POETIC SPACE ODYSSEY
DANCE, MUSIC, VISUAL PRESENTATION
REAL TIME INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA PERFORMANCE

Dance of the Auroras, an evening-length work of dance, music, and visual presentation, is a groundbreaking poetic voyage in space from theSun through Earth’s auroras, the mystic luminaries of the arctic and Antarctic skies also known as the northern and southern lights. In it’s vision, Dance of the Auroras reclaims the connections between science and art, between technology andthe natural world. This eloquent and innovative performance draws its audience into a ritual both ancient and new.  Dancers using the wireless mouse alter and manipulate, real time, large-scale projected cyber worlds. Movies and images of the Sun and the Earth’s auroras from orbiting spacecraft and special ground-based cameras are featured along with music performed “live.” Dance of the Auroras premiered at The Northern Lights Festival inTromsö, Norway, January 27, 2001 and in Washington, DC at Lisner,a 1500 seat theatre, on February 15 and 16, 2001.

INTERNATIONAL CAST
Maida Withers (USA) - Concept/Director/Choreographer
Tania Fraga (Brazil) - Interactive Cyber World Artist
Øystein Sevåg (Norway) - Composer 
Dancer Construction Company - Adrienne Clancy, Lyndsey Karr, Joseph Mills, Lauren Sharp, Maida Withers (USA); Sasha Kukin (Russia), Iwona Olszowska (Poland)
The Global House Band (Norway) - Maria Sevåg -Violin/ Viola, Zotora Nygård – Didgeridoo, Elin Ødegård - Keyboard/Vocals, Ole Marius Melhuus - Bass Guitar, Rune Arnesen - Drums/Percussion, Øystein Sevåg - Piano/Keyboard
Linda Lewett (USA) - Video (see video clip for excerpt)

DIRECTOR'S NOTES
“For thousands of years, the northern lights have piqued man’s imagination, leading to stories, myths and pictorial art to explain their mysteries.  Beyond superstition, culture, mysticism and religious beliefs lie the explanations provided by research and science.”

It was 1996 when work first began on the idea of creating a multidimensional performance work connected to Earth’s auroras. The mystic luminaries of the arctic and antarctic skies seemed perfect for the exploration of issues related to science, art, and technology, a place where nature,science, and art seemed like natural partners.  For the previous seven years, focus had been directed at the spirit of the earth and at the transformation of human consciousness into a global awareness and our collective responsibility for the state of the planet.  It was time to expand outward, not to leave the Earth, but to head skyward to explore our emergence as space creatures.  What better place than the large-scale sky paintings, Earth’s auroras.

Exhaustive, perhaps exotic, research has taken me to various arctic locations to meet and explore issues with some of the finest scientists, technologists, and artists engaged in research related to the aurora borealis and aurora australis, the northern and southern lights.  The project has developed as access through the Internet has escalated.  Two or three references on the Internet five years ago have burgeoned to include instant downloading of images of the activities of the Sun and daily warnings about coronal mass ejections that will eventually bombard the earth. Beyond communications and dissemination lie the challenges that these resources present for the expansion of human consciousness, for the creative potential of new relationships between humans and their natural environment. As computers transform our minds, travel into the unknown begins, a journey for our digital minds, the creation of a new mythology.  Another voyage taken without asking why, but how!

Maida Withers