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 ARCOS

 
Dance coming to your smartphone, Santa Fe Railyard by Jackie Jadrnak, Journal North Reporter Friday, June 10, 2016 Illustration by ARCOS Dance: "Elegy," which will be launched by ARCOS Dance in the Railyard Thursday, involves interaction between live action and recorded images streamed over your smartphone. It's so common that it's become a sad joke: People staring into their smartphones with attention so rapt that they are totally unaware of their surroundings. But ARCOS Dance is aiming to turn that cliche on its head by incorporating a 360-degree video viewed on each individual's phone with a live performance taking place around the audience. "We're asking people to engage with the ,vorld via technology and not isolate themselves with it," said Erica Gionfriddo, director of ARCOS. A sample of this experimental process and performance comes to Santa Fe as part of the Currents New Media Festival and, like many things shown at the cutting-edge arts event, it probably will be unlike anything you have seen before. The episode, "Elegy," will launch at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Railyard Plaza, but then continue through June 18 in three or four other locations in and around Santa Fe, which you can learn about through text messages or other social media platforms that you will be informed about at the first event. It is intended for people to view it partially by watching a video, which was filmed i n the same location earlier in the week, on a smartphone, while also experiencing the live performance that will be happening around them. The 360-degree video, as it's termed, is a technology that came to public attention via works done by The New York Times, and posted on Facebook and YouTube last October and November, said Eliot Gray Fisher, one of three directors with ARCOS and a specialist in the technology being incorporated into the group's multimedia works. The 360-degree designation doesn't imply that the video surrounds you all at once, but that you turn with your phone to view an entire set of surroundings - a little like taking a panoramic shot of a sunset or beautiful mountain scenery. As a matter of fact, participants almost feel as if they are filming something rather than just watching it, Gionfriddo said. "It's a really different kind of choreographic process," she said. "We had no control over when (an audience member) will turn." Gionfriddo, Fisher and company dancer Alexa Capareda will come to Santa Fe a week before the performance, joined by three other local dancers and additional collaborators, to film the locations along with some action, then work out the live performance that will accompany it. That sounds like a challenge, but Gionfriddo, who co-founded ARCOS Dance in Santa Fe in 2011 and then transitioned it to Austin, Texas, in 2013-14, said, "We always have been very fast at building choreography." "Elegy" itself is part of a bigger project by ARCOS called "Domain" that will be performed and recorded in various locations, culminating with a live performance, which will incorporate video and audio of the prior episodes, in m i d -September at Texas State University in San Marcos. And there's even a story line, although it won't be clear through any one episode. The "Elegy" portion taking place in Santa Fe involves a woman who has lost her memory and her search for clues to help rediscover who she is. An overriding theme, though, has to do with an unorthodox computer scientist who, in the n o t too- distant future, has created the first fully conscious artificial intelligence, Fisher said. At one of the performances of "Elegy," Santa Feans will encounter ARCOS' own version of that artificial intelligence, with ,vhich people will be able to interact and have a conversation, said Gionfriddo, who noted it will be recorded and become part of the sound design and script for the final product. They both said they don't know of any arts group that has done anything quite like this. "We've only done it once ourselves in a limited way. The performance in Santa Fe will be our next experiment," Fisher said. "It's unprecedented for a live performance to be set up this way," he said. "It's sort of like theater in the round, but the opposite. In this case, the audience is in the center. You have to choose what direction you're looking." That means you might miss part of what happens, both by the direction you gaze in and by whether you happen to be looking at the video or the live action at each moment. In that sense, the total work of art will be different for each individual. "The more you see, the more you can piece together what is happening," Gionfriddo said when asked whether people need to attend performances in all four or five locations here, adding that the overall feel of the piece is somewhat dreamlike and mysterious. Fisher said ARCOS performed a couple of years ago at Currents and really enjoyed it. "They are really interested in art, in the same way we are, that is hard to categorize," he said. "They curate artists who are working in really experimental, cutting-edge ways to incorporate technology into art, and art into technology." If you go WHAT: "Elegy" WHO: ARCOS Dance WHEN: 6 p.m. Thursday WHERE: Santa Fe Railyard Plaza COST: Free PLUS: Viewers can get info on a series of follow-up performances through June 18 via social media