Multimedia Work by Local Artists Screened in Italy
GREAT BARRINGTON - Bard College at Simon's Rock faculty members and other local artists presented their work in Florence, Italy, on March 14.Wendy Shifrin, John Myers, artistic director of Crescendo Christine Gevert and Juliet Mattila, translator and writer for Crescendo, presented their collaborative work on a multi-arts performance of Hugo Distler's "Totentanz" (Dance of Death).
The presentation took place at the 14th international conference of the Europaeischen Totentanz-Vereinigung, held at the Max Planck Institute, where scholars from the arts and humanities explored the theme of mortality as expressed in the arts and literature, from medieval times to contemporary culture.
Conceived by conductor Christine Gevert, it was the first digital multimedia performance of the work by Distler, a young German composer who, after being persecuted by the Nazi regime, took his own life in 1942. The composition, written in 1935, was inspired by the famous "Totentanz" mural, a late medieval/early Renaissance panoramic painting, which was destroyed in 1942.
In conjunction with the Crescendo chorus performance, Shifrin choreographed and coordinated a performance with dancers, while Myers and his partner, Alice Myers, a visual artist, used digital technology to create full-color animations based on their research, including black-and-white photographs that had been taken before the mural was destroyed.
The performances by Simon's Rock students, faculty and staff members, along with 50 singers, 12 narrators/actors, and other participants from Crescendo, an arts organization based in Connecticut, were held in Great Barrington and Lime Rock, Conn., on Nov. 9 and 10. The production led to the invitation to the European conference. For the Florence screening, the Myers created a DVD that combines video of the November performance with Alice's images and full-screen animation.
Shifrin is a Simon’s Rock faculty member in the divisions of dance and women's studies. Her areas of interest include choreography, improvisation, dance aesthetics, and creative writing. She studied at the University of Michigan and New York University and taught at the New School for Social Research in New York and the Nancy Meehan School of Dance in New York City.
John Myers, musician and ethnomusicologist, and Alice Myers often collaborate on mixed-media projects. John Myers is a faculty member in the fields of music, interactive arts and Asian studies. He received his doctorate in ethnomusicology from the University of Maryland at Baltimore. His CD "Look In," released in 2004, features his original jazz compositions and performances on classical and electric guitars, clarinet, and electronic instruments.
In 2003, working with Alice Myers and Swiss artist Etienne Delessert, he created a series of wide-screen digital animations for live performances by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. They also created an interactive DVD computer-based installation for an exhibit at the Visual Arts Museum of the School for Visual Arts in New York, and a cross-platform CD-ROM, "Tabla-A Journey into Eastern Percussion," exploring rhythmic techniques and form in the classical music of North India.
