Yann Novak

Crispin Spaeth returns to Western Bridge to re-imagine her 2006 dance work Dark Room as part of our spring exhibition Light in Darkness. This work for three dancers is presented in a space lit only in the infrared spectrum. The dancers perform sightlessly, seeking each other in the space with violent or searching gestures, then meeting for clinches or embraces. A small audience views the performance through night-vision scopes. Using this military technology, the audience is privileged with a view of the proceedings kept from the dancers, who are guided by hearing, touch, and memory.

The viewer must scan the performance space through the narrow field of vision of the scopes, finding the dancers as they move through the space, choosing which performer to focus on. The scope technology suggests various aggressive or illicit uses, themes that play out through the performance.