Touring Prospecuts and Press Kits:
To view our complete prospectus detailing current touring repertory, lectures and workshops, as well as our complete press kit, please visit: www.double-vision.biz/press.html.
What people are saying about DOUBLE VISION:
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"an enchanting evening of dance, video, and
aural delight"
San Francisco Bay Guardian
"...an exciting new addition to the Bay Area arts scene."
IN DANCE, Dancers Group
Newsletter
"...exhilarating, funny, challenging, complex, beautiful. Un-conventional and experimental, just the way modern dance should be."
Yelp
"a pinnacle example of the crossover of modern dance with audio/visual
components… DOUBLE VISION's innovative routine…allowed us to be a part
of a new and evolving style of art."
Hilary Burke, Producer – Meaning
in the 21st Century
"The most remarkable aspect of 13 Dreams of a Dying Clairvoyant,
presented by the experimental multi-media performance group DOUBLE
VISION…is the unity of vision among its teeming cast"
IN DANCE, Dancers Group
Newsletter
"DOUBLE VISION Artistic Director Pauline Jennings...recently premiered
a captivating piece, ...As if by Falling, at CounterPULSE in which the
five dancers conveyed a startling connection without ever touching at
all. Unfettered from the sense that there was something "to get,"
the viewer's mind was free to drift among associations, the dancers
evoking now a flock of birds, now an ocean current, now a windstorm
gathering force."
IN DANCE, Dancers Group
Newsletter
"Directed by Sean Clute and Pauline Jennings, DOUBLE VISION's artists
forged a balance between unity, complexity and chaos as visitors roamed
freely through an environment of performance, dance, music, video and
technology."
ArtsEXTRA
"It is my hope that more people who are artists as well as those
who have no background in art or dance have the opportunity to view the
work of DOUBLE VISION."
Hilary Burke, Producer –
Meaning in the 21st Century
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April 2007 In Dance Article:
DOUBLE VISION: To Futurism and Back Again
Sean Clute & Pauline Jennings
If you dare visit our apartment in Oakland, CA you will undoubtedly
have to watch your step. Inside is a mess of cables, hard drives,
computer parts, Pilates balls, yoga mats, and bowls of leftover oatmeal
covering the floor. Besides our hodgepodge of tools for creative
use there is no furniture or decoration. The one exception can be
found on the kitchen wall where hangs an enigmatic black and white
photograph of two men dancing in robot tin-can outfits. Until a
month ago, we knew very little of the image’s history, meaning, or
impact the dancing robot people would have on our intermedia group
DOUBLE VISION. Now, the past and future seem to converge as we
look for our missing VGA adaptor.
After investigating the photograph, we discovered that it was from a
1924 Futurist dance by F.T. Marinetti entitled Macchina del 3000,
or quite possibly later called The Love of Two Locomotives for the
Station Master (1925). While researching this dance, the
Italian Futurists, and their vision of a world during the birth of
film, airplanes and automobiles, it became clear that the past and
present share many artistic similarities. Over a century ago
Marinetti declared, "Time and space died yesterday." Today
through the utilization of technologies and scientific theories in
performance, it is becoming easier to see how his declaration can fully
come to life.
DOUBLE VISION's interest is not in dance alone. Rather, we are
concerned with contemporary culture as it ebbs and flows. The
group, founded in 2003, has created a large collection of choreography,
events, video, music, and other works glued together by an urge to
live, experience and express the now. However, it is through
dance that we are able to brush closely against one of our favorite
subjects: what it is to be human. The definition and redefinition
of human-ness seems to be shifting at an increasing rate. Are we
still understood to be like the corpses Leonardo da Vinci dissected
hundreds of years ago? Would a modern day painter express the
anatomical depiction of an arm without consulting the Google image
database first?
The Futurists' tin can robot dancers worked for their time.
Artists then observed a shift in what it meant to be human in a society
becoming intertwined with the machine. From these observations,
some Futurists created sintesi (short works for stage) that
attempted to map the motion of pulleys, cogwheels, cranks, and shafts
onto the dancers through stylized, machine-like movements. For
example, in Giacomo Balla's 1914 work Macchina Tipografica,
twelve performers depicted wheels and pistons of the printing press
through repetitive arm movements. Today, the task of mapping the
machine to the stage presents a different challenge. How does one
translate the movement of electrons, assembly language and cyberspace
into dance? Unlike the machines of the Futurists' time, the
complexity embedded in current technology has vastly increased, while
becoming more transparent. To our naked eye, the path of a
million simultaneous neurons is perplexing when trying to realize them
on six dancers at a Wednesday night rehearsal.
