Surround: Visual

Surround: Visual is the final performance of Beyond/In WNY. The show will feature a 40-ft diameter screen surrounding the audience designed by architect Brad Wales. The screen will have 8 different live mixed videos projected onto it mixed by 8 different video artists utilizing the same audio data from the instruments.

Reactionary is also working with dance troupe nimbus dance, following the successful collaboration radio/ACTIVE at this summer's Infringement Festival. The dancers will wear Wiimotes to track their motion data, which will also be converted into visual data for the video artists to work with.

Surround: Visual will feature over 25 artists, including dancers Erin Bahn, Elyssa Bourke, Beth Elkins, Nancy Hughes, Angela Lopez, Laura Mattelian, Leanne Rinelli and Bonnie Jean Taylor, video artists Cory Gath, Courtney Grim, Liz Knipe, Carl Lee, Tammy McGovern, Jeff Maciejewski, Brian Milbrand and Vince Mistretta, and musicians Jim Abramson, Kathleen Ashwill, Steve Baczkowski, Michael Basinski, Gabe Beam, Kevin O'brien Cain, Jenece Gerber, Mike Kimaid, Keir Neuringer, KG Price and T. Andrew Trump.

The evening will feature 2 50-minute sets of improvisational compositions including "The Wave", in which the dancers will control waves of light and sound with their movements, "Astaire/Rogers," a visual remixing and dance interpretation of classic Astaire/Rogers dances and "We've Got You Surrounded v.2", a second variation on a piece in Surround: Audio. Clips used in the show are sampled from Shall We Dance, The Gay Divorcee, Altered States, The Blob, The Last Temptation of Christ and Videodrome.

The performance is supported in part with funds from the Experimental Television Center's Presentation Funds which are supported by The New York State Council on the Arts and the Strategic Opportunity Stipends Program through New York Foundation for the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts. The project also received a generous donation of steel from ALP Steel Corp.

Some publications related to this event:
December, 2010 and January, 2011 - 2010