Dark Room

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Performed in a lightless room for a small audience equipped with night vision apparatus, Dark Room turns military technology into an intimate tool, revealing a world completely unavailable to the naked eye. Flanked by audience, five dancers navigate a tight, pitch-black arena through touch and sound, moving with passionate, risk-filled innocence and uncanny skill.

The night vision apparatus puts the power in the hands of the audience – allowing a partially anonymous freedom while demanding active authorship on the part of the viewer. The dancers usher us beyond military, surveillance, and amateur porn applications of night vision technology. Stripped of the normal trappings of theater, the dance is absolutely central, an up-close world of trust, fear, sex, and compulsive, blind pursuit of human connection.

Dark Room is “lit” by a low-profile infrared system, and is accompanied by a dark, space-shifting electronic music score.

Dark Room was originally commissioned by the contemporary arts center, Western Bridge, and premiered as part of the show Crash.Pause.Rewind February - March of 2006.

Following a sold-out, three-week premiere run at Western Bridge, Dark Room was invited to appear as part of Portland Institute of Contemporary Arts Time Based Arts Festival in September of 2006. www.pica.org

Production Credits:
Original Cast: Heather Budd, Drew Elliott, Kathy Lawson, Chay Norton, and Jules Skloot
Choreographer: Crispin Spaeth
Composer: Yann Novak
Production Director: Jon Harmon
Costume Designer: Etta Lilienthal