However, our goal is not merely to map codes and algorithms into a
dance, but to illuminate their meaning. Humans may line up to get
medical upgrades, to design their children, to outlast the norm, but
what does this progress imply about ourselves? Questions such as
these occupy our artistic brains while working day jobs and replying to
emails.
As co-artistic directors we usually share the same concepts, beliefs,
and intuitions about our work. It is during the manifestation of
the work that we don’t always see eye to eye. For example, while
creating our new work Three Canons and Mise en Scénes it
became apparent that the choreography implied different meanings for
both of us. While one of us saw the dancers fighting for physical
control, the other perceived the dancers exhibiting total
control. The root of the discrepancy is that we were both trying
to depict an age that is in a constant state of becoming. The
time of the cogwheel is long dead.
True to the age we live in, DOUBLE VISION is constantly upgrading,
adapting, and moving. We accept the fact that we don’t really
know what will come next but strive to move forward, regardless.
Along the journey, we may find evidence of who we are as artists,
dancers, music-makers or humans. Just as the photograph of the
Futurists' metal-clad dancers reminds us of who we were, we too will
leave artifacts along the way depicting who we have become.
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Reviews:
Technology Focus of Moving Meditations - Dance
Review
Jennifer Noyer
Albuquerque Journal
Sunday, June 3, 2007
The Wild Dancing West contemporary dance festival ends this weekend at
the North Fourth Art Center with Double Vision, from San Francisco.
Led by artistic directors Sean Clute and Pauline Jennings, Double
Vision is a
group of dancers, musicians, video artists and performers who explore
and
reinterpret Futurist ideas, creating a bridge through choreography
between the
human effects of earlier technology and the complex technology of
today. The
results were full of humor, some stunning dance and video imagery, and
a few
quite frightening effects.
The first half of the program focused on Italian Futurist concepts from
the
first decades of the 20th century, when new mechanical technologies
were
changing the world. Accepted ideas about time and space changed
rapidly. In
1924 choreographer F.T. Marinetti said that "time and space died
yesterday."
Marinetti's "Machina del 3000/The Love of Two Locomotives for the
Station Master" was humorously reconceived by Jennings and Clute. A
Chaplinesque little man, danced by Tiffany Barbarash, waited for the
train with
his suitcase. When two robotic figures entered as humanized locomotive
engines,
they began a courtship with the little man. Barbarash achieved
exaggerated
comic macho gestures as she flexed muscles, did quick push-ups, and
escaped.
Futurists created short works for the stage to describe the motions of
machinery on dancers. Clute created short videos of a fast-forward
mechanical
bull, and a bowling scene where movement dissolved into repeated lines,
or just
repeated actions back and forth in time.
"Machina Typografica," originally by Giacomo Balla, described the
motions
of a printing press in 1914 with 12 dancers in two rows using
repetitive pushing
and turning arm gestures.
"As If By Falling" was choreographed by Jennings for six dancers,
designed
with clear phrasing and formal development imposed on Clute's
electronic
sound environment. The dance opened and closed in a diagonal line from
upstage right to downstage left. The dancers developed spatial designs
from that
line with sharp, angular gestures and fast directional changes.
Occasionally, a
figure would melt into a slower, curved shape, breaking the pace of
machinelike
movement. At one point, a figure appeared as a victim, crucified in
space. The
sound score gave no hints of phrasing or meter, but dancers picked up
invisible
clues, returning to finely constructed and sharply performed unison
movement.
"Video Action Painting," a technological marvel by Clute, created a
Monty
Python-styled cartoon on stage, with the artist's hand designs
projected, in the
moment, on a video screen. It incorporated scenes from a bar with
domestic
scenes and voyaged from a small town to the west coast over a map, and
through time, from horse-and-buggy to automobiles. I'd have to see this
several
times to really get with it, but it was amazing to watch.
The last dance on the program was both beautiful and frightening.
