The Loving Project: E-Race

Upcoming Performances

2010-03-25T19:32:00.000-07:00

The Loving Project: E-Race

June 11-13 & 18-20, 2010 at Joe's Movement Emporium

Wed, June 16, 2010 at Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage

For details: http://www.danceboxtheater.org

Created and performed by Laura Schandelmeier & Stephen Clapp, The Loving Project: E-Race is performed with Ilana Faye Silverstein, Mervin Primeaux, Mercia Freeman, and installation artist Lorne Covington.

The Loving Project: E-Race reflects Schandelmeier & Clapp's responses to the intersections between racism and the highly charged debate around same sex marriage. The work also features a virtual environment created by installation artist Lorne Covington in which the music and movement effect the projected visuals. The work is a dance/theater/music performance that explores interracial marriages and nontraditional partnerships through historical and present-day perspectives.

This timely and relevant work offers reflections on racism, sexism, and gender bias, and highlights aspects of union that make partnership between "unlikely" couples viable (and desirable) despite an adverse status quo. The work weaves together a tapestry of stories that include: the case of Loving vs. Virginia, which in 1967 overturned the law against interracial marriage in Virginia; the marriage between Russian Inventor Leon Theremin and dancer with the American Negro Ballet, Lavinia Williams; and the case of Beth and Terence Humphrey-McKay, an interracial couple who in October 2009 were denied a marriage license from a Justice of the Peace in the State of Louisiana. Schandelmeier & Clapp's fifth evening length work, The Loving Project: E-Race celebrates distinctive partnerships and the rare gifts they bring to the world.

The Loving Project: E-Race is in its second phase of development. In October 2009, Dance Box Theater premiered the work at Dance Place in Washington, DC. The piece will be re-developed by adding contextual and structural changes as well as the creation of new sections. We have been in dialogue with the Humphrey-McKay's and have their permission to include their story and perspectives in the content of the work. This next phase of The Loving Project: E-Race will re-define the performers' spatial relations to include [for the performances at Joe's Movement Emporium] a thrust stage with audience on three sides, offering a multi-dimensional perspective to the movement vocabulary and subject matter both literally and figuratively. An additional element for this phase of the work is created in partnership with installation artist Lorne Covington. Covington has created a dynamic, interactive environment that uses specialized video cameras to analyze the dancers' positions, speeds and gestures. This movement analysis translates the movement into electronic data which dictates video projection on the stage.

As part of an extended residency with Joe's Movement Emporium, Dance Box Theater will engage with teens enrolled in Joe's apprenticeship program through a creative workshop that explores curricula addressing the issues brought forth in the work. Performances will include post-performance dialogue with the artists in order to initiate a platform for discussion and stories around issues addressed through the work.

The premier performance of The Loving Project: E-Race at Dance Place in October 2009 was created with Peter DiMuro, Ilana Faye Silverstein, and Ken Yamaguchi-Clark. The performance was also ASL interpreted by Marcia Freeman and included the fall 2009 Dance Place repertory performers: Michelle Anthony, Christine Curella, Heather Doyle, Jill Newman, Stacy Paull, Maria Tripodi and Pamela Williams.

Wtf?

2009-10-16T15:18:00.001-07:00

Okay, wtf? I thought denial of interracial marriages was a historical issue? I am baffled by a Louisiana Judge's recent denial of a marriage license to an interracial couple? Join us next weekend... Oct 24 & 25 at Dance Place for a timely, relevant and dynamic dance theater performance exploring intersections between racism, interracial marriage and the highly charged debate surrounding the rights of same sex partners.

The Loving Project: E-Race premiers at Dance Place
October 24 & 25, 2009

For more information, visit: http://www.danceplace.org

2009-10-10T17:28:00.000-07:00

Q: How has D.O.M.A. (Defense of Marriage Act) affected you?

The Loving Project: E-Race

2009-10-08T18:38:00.000-07:00

photo by R.C. Schandelmeier

Created and performed by Laura Schandelmeier and Stephen Clapp with Ilana Faye Silverstein, Peter DiMuro and Ken Yamaguchi-Clark with Dance Place repertory performers Michelle Anthony, Christine Curella, Heather Doyle, Jill Newman, Stacy Paull, Maria Tripodi, and Pamela Williams.

All performances will be ASL interpreted by Marcia Freeman.

Saturday, October 24, 2009 @ 8:00pm

Sunday, October 25, 2009 @ 7:00pm

Dance Place
3225 8th Street, NE
Washington, DC 20017

Tickets: $8-$22
By telephone: (202) 269-1600
Online: www.danceplace.org

THE LOVING PROJECT: E-RACE is an interactive dance theater performance that will enliven imagination, challenge assumptions, and invite audience input.

Created and performed by Laura Schandelmeier & Stephen Clapp in collaboration with Peter DiMuro, Ilana Faye Silverstein, Ken Yamaguchi-Clark and Dance Place repertory performers Michelle Anthony, Christine Curella, Heather Doyle, Jill Newman, Stacy Paull, Maria Trapodi and Pamela Williams. The Loving Project: E-Race is an interactive dance theater performance that explores interracial marriages and nontraditional partnerships through historical and present-day perspectives.

Through performance, audience interaction, and community partnership, The Loving Project: E-Race reflects upon social issues including racism, sexism and gender bias and uncovers aspects of partnership that make union across cultural boundaries viable. The work weaves together a tapestry of stories that include: the case of Loving vs. Virginia, which in 1967 overturned the law against interracial marriage in Virginia; the marriage between Russian Inventor Léon Theremin and dancer with the American Negro Ballet, Lavinia Williams; and the controversial Defense of Marriage Act which was signed into federal law in 1996 and hinders rights to same sex partners nationally. Schandelmeier & Clapp's fifth evening length work, The Loving Project: E-Racecelebrates distinctive partnerships and the rare gifts they bring to the world.

As citizens of the United States sharing an interracial partnership with the benefit of legal marriage, Schandelmeier & Clapp often find themselves at the center of a contemporary dialogue about race, gender privilege, class ethnography, social dogma and political discourse. As a duet performance ensemble, they find respite from the challenges and tensions of this dialogue through the development of creative works that reflect their responses to these issues and invite a deeper exchange of ideas towards community transformation and cultural understanding. In today’s climate of global financial uncertainty, environmental crises, protracted warfare -- and hope for systemic positive social change, Schandelmeier & Clapp see creative collaboration as a critical source of understanding across (perceived and actual) cultural, ethnic, economic and civic boundaries. It is this collaborative process that has brought the duo through the development of five evening-length performance works over the past six years. Through in-depth research, creative exploration, ensemble development, community participation, movement discovery, and peer feedback, Schandelmeier & Clapp are building upon their creative and life partnership and experiences in a context of contemporary society and culturally accepted (and unaccepted) behaviors.

For more information, please visit us at http://www.dancenow.org

Welcome!

2009-10-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

Thanks for visiting! Please feel free to comment on or respond to the performance of The Loving Project: E-Race at Dance Place on October 24 & 25, 2009...