Title: Interconnect
Direction and Choreography: Kara Komarnitsky
Performance and Movement Generation: Sydney Lettau, Allison Smith, Vivian Corey, Madeline Denman, Heather Lyu, Rosely Polanco, Ava Raczkowski, Emma Carver
Music: Michael Wall, Seth Alexander, Hotel Neon
Advisors: Norah Zuniga-Shaw, Alex Oliszewski
Lighting Design: Oded Huberman
Production Support: Katie O’Loughlin
Note: This performance will guide you through three ecosystems, following the pathway that water flows from the mountains into the ocean. The text that you hear will invite you to move around the space and find different perspectives from which to experience these ecosystems, and yourself within them. The boundaries between our bodies and our environment are more permeable than we imagine.
Acknowledgements
I have to first thank my parents for supporting my college endeavors and always believing in what I wanted to create, even if they didn’t understand it.
I want to thank my primary advisor, Norah Zuniga-Shaw for helping me break out of my comfort zone and giving me language for recognizing the unknown. Thank you for guiding me through the longest process I have ever engaged in and providing the space I needed to let go of things that were holding me back. My secondary advisor, Alex Oliszewski, was a fantastic resource on audience interaction and technology. Oded Huberman spent hours with me in the Motion Lab problem solving Isadora and without him there would be no projections or cameras or music. Thank you, Oded, for always saying “yes” to my crazy ideas and putting in the hours to figure them out. I want to thank Katie O’Loughlin for always letting me bounce ideas off of her and giving me space to work out my thoughts before entering the space. Lastly, I want to thank my dancers for their time and honest engagement with this work. Their creativity and commitment to the ideas that I offered them built the movement for this entire piece and gave it the heart that it deserved.
I have to thank the College of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Scholarship for providing the funding that made this project possible.
I also want to acknowledge the Indigenous tribes that historically stewarded the land that we visited and created the dance on. These include the Seminole, Tequesta, Miccosukee, Cherokee, Tutelo, Erie, Hopewell, Shawnee, Myaamia, Kaskaskia, Yuchi, and Moneton tribes. Their historical and contemporary relationships with the land is vital to recognize as we move forward. Whatever ethos we create to realign our relationship with the environment must center their voices if it is to succeed.
Kara Komarnitsky 