Jennings'
"Three Canons and Mise en Scenes (2007)" was performed to another
electronic score by Clute. The first canon opened with rigid, doll-like
dancers
moving as though controlled by unseen forces. They would hit poses,
then melt
into new movement variations. Musical excerpts from Tchaikovsky's
Symphony
No. 5 evolved within the score, increasing in volume, or completely
disappearing
in the third canon as the dancers transformed their movement into more
classical lines and shapes. Here the lighting design became the
dominant emotive
factor. Ben Coolik was able to dissolve solid matter in front of the
audience's
eyes as figures were broken up visually into light fragments, like
pixels, finally
disappearing in darkness. Can technology wipe us all out? Wipe out art?
It was
worth thinking about and amazing to watch.
DOUBLE VISION creates an ironic gallery of
interactive scnarios at CELLspace
Jamie Windborne
Editor
Arts Extra!
Sunday, June 4, 2006
MISSION DISTRICT — The CELLspace gallery
opened into a galactic playground of the imagination where the doorway
to a collaborative art group's performance created an
electro-wonderland of socio-political proportions. A spontaneous
combustion of colliding performances, including cheerleaders racing
against themselves through space and time, cowboys and angels roping
viewers into a hit-and-run hoedown, and a stranded scientist seeking
exile from his lunar setting, redefined performance art into an ironic
gallery of interactive scenarios.
Hosted at CELLspace on Friday, May 26, Double Vision's "Evolutionary
Patterns and the Lonely Owl (Mutation #2)" created a performance
experience for both artist and observer that allowed the audience to
roam freely to explore multiple layers of performances, environments,
and installations.
Directed by Sean Clute and Pauline Jennings, Double Vision's artists
forged a balance between unity, complexity, and chaos as visitors
roamed freely through an environment of performance, dance, music,
video and technology. Jennings, co-director of Double Vision, explained
that the collaboration wanted to foster an environment where no
discussion is required, only the creation of a shared performance.
"The interesting thing that happens, is that even when interaction
between the various pieces is not planned, it naturally occurs," she
said. "Just as a pedestrian walking down the street may be influenced
by a horn honking or a pigeon crossing it's path, whether the horn
interrupts their thoughts or changes their mood and the pigeon changes
their path, all performers (and attendees) at these events undergo
similar experiences constantly as light, sound and physical space
changes."
In Jennings's interactive piece, "Ample Autonomous Accumulators", which
includes performance artists Wendy Marrinaccio and Cecelia Peterson,
three dancers race against time, space, memory and each other. The
performers encourage audience members to place wagers, follow the
scorecard and attempt to impede or help the performers, in what Pauline
describes as "the tension of overall competition of trying to
co-exist."
Artist Jason B. Jones played Dr. Stranded, who communicated with
visitors from inside an inflatable moon with lights and body gestures.
Jones said that the theme of isolation was used to have very intimate
contact with people where freedom and a barrier simultaneously exist.
"We can have close contact but less interaction with each other," he
said. "You can get very close to people, but still be very distant from
them. It's about isolation, but how you communicate through that and
make a connection."
Other performance works and installations featured constructions by
Marielle Amrhein, Steven Baudonnet, Matt Bell, Liz Bootz, Sean Clute,
Amanda Crawford, Brian Enright, Simran Gleason, Jammin' Ammon, Ron
Goldin, Jessica Gomula, Elisabeth Kohnke, Chris Kruzic, Amy Leonards,
Michelle K. Lynch, Amy Nielson, Tim Thompson, Bill Wolter, and Nicole
Zvarik.
One of Lonely Owl's production goals is to create an ensemble of
artists interested in blurring the boundaries between their different
media, according to Jennings. "Each mutation of the series has granted
more control to the artist, and less to a centralized authority and
more freedom to choose the level of interactivity they desire," she
said.
Disembodied Head No. 2 and 3
Hilary Burke
Producer
The Meaning of the 21st Century
This past year, Double Vision performed their post-modern
audio-visual performance piece Disembodied Head for the
documentary series The Meaning of
the 21st Century, which is currently in production and is
scheduled to air in September 2005 on PBS....
...Disembodied Head is a pinnacle example of the crossover of
modern dance with audio/visual components. This demonstrates the
parallel movements in art with technology. Technology has become such
an embedded aspect of today's society and now art is being transformed
by this same technology. Disembodied Head became the visual
complement to Dr. Shlain's discussion....Double Vision's innovative
routine and mix of audio/visual techniques was exactly what we wanted
to apply to the interview to achieve a cutting-edge documentary never
seen before on television.
