ODC Theater presents Want February 17, 2012

Fri & Sat, Feb 17-18, 8pm; Sun, Feb 19, 7pm

ODC Theater is pleased to announce the world premiere of Want by ODC artist in residence Holly Johnston. Johnston is the artistic director of LEDGES AND BONES, a contemporary dance company based in Los Angeles and San Francisco. For her latest project, Want, Johnston leads five dancers through a shifting visual landscape as they explore the exhilarating, maddening, and often mysterious terrain of relationships and our instinct for self-gratification.

Want creates an abstract narrative about what it means to be human and to live vividly in the active fulfillment of one's desires. Ultimately, the work continues Johnston's research into the mind-body continuum, what she calls "the physics of the mind": "The body is completely honest," she says. "It reveals all secrets. Even when we've buried a thought or desire deep in our mind, our body inevitably betrays us - often in unconscious ways."

For more than a decade Johnston has been teaching and choreographing. Throughout this period she has dedicated her practice to a rigorous investigation of the body's expressive nuances - how the body navigates forces, and how it expresses complex thought. In the process she has earned notice for her work showcasing high-velocity, high-risk partnering and precarious balancing. Her choreography has been likened to martial arts and acrobatics - "turning the body into a dangerous machine" (Los Angeles Times).

Want, however, is Johnston's first project to make visual design an equal partner in the creative process. Collaborating with visual artists Taso Papadakis, Kyle Ruebsamen, and Michael Fullman, Holly Johnston/LEDGES AND BONES has created an evening-length performance piece that will animate ODC Theater with Projection Mapping Technology. "It sounds sophisticated - and it is - but at bottom, it's a form of interactive video projection," explains Johnston. "The video is programmed to follow and respond to the dancers."

Official Website: http://odcdance.org/want