Post 49: "Zero Gravity Pas de Trois"

I am delighted to report my old friend Mary Foshee is on board, and about as excited as I am about choreographing a "Flying Dream Light Dance", or "Zero Gravity pas de Trois" as I am to see it performed wearing the EL suits we make. The key words here are "flying" and "Zero Gravity".

I have known her and admired her work since the early 80's, when she was one of the most creative members and Director of "Southern Danceworks".

We didn't need to talk about the project all that much because we were already on the same wave length: weightlessness, zero gravity. I have had recurrent dreams all my life where I either fly like a bird, or simply levitate. So seeing the Russian video struck a chord very loudly, as did the performance from the student group "Fighting Gravity".

As a dancer and choreographer with more than 35 years of experience, that is basically what Mary has been doing, but in broad daylight or under stage light. The man lifts, the woman flies, but you see them both, the mechanics are exposed so to speak.

The black light and the EL wire suits concepts on the other hand create a very realistic illusion of weightlessness, as the lifters are wearing black suits and are not visible at all in the dark. That is what excited us so much: all you see are the lighter dancers up in the air in impossible poses, leaning, spinning, upside down, levitating, flying.

This is what so many of my dreams have been about since I was a kid! This particular "Zero Gravity Dream Point of Light" really means a lot to me.

Post 48: EL suits and Light Dancing

   Then I ran into a dance video on You Tube done by a Russian group that absolutely blew me away. The dancers wear black suits with EL wire stitched to it, and dance in the dark. The effect is amazing, it is pure magic, check it out for yourself:
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX2TnaZ3LoU&feature=related
 
  A few people have other less sophisticated videos on YouTube, but this is pretty Avant Garde  still, so  I feel it is definitely a MAJOR "Point of Light"  we need to have in our Light Dreams Festival. Nothing could be more fitting: never seen before in Birmingham as far as I know, new technology applied to  dance, an Art Form as old as the world, high entertaining value, a dynamic "Point of Light" next to the static ones, a huge Whaoooo factor...
  Cirque du Soleil uses some similar suits in their Michael Jackson show:

 I have already ordered a full black Zentai suit and 80 ft of EL wire, LED glasses and gloves to make an experimental costume. There are several suppliers of EL wire on the Internet, the best of which seems to be:
                Thatscoolwire.com
   I have also contacted my long time dancer and choreographer friend Mary Foshee, and keep my fingers crossed she gets on board.

Post 47: Discovering EL wire

I was looking into the use of LED lights and LED wire, and in the process ran into that wonderful new invention that is Electro Luminescent Wire:

It comes in various diameters from 1.2 to 5 mm (the 2.3 mm being the best compromise between flexibility and sturdiness),and in a whole range of neon colors. It is powered in AC by a lightweight power inverter fed with AA batteries, that comes in various sizes able to power from 3 ft to as much as 100 ft of EL wire.

I could see one use for our "Light Dream" project right off the bat: glowing wire sculpture. I thought of what Alexander Calder might have done with it, like a whole menagerie of glow in the dark farm animals, or a multi colored blinking circus...
I ordered a 15 ft kit off the Internet to play with, an made a 15" yellow cat that looks pretty neat glowing in the dark:

I used 1/8" aluminum armature wire from the Art Supply to bend a realistic shape based on the photograph of a Sphynx, then bent the EL wire to fit and attached it with tightly wound nylon fishing line.

Now if I could only get a serious Artist interested making a big piece with it...

We could also have a workshop at ARTPLAY and have people make their own stuff, but it would have to be coordinated to make a viable display. A whole zoo could be grazing on the knoll for "LUX SOMNUM"...