Paige Treebridge’s MFA Thesis Exhibition

March 18th, 2009 - March 19th, 2009

Categories: MFA Thesis, Multimedia

Dog Days - Live Performance
Dog Days - Live Performance

About

Paige Treebridge, MFA Electronic Visualization candidate, will present Dog Days, an experimental theater performance incorporating live theater, iPod-shuffled dialogue and Ninetendo Wiimote-controled video projection at the University of Illinois Chicago’s Art and Architecture building on March 18 and March 19 at 8 PM.

Dog Days is set on the edges of human intersection: where communication breaks down. Performers interact by way of a limited set of phrases, stuttered dialogue and indecipherable utterances. Dialogue randomized by iPod shuffles is repeated by performers as they synch their movements to the interruptions. A Wiimote from the Wii gaming system captures data from the actor’s movements and relays it to a projected video control system. The performance questions whether communication beyond transfer of existing information is possible. At the same time, the need to speak is the driving force behind the piece. It also investigates systems of control and the relation of live, human-based theater to mass media.

The performance is a collaboration between UIC’s Electronic Visualization graduate program and the Department of Performing Arts. Treebridge has been working with Clinical Assistant Professor Sharon Gopfert’s “Movement for Stage III” students to develop Dog Days. These theater students will be featured in the performance.

Paige Treebridge is an artist focused on research that fractures the intersection of sensation and cognition. Recent work has been in the form of theater, performance, computer-driven installation and video. Treebridge is attending the University of Illinois at Chicago as an MFA student in Electronic Visualization, and holds a BFA in painting and sculpture from the University of Central Florida with study under sculptor Johann Eyfells. Treebridge’s work has been featured nationally and internationally including Anthology Film Archives, NYC; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Pleasure Dome, Toronto, Ontario; MicroCineFest, Baltimore, MD; and Square Eyes Festival, The Netherlands.

Sharon Gopfert is a performer / director / collaborator / educator in Chicago and Brazil. She currently is a Clinical Assistant Professor and teaches Movement for the Stage at University of Illinois at Chicago; Sharon is the founder of the Alma Boa Project, an international arts exchange organization with the mission to provide arts education and nutrition to youth in Igarassu, Brazil. Since 1998 she has created / performed Doorslam, Refuge, Come Like Shadows, Headpoison, And So I May Return, and The Palmer Raids with Plasticene under the direction of Dexter Bullard. In 2003 The Palmer Raids performed in New York City (Ohio Theatre) and in 2005 Refuge played at the PACedge festival after a successful run at Wesleyan University.