It is my hope that more people who are artists as well as those who
have no background in art or dance have the opportunity to view the
work of Double Vision. Their enthusiasm and interest in our project not
only raised the bar for our production, but also allowed us to be a
part of a new and evolving style of art.
"13 Dreams of a Dying Clairvoyant"
The Oakland Metro
Oct. 29, 2004
By Bonner Odell
Seven choreographers, five video artists, ten musical
composers, and over 40 performers in one night. Any would-be viewer
might well ask how much unity such an evening of multi-media
extravagance could achieve. Surprisingly, the answer is a lot.
The most remarkable aspect of "13 Dreams of a Dying Clairvoyant,"
presented by the experimental multi-media performance group Double
Vision at the Oakland Metro on Friday, Oct. 29th is the unity of vision
among its teeming cast. That and the on-going nature of the three
hour-plus performance, which bled seamlessly from dance performance to
band appearance to video projection in repeating cycles, leaving the
audience to wonder how the performers kept track of what came next.
The ringmaster of this dark circus was the Clairvoyant himself, a
shiftless bandit-eyed character dressed in a tuxedo, red gloves, and
red shoes who wandered around the performance space in a seeming effort
to both evoke and escape the unfolding of the 13 dreams which made up
the evening's performance. Staggering among seven or so boxes of opaque
mesh stretched over flexible pipe which housed the dancers until their
recurring entrances, the clairvoyant progressed from a timid and
somewhat self-conscious approach to his dreamscape to a lurching,
aggressive agitation of his own disturbing visions. The progression was
no doubt aided by the increasing amounts of alcohol he consumed, first
via flask extracted periodically from his cumber bun, and later bottles
of beer ordered mid-performance from the bar. The result of his
intoxication was a much more convincing madman whose possessed rocking
of the boxes seemed to inspire increased frenzy in the dancers.
If this whole scene strikes you as oddly comical and disturbing at the
same time, you're starting to get a taste for Double Vision, a
multi-media performance group which "strives to push the boundaries of
dance, music, video, and art by creating immersive environments that
involve technology and unconventional spaces." True to its mission, "13
Dreams" offers an orgiastic experience for all six senses. The program
invites audience members to travel through the performance space,
touch, lean on, and manipulate the ominous boxes, walk among the
slip-clad performers, and gain varying perspectives of the film &
video projections on every wall as well as musicians lurking above the
bar, behind the audience, and inside the main door.
Described as "an intermedia exploration of life and death," "13 Dreams"
displays the wide and varied talents of a host of Bay Area artists
including directors Pauline Jennings, a recent MFA graduate in dance,
and Sean Clute, a musician and video artist with whom Jennings began
collaborating at Mills College in 2003. Several other Mills dance
alumni contributed choreography in the form of individual "dreams," of
which Angelina Nicole's "Dreamatorium" stood out for its eccentric
partnering, Amy Nielson's "This is the End of my Dream" for its
striking costumes, and "Dreams Reassembled," by Dena Bermann, Liz
Bootz, and Pauline Jennings for its dynamic use of group choreography.
A video installation by Clute and Jennings, featuring an Escher-like
morphing of birds and tree limbs into pixilated stills and juxtaposed
with the slow-motion explosion of a mushroom cloud, offered a
particularly beautiful and terrifying vision. An Apple-manipulated
sound score served as moving accompaniment, while Wally Scharold's
dissonant "Recurring Dreams of Rotting Teeth," performed live by
musicians Sam Ospovat, Rob Pumpelly, and Scharold himself, evoked
reactions in keeping with its title.
While the black and white plastic masks, haunted, erratic dancing and
video, and discordant music made a powerful unified statement, it's
impossible to say what that statement was. Webster's defines
clairvoyance as "acute intuitive insight or perceptiveness," but the
central character's 13 dreams conveyed not insight but confusion, not
perceptiveness but madness and fragmentation. Unless Double Vision
intends annihilation as the fate of the clairvoyant or the world at
large, "13 Dreams" needs more than formal unity to convey any kind of
insight; it needs thematic unity as well. Herein lies the challenge for
this emerging performance group: to take their varied and laudable
talents and combine them into cohesive, meaningful works of art that
stand on their own merits, rather than those of their disparate
components. In the meantime, the sheer scope and ambition of "13
Dreams" points to Double Vision's potential, making the group an
exciting new addition to the Bay Area arts scene to watch in the coming
year.
