ZviDance set to premiere ‘LIKE’
Led by Israeli-born Artistic Director Zvi Gotheiner, ZviDance will present the world premiere of LIKE at New York Live Arts on November 8-11. Gotheiner, in collaboration with eight dancers, composer Scott Killian, Lighting Designer Mark London and Media Designer Joshua Higgason, has created this new evening-length multi-media dance as the third in his trilogy reflecting on our ever-increasing dependency on technology and how technology is shaping our current models of social interactions.
Like both previous works in the trilogy, ZOOM (2010) and SURVEILLANCE (2014), LIKE will allow audiences to reflect on their own notions of friendships, social belonging, loneliness and social hierarchy, while also interacting with the dancers by utilizing technology. Using their cellphone to “like” (or not), the audience will be invited to participate in a TV reality dance competition, to select a “winner” through a process of elimination. The audience vote and the total “likes” will be charted and projected on a screen to determine how the dance piece advances.
Multiple video cameras will star as “performers,” focusing on various dancers and re-sampling these streams live onto various screens. Both performers and audience members will take turns interacting with cameras and computers, weaving themselves into the narrative. The video design will track the progress of the “liking” competition through charts along with pre-recorded collages of news footage (wars, refugees, natural disasters, sport) and real-time interviews.
The music score will use repetitive patterns to bond the work together and give it a form like a reality show’s Round 1, Round 2, and so on. Different sounds including club and meditative music will be integrated with electronically manipulated recording of the dancers and interviews with audience members. During the creative process and research period, the choreographer, together with the dancers, will utilize clips from reality TV and MTV shows and video clips posted on Facebook and Twitter to observe the behavioral and cultural attitudes generated by media.
Performances will run Wednesday-Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $25 and are available via New York Live Arts’ Ticket Services at 212-924-0077 or by visiting newyorklivearts.org. There will be a gala celebration on November 8, followed by a reception. Gala tickets are $100 and are available at www.zvidance.com.
Photo courtesy of ZviDance.