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Read about GLYPH in the SLC Tribune!

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment2/55810579-223/museum-dance-bromberg-utah.html.csp

• A multi-media site specific performance piece at the Natural History Museum of Utah at the Rio Tinto Center
• Collaboration between students and faculty of the Department of Modern Dance and the School of Architecture + Planning.
• Performances at the Museum, February 13 & 20, 2013 at 7 pm

University of Utah Professors Ellen Bromberg, Modern Dance, and Jim Agutter, Architecture + Planning, are no strangers to collaborative projects.  They are two of the many faculty at the U who find themselves working in the hybrid spaces between their respective disciplines where ideas overlap, collide and emerge in new spaces, such as the visually striking Canyon area in the Natural History Museum of Utah at the Rio Tinto Center.  Bromberg, Agutter, 14 students from the Department of Modern Dance and design student Elliot Francis from the School Architecture + Planning came together to build Glyph, a multi-dimensional performance piece taking place February 13 & 20, 2013 from 7:00-8:30PM at the Museum.  The U of U College of Fine Arts, Department of Modern Dance, and the Natural History Museum of Utah present this exciting two-day only event and invite the public to join us during the Museum’s Wednesday extended evening hours.

Glyph is a site-specific performance piece that explores ideas of time, embodiment, and the human drive to mark one’s existence.  Text from obituaries collected from the collaborators as well as retrieved in real time from the Internet, will be projected on the massive walls of the Museum’s Canyon as part of the visual environment of the piece. Designed by Agutter with assistance from Francis, these digital glyphs will be triggered by the dancers to create new contexts and visual relationships.  Surrounded by dinosaur bones and artifacts, the performers from the Department of Modern Dance will be working with individualized improvisational scores, directed by Bromberg.  In addition to the movement and projected images, an original three-dimensional sound score create by New York composer Ryan Ross Smith accompanies the performers and the viewers alike as they move throughout the galleries. The audience is invited to attend at any time during the performance, as it is an ongoing evolving performance work. 

“The Museum’s architecture and internal spaces are so inspirational that it seemed a natural fit to partner with the U’s Modern Dance and Architecture Departments to present this immersive, original work, ” said Lisa Thompson, manager of public programs for the Museum.  “In this collaboration, the space of the Museum surrounds the audience with a sense of place while the dancers and projected images embody a sense of time in Glyph,” said Thompson.

Bromberg says regarding the inspiration for the project, “The idea for Glyph emerged as a response to having visited both the Museum and the ancient tombs and temples of Egypt. The former was an encounter with the natural remains of life of the past, and the latter was with the intentional marks left for both future generations and the afterworld.  Both experiences profoundly intensified the sense of being alive NOW and this piece explores our own presence and how we as a contemporary culture create our after images, our glyphs.” 

Recipient of a University of Utah 2012 Distinguished Innovation and Impact Award, Bromberg is the founding director of the International Screendance Festival, and director of the Graduate Certificate in Screendance, in collaboration with the Department of Film & Media Arts. She received funding for Glyph through the College of Fine Arts Creative Research Fund, Department of Modern dance and the University Research Committee.

Jim Agutter is director of the Design Program in the College of Architecture + Planning, Assistant Professor of Architecture, and Director of the Patient Experience Innovation Lab and CEO of Applied Medical Visualizations. His research work has focused on the application of 2D and 3D design concepts to large scale, real-time data environments. 

Ryan Ross Smith is a composer and sound artist currently pursuing a PhD in Electronic Arts at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, and has collaborated with Professor Bromberg on two previous performance projects.

Modern Dance student Amanda Newman received funding to assist with Glyph through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, a program that provides undergraduate students and faculty members the opportunity to work together on research or creative projects.  Newman, who is also performing in the piece, said of the work, “It’s been a remarkable opportunity to be part of a creative process and performance that escapes the walls of the dance studio and stretches beyond the curtains of the traditional stage. To bring my own story and choreography into a performance space filled with such beautiful history and compelling technology has been challenging but so, so satisfying.”

Glyph will run February 13 & 20, 2013and is open to the public. The piece runs from 7:00-8:30pm and the audience is invited to come and go throughout that time.  As a co-exhibition, Glyph is included in the price of admission to the Museum. Tickets are adults $11, seniors 65 and older and youth ages 13-24 $9, children 3-12 $8, 2 and under free.  University of Utah Students, Faculty and Staff are free with valid ID.  For more information contact Sara Pickett and visit the web http://www.finearts.utah.edu and http://www.nhmu.utah.edu.