Black Whole premiered at Asheville, NC's downtown skate park in 2009. We enjoyed invaluable support from the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center, the City of Asheville, Moog Music and Centering on Children. It is one of my most significant leaps into choreography as community event. Projections co-designed with Adam Larsen / live music by Jason Daniello / Total running time: 50 minutes / 10 dancers / 2 skate boarders.
“Janice Lancaster and Adam Larsen's site-specific, performance/installation at Asheville's downtown skate park was an amazing evening of movement, light, sound, and creativity. In the tradition of Black Mountain College, Black Whole forged new relationships and connections between the everyday and the extraordinary. It merged the movement of dance with the glide of the skateboard while surrounded by the shape of light. The notion of how and where a multi-media performance can take place was truly redefined. To look into the skate park bowl was to look into a portal to another world that unfolded in front of the audience. Not only did the skate park become an image-based environment, but also the technology actually shifted and interacted with its participants. The dancers were shaped, compelled, and constrained by the environment of light and shadow that surrounded them. That combined with the cavernous depth of the bowl, shifted and warped perspective in new and exciting ways. The analog soundtrack, combined with the Doppler effect of the nearby highway traffic, fully immersed the audience into an evening of wonderful invention and awe-inspiring imagination.”
- Gene Felice, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center Newsletter
Photos by Jesse Anders