transition
April 1, 2017
Stillness and movement were on display during a dance inspired by Rodin.
The interplay of stillness and movement was on display when dance professors Alicia Díaz and Matthew Thornton performed a dance inspired by the Rodin exhibition.
Their choreography began with an intense study of the sculptures on view. They explored the close, sometimes intertwining, bodies, and the ways Rodin distorted their shape and logic. Then, Díaz and Thornton started to move. Sometimes they replicated shapes and forms found in specific sculptures. Sometimes they simply tried to capture an essence, a spirit.
“It humanizes the sculptures in some way,” Díaz says. “The taking it off the pedestal, the changing of the scale, the constant play with movement.”
“The sculptures aren’t positioned as if they’re sitting and waiting for their image to be recorded. They’re in transition, and Rodin just happened to catch that moment. A lot of art elicits that part of the imagination, of what came before and what happens afterward."
Their choreography began with an intense study of the sculptures on view. They explored the close, sometimes intertwining, bodies, and the ways Rodin distorted their shape and logic. Then, Díaz and Thornton started to move. Sometimes they replicated shapes and forms found in specific sculptures. Sometimes they simply tried to capture an essence, a spirit.
“It humanizes the sculptures in some way,” Díaz says. “The taking it off the pedestal, the changing of the scale, the constant play with movement.”
“The sculptures aren’t positioned as if they’re sitting and waiting for their image to be recorded. They’re in transition, and Rodin just happened to catch that moment. A lot of art elicits that part of the imagination, of what came before and what happens afterward."