accomplish something Applied Mechanics has never yet attempted: multiple co-existing time periods overlapping in the same immersive space.
The audience is invited into a space in which three different uprisings are unfolding at once. They see the pinafores of women from 1912 participating in the Bread and Roses strike of 1912 in Lawrence, MA. At the same time, citizens of Detroit in the 1967 Rebellion are looting and carousing. Amongst them, protesters of 1999’s WTO summit in Seattle are linking arms, covering their faces to avoid teargas. With over 20 bodies onstage depicting 3 different time periods, the show is as challenging as it is fascinating. The University of the Arts students are rising to this challenge with aplomb, finding resonances between historical events, creating beautiful and precise choreography to tell the stories of ordinary people who stood up to power. Staged in the Hamilton Garden on the roof of the Kimmel Center, the piece can expand to a very large radius, covering the glassed-in expanse that overlooks the city. Philadelphia’s history is rich with popular dissent; it seems only right that it should serve as a backdrop to this performance.
Though the Incubator piece is closed to the public, this phase of CHRONOTOPE is just the beginning of a development process that will continue for the next year or more of our work. Stay tuned.
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