Troika Ranch: loopdiver March 4, 2010

The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago continues its spring 2010 series “Science, Technology and Dance,” which explores the ways choreographers are working with new technologies and scientific ideas, with the multimedia performance company Troika Ranch. Performances are March 4–6 at The Dance Center, 1306 S. Michigan Ave.

The program features the first performance of Troika Ranch’s newest, evening-length work, loopdiver, following its fall 2009 premiere. Co-founders Mark Coniglio and Dawn Stoppiello recently completed a two-year development process to create this work, using motion capture and Coniglio’s Isadora software (a programming environment that provides interactive control and real-time manipulation of digital media). loopdiver is the result of a process of creating movement and multimedia elements from intricately interwoven loops of prerecorded movement, text and digital materials (video, sound and light). In this riveting performance, technology maintains absolute precision and perfection while Troika Ranch dancers are undermined by their humanness, struggling to escape the simultaneously dreamlike and maddening prisons of externally imposed repetition.

As part of Troika Ranch’s residency, there will be a post-performance discussion with the artists on Thursday, March 4. Technology Director/Artistic Co-Director Mark Coniglio will conduct a pre-performance talk Friday, March 5 at 7 p.m., free to ticket holders. Executive Director/Artistic Co-Director Dawn Stoppiello will lead a free “movementPROCESS” workshop exploring Troika Ranch’s methods for creating choreography Saturday, March 6 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Dance Center. She also will lead a DanceMasters class Tuesday, March 2 at 6 p.m. at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave. DanceMasters is a series of community master classes presented by The Dance Center’s division of Community Outreach and Education (COE), in partnership with the Lou Conte Dance Studio of the Hubbard Street Dance Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Classes are for dancers at the intermediate level or higher.

Established in 1994, and based in New York City and Berlin, Germany, Troika Ranch produces live performances, interactive installations and digital films, combining traditional elements with advanced technologies. The artists’ mission is to create artwork that best reflects and engages contemporary society. The name Troika Ranch refers to Co-Artistic Directors Mark Coniglio and Dawn Stoppiello’s creative methodology, which involves a hybrid of three artistic disciplines—dance/theatre/media (the Troika)—in cooperative interaction (the Ranch). During the 1990s, Troika Ranch was among the pioneers in the field that came to be known as Dance and Technology. They performed internationally and were greatly sought after as guest artists, teachers and lecturers. Troika Ranch’s artistic statement begins, “Interaction is the word that singularly defines the driving force of our artistic practice. Whether it is between audience and performer, performer and image, movement and sound or human and machine, interaction as an idea fundamentally shapes our work from its inspiration to its presentation.”