Archive for the 'Arts' Category

Soggy’s Slip Jig

Modern slip jig dance performance by Kate Spanos (choreography by Michael Ryan) for MA in Traditional Irish Dance Performance, University of Limerick. Performance at the Performing Arts Centre at the University of Limerick on 27 November 2007.
Music is “Soggy’s/Waterboogie” from “A Lovely Madness” by Beoga.

View all of my videos on YouTube

Color Play at ASA 2008 (video)

Contemporary Irish dance choreography by Kate Spanos presented at the 7th Annual Conference of the American Synesthesia Association (ASA) (original blog post). Performed at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario on 28 September 2008.
Music is “Pulses” from Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians” with voice-over text by Kate Spanos.
More information about the ASA can be found at http://www.synesthesia.info.

View all of my videos on YouTube

Color Play at ASA 2008

Color Play (May 2008, Belltable Arts Center, Limerick, Ireland; photo by Maurice Gunning)

This weekend I presented at the 7th Annual National Conference of the American Synesthesia Association in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I performed a solo dance entitled “Color Play,” choreographed as part of my MA work at the University of Limerick. This choreography is the beginning of what I hope will become future research exploring synesthesia in dance, the language of dance, and dance perception and cognition.

Read a review of the performance by Amy Ione at the University of California, Berkeley.

“Color Play” is the second in a series of dances exploring dance perception, the first being “Sound Play,” which was created and performed in Fall 2007 at the University of Limerick. “Sound Play” is an Irish dance choreography that aims to create a visualization of space as a “ball” of sound that moves from corner to corner of the room through a surround-sound speaker system. The music is “The Eccentric” by Shooglenifty, with sound manipulation by John Greenwood.

Sound Play (November 2007, Irish World Music Academy, University of Limerick; photo by Maurice Gunning)

The abstract below describes a summary of the motivation for and the goals of “Color Play”. The dance is a contemporary choreography informed by Irish dance vocabulary, with music Music For 18 Musicians: Pulses (tracks 1 and 7) by Steve Reich and voice-over text by myself.

Kathleen A. Spanos, University of Limerick, Ireland
Color Play: Synesthesia in Irish Dance

Unlike other art forms dance is uniquely multi-sensory in that it exists in both space and time simultaneously, with a literal mixing of visual, auditory and kinesthetic stimuli in dance perception. This is particularly true in Irish dance, which is highly rhythmical and thus consists of an additional acoustic element. As an Irish step dancer I experience synesthesia in the form of colored movements and rhythms. I have created a choreography in which I deconstruct some Irish dance vocabulary by way of synesthesia and that is built around four basic movements, each of which is paired with a primary color.

In dance the basic units of movement are kinemes, morphokines and motifs, which in language translate to phonemes, morphemes and phrases. Dance is similar to language in that both communicate something by relying on our ability to understand the syntax of these basic elements. The “grammatical” rules of dance are applied to its minimal units so that we can understand the overall concept or symbol communicated by the dance. In dance perception a fusion of the senses is required to understand an overall concept and this is often referred to as a symbolization process. In my choreography, this process is illustrated through overt colored-movement associations.

For a select group of people, the basic components of language give rise to synesthetic experiences. Because dance is analogous to language in the sense that it can be broken down into minimal units it stands to reason that there can exist a form of synesthesia that similarly associates colors with dance elements. In my choreography I will demonstrate a practical analysis of colored-movement associations with the aim of elucidating the symbolization process involved in dance perception.

Color Play (May 2008, Belltable Arts Center, Limerick, Ireland; photo by Maurice Gunning)

Color Play

Theatrical solo choreography by Kate Spanos for MA in Traditional Irish Dance Performance, University of Limerick. Performance at the Belltable Arts Center in Limerick on 15 May 2008.
Music is “Pulses” from “Music for 18 Musicians” by Steve Reich, with voice-over text by Kate Spanos.

View all of my videos on YouTube

Piper Through the Meadow Straying

Modern set dance performance by Kate Spanos (choreography by Michael Ryan) for MA in Traditional Irish Dance Performance, University of Limerick. Performance at the Belltable Arts Center in Limerick on 15 May 2008.

View all of my videos on YouTube

Aiobhell the Fairy Queen

Festival style set dance performance by Kate Spanos (choreography by Ruth Long; composition and keyboard accompaniment by Francis Ward) for MA in Traditional Irish Dance Performance, University of Limerick. Performance at the Belltable Arts Center in Limerick on 15 May 2008.

View all of my videos on YouTube

Uninvisible Man

Uninvisible man at the University of Limerick

View all of my videos on YouTube

Robin Hood

Check out the press release for the upcoming performance of Robin Hood, directed by Emily Oleson, featuring the Shenandoah Irish Dance Ensemble and artists including dancer Matthew Olwell, musician Aran Olwell, musician Cleek Schrey, soprano Amanda Balestrieri, and yours truly.

Come, show your support, and enjoy the show! All involved have (and still are) putting in loads of time and effort, and it promises to be a fun and exciting performance.

16 September, 2 PM and 7 PM, Eastern Mennonite High School in Harrisonburg, VA
17 September, 7 PM, Paramount Theater in Charlottesville, VA
More details

Gone with the Wind

And winter comes rushing in…it’s eerily windy and overcast today. Mid-November, 11 months.

Last weekend I saw ‘Gone with the Wind’ for the first time at the Paramount Theater on the Downtown Mall. Overdramatic, yes, but it was so epic.

This weekend I’m going to Raleigh, NC to see my good friend Nick perform with Riverdance! He’s living his dream and, actually, he’s living mine too