Aniccha Arts, The Weather Vein Project
“It is a natural gesture to capture weather memories as we move toward a warmer climate”
The Weather Vein Project
The Weather Vein Project consists of a dance performance, weblog, and interactive sound installation about humans playing God in their desire and need for weather control.
Weather affects us in our daily lives, especially in Minnesota, and it is a natural gesture to capture weather memories as we move toward a warmer climate. The lens through which we capture these memories is by examining the role of humans in weather control. We will be presenting 2 aspects of our performance in the works in progress. The first component will be a scale model of a sculpture. The second part would be the dance component which is integrated with media through physical interaction.
Cloud Turn
Aniccha Arts premieres Cloud Turn, an interactive dance performance. As a part of The Weather Vein Project, this piece is a reflection of humans playing God with regard to weather. Renowned for their originality, Aniccha Arts brings detailed, sinuous, and percussive Indian based dance movement integrated with their rich, colorful and highly manipulated media style. This performance is constructed with content from workshops conducted at various facilities throughout the Twin Cities as well as from the blog. To purchase tickets, click here.
We Can Change the Weather blog
The purpose of the blog is to engage people in conversations about the human connection with our weather. As we move toward a warmer climate, we capture weather memories through the lens of weather control. Continuous contributors include Cecilia Martinez, Shalini Gupta, and Mark Seeley, who bring in multi-faceted perspectives regarding our weather connection. Other contributors include anyone and all to comment and provide a weatherscape in the form of text, audio, and video. This blog is research material for the performance at Pillsbury House Theatre, and also for the installation at the Weisman Art Museum.
Weisman Art Museum installation
Aniccha Arts presents documentation of The Weather Vein Project with a live interactive sculpture created by Mark Fox, July 5 – Sunday, August 23, 2009.
Biography
Aniccha Arts’ The Weather Vein Project is led by Pramila Vasudevan, and driven by Mark Fox, Jennifer Jurgens, and Mike Westerlund.
Aniccha Arts
The Aniccha Arts ensemble includes a team of sound engineers, musicians, dancers, singers, spoken word artists, interactive designers, media artists, visual artists, technologists, programmers, and researchers. The artists that form this ensemble are professionals in their fields, and collaborate for the vision of an interactive and multi-disciplinary artwork of contemporary political relevance.
Pramila Vasudevan
Pramila Vasudevan is a dancer and an interactive multimedia artist. She has a B.F.A. in interactive multimedia design from Minneapolis College of Art and Design, 2004. She also has a B.A. in political science, from St. Olaf College, 1999. Pramila received a certification in Bharatanatyam at Satguru Sangeetha Samajam in 1992 and performed her arrangetram at the age of 14, and continued practising Bharatanatyam in its classical form into her early twenties. Through Ananya Dance Theatre, she learned and practised Dr. Chatterjea’s ‘BBR technique’ – a technique developed primarily out of a basis in Odissi and yoga and developed based on the diverse bodies of various women in Ananya Dance Theatre. Currently, Pramila’s dance technique is influenced by both Bharatanatyam, and BBR technique, finding movement that ultimately supports her performance concepts.
Pramila has been performing and creating experimental works through Aniccha Arts since 2004. Recently, her work was presented at Choreographers’ Evening, Walker Art Center, November 2008; Late Nite Series, Pillsbury House Theatre, October 2008; and by the Center for Independent Artists in November, 2007. She received the 2008-09 Jerome Travel and Study Grant to study the intersection of dance and new media in New Delhi, India in January, 2009. She also received a new media, Art(ists) on the Verge mentorship commission from Northern Lights in September 2008 to present a performance June 5-7 of 2009 at the Pillsbury House Theatre and an installation at the Weisman Art Museum.
Previous and associated dance companies include Ananya Dance Theatre, Ragamala Music and Dance Theater. Choreographers/dance teachers include Dr. Ananya Chatterjea, Ranee Ramaswamy, Roshan Vajifdar Ghosh, and Dr. Bala Nandakumar. Other major influences include Piotr Szyhalski (interactive multimedia), Holly Swift (drawing), Nirmala Rajasekar (vocal), and Dipankar Mukherjee (performance).
Mark Fox
Mark Fox has been developing interactive media for five years with the desire to leverage technology to expand and enrich the human experience. He holds a B.F.A. in Interactive Media from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
Support
The Weather Vein Project is a commission of Northern Lights’ Art(ists) On the Verge program with the generous support of the Jerome Foundation and fiscal sponsorship of Forecast Public Art. The Minneapolis College of Art and Design supported the related symposium Experimenting With Art in Public Places. The Weisman Art Museum will exhibit the AOV commissions July 5 – August 23, 2009. Additional support for Northern Lights provided by the McKnight Foundation. Additional support for The Weather Vein Project by Pangea World Theater.
Credits
Blog
creation: Pramila Vasudevan
primary contributors: Shalini Gupta, Cecilia Martinez, Mark Seeley
workshop contributions: Piotr Szyhalski from Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Ian Rhodes and Martha Johnson from Highland Park Junior High School, Shalini Gupta and Cecilia Martinez from IATP.
Cloud Turn performance
director: Dipankar Mukherjee
lead artist: Pramila Vasudevan
media: Jennifer Jurgens
lobby installation: Mark Fox
lighting design: Mike Wangen
audio installation: Mike Westerlund
costume design: Romina Takimoto
dancers: Sarah Beck-Esmay, Chitra Vairavan, Pramila Vasudevan
Cloud Turn Documentation
camera and editing: Rhett duPont
Sound Sculpture
Mark Fox