KILTERBOX | Who We Are

WHO WE ARE

Janessa Clark/KILTERBOX was founded in 2001 as a diverse group of performers dedicated to bringing social and cultural issues to public visibility through the platform of multimedia dance performance. The projects created embody a movement vocabulary infused with improvisation, theatricality and physicality while focusing on topics ranging from American culture and excess to gender and sexuality.Over the past 8 years, Janessa Clark/KILTERBOX has performed numerous new works and repertory to critical acclaim throughout New York City at Danspace Project (BRIC Studio), Dixon Place, Dance New Amsterdam, the Dancenow{NYC} Festival, University Settlement, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and City Center Studios among others. The company has also toured successfully to San Francisco for the Translations Festival, to Borlänge, Sweden to perform at the Peace and Love Festival, and was the only U.S. company to be selected for the 2006 MASDANZA Festival in the Canary Islands of Spain.

Janessa Clark/KILTERBOX has received a 2009 Harlem Stage/Fund for New Work Grant, the 2009 Woman at Work Award from Gibney Dance, Inc., a 2007 and 2008 Manhattan Theater Source/Estrogenius Commission, and was the cover story for GO! NYC Magazine's Female Entrepreneur article in September 2008. Janessa Clark/KILTERBOX has received a 2009 Harlem Stage/Fund For New Work Grant, the 2009 Woman at Work Award from Gina Gibney Dance, Inc., a 2007 and 2008 Manhattan Theater Source/Estrogenius Commission, and was the cover story for GO! Magazine’s Female Entrepreneur article in September 2008.

NEW WORK IN PROGRESS:

VOLUTION

Volution (working title) is a collaboration between choreographer, Janessa Clark, and visual artist, Katie Rubright. It is a work about the evolution and simultaneous regression of the human race. The world created through this live performance and visual installation will represent prehistory, present day, and the future all in one. While the work will be non-linear and highly abstract, the movement is inspired by science, evolution, world cultures and contemporary society. Research material for Volution is drawn from the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond and Alan Weisman’s book The World Without Us providing theories on the progression of civilization as well as the earth’s systematic attempt at reclaiming itself from human occupation. The word volution (volute) literally means a spiral or coil. The work will tackle the questions: Are we going around and around without progress? Will we ever transcend our destructive tendencies toward the earth, race, and religion? What does the world look like in 100 years?

Clark is creating movement scores by experimenting with traditional dances from a variety of cultures including from India, Africa, and the area originally known as the fertile-crescent encompassing sections of the Middle East. The movement generated will be an abstraction of these forms. The goal is to distill from those movement histories to create an all-new movement vocabulary that could potentially evolve in this hypothetical future society. It will not be an accumulation of codified movements from the aforementioned sources.

Using a palette of all white, Rubright will recreate our universe using green (environmentally friendly) materials such as found items and recycled metals. A 36” disco ball will represent the sun, time, and of course, the era of disco throughout the 60-minute work. This installation will represent space, nature, a clean slate, and the inside of a futuristic urban nightclub simultaneously. A live DJ will be housed on a stage platform (also all white) and will serve both as silent narrator and as a metaphorical “God” figure. The soundscape will be comprised of atmospheric noise such as electronic pulses, metallic drones, and elements that create a feeling of starkness and openness of space. The score will also weave in references to popular music from the 50’s, 70’s, and current day.

Volution aspires to subconsciously foster awareness of our history and our apathy for where we are headed. It also seeks to visually stimulate the viewer, bringing about a cathartic transformation or “pass-through” (the audience will also be able to literally walk through the installation post show) for dance and non-dance audiences alike. The goal is to create this performance installation in a non-traditional space; the purpose of which is to attempt exposing a wider variety of audiences to art happenings, and ultimately helping to broaden the general public’s appreciation of the performing and visual art worlds. Early research space for this project is being supplied by Hunter College, WOW Café Theatre, and abandoned landscapes of New York City.

Volution will premiere in Spring 2011.