Dance for Architecture: Steven Holl and Jessica Lang

[Music] [Music] Princeton University's new Lewis arts complex designed by Steven Holl architects opened in 2017 after ten years in the making the basic idea for the Lewis Center was to create three what looks like three buildings but it is one so you could imagine the whole program could fit in one big box but that's not what Stephen did what architect Steven Hall did was more poetic creating three buildings linked by a Plaza above ground and a forum below spatially connecting the study of music literature and theater and dance [Music] there are three buildings but the really one imagine dancing in or on buildings like these that's the idea explored by architect Steven Holl and choreographer Jessica Lange in their collaboration tests are acts of time a dance for architecture [Music] Dimitra an architect and a dancer herself was the design director for the project I have done dance for many many years myself so I I loved that we had the opportunity to work with the choreographer and dancer so I it so the the collaboration as a conceptual merging of ideas I think what connects the idea of architecture and dances is dance to me is architecture its architecture of people moving through space in a mathematical way with momentum and speed for me it's about exploring space it's in four movements under the ground in the ground on the ground and over the ground and that was the kind of the first sketch that Jessica agreed that this would be a way to a way to proceed a kind of framework on which we could start to work so his ideas on architecture is that it it exists in four different ways in relation to the ground it relates under the ground in the ground on the ground and over the ground and when he explained this to me on our very first conversation I immediately saw a dam [Music] I'm the type of choreographer who wants to create collaborative experiences and explorations I love feeding off of another art form so when whether it's a poet or a composer or a visual artist or an architect they become my subject models exploring abstract ideas of space and geometry are part of Stephen Hall's own artistic practice and they became the starting point for visualizing the dance these big projections are actually occupied through green-screen technique and the actual sizes are more like this for the second movement of the dance in they used green screen technology and we worked very closely with them so we would give them small clips of video into the space and Jessica would choreograph according to those spaces and for the last two movements structures were built they're used first on the stage and then fly these structures at the end and it just gives this like kind of really rich and dense experience [Music] Steven Holl architectures collaboration with Jessica Lange dance is part of their ongoing research and development into the practice of architecture they call it their explorations of n right now this fear of the Sun is passing through this fear and shining on that sphere what we did with Jessica was interesting was it was not just designing the sets it was a real collaboration where the concepts were developed in conjunction with Stephens thoughts in the work that we were doing at the office the research project the explorations of being you [Music] you [Music]

Channel: StateoftheArtsNJ

Views: 7,759

Rating: 4.9716311 out of 5

Keywords: Architecture, Dance, Green Screen

Id: IPWidpzyx0I

Length: 5min 51sec (351 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 20 2018