"ballet Mori"

[BalletNut]

Will any Ballet Talkers be seeing this? Please report, as it sounds...interesting.

SAN FRANCISCO BALLET ANNOUNCES ONE-TIME ONLY PERFORMANCE COMMEMORATING THE 1906 EARTHQUAKE

SAN FRANCISCO, Wednesday, March 15, 2006–San Francisco Ballet announced today a special, one-night only performance of Ballet Mori, a new work commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1906 earthquake, on April 4. The eight-minute solo will be performed by Principal Dancer Muriel Maffre, who will dance to live seismic data as it is transformed into accompanying music. Ballet Mori will be presented along with the Program 6 programming, which includes Stanton Welch’s Falling, George Balanchine’s “Rubies,” and the U.S. premiere of William Forsythe’s Artifact Suite.

Using network technology and live sound from a seismograph, the movement of the earth will be measured by a UC Berkeley Streckeisen STS-1 seismometer at the Hayward Fault, and transmitted in real-time via the Internet to the War Memorial Opera House. There, the seismic data will be transformed into an improvisational music composition and lighting effects that correspond directly to the earth’s movement. Maffre will respond to the music using a dance vocabulary created by Principal Dancer Yuri Possokhov.

Ballet Mori was conceived by artist and UC Berkeley professor Ken Goldberg. The creative team includes Randall Packer (composer), former SF Ballet Principal Dancer Benjamin Pierce (costume design), and Kevin Connaughton (lighting design). The project is being produced in cooperation with UC Berkeley Automation Lab, Zakros Interarts, and UC Berkeley Seismological Laboratory. Ballet Mori is sponsored by Words on Dance.

Tickets

The one-time only performance of Ballet Mori will be included with the Program 6 repertory on Tuesday, April 4, at 8:00 p.m. at the War Memorial Opera House. Individual performance tickets for the evening are $8-199 and can be purchased online at www.sfballet.org or by contacting the Ticket Services Office at (415) 865-2000.

[Leigh Witchel]

You know, Maffre could probably make reading the phone book interesting somehow. So why not seismic data?

[BalletNut]