An avid connoisseur of dance and the avant-garde performer Loie Fuller, Jody Sperling gave a keen lecture on October 4th at Baruch College’s building on 17 Lexington Avenue.
Sperling has been the artistic director of Time Lapse Dance since its start in 2000. She attended Wesleyan University, where she earned a BA in dance and Italian, and holds an MA in performance studies in NYU, according to her website, TimeLapseDance.com. She opened the 2 hour-long lecture with images and video clips from her company’s past performances, whose style is heavily influenced by Loie Fuller. Via her iPad, the multimedia presented beautiful modern dance categorized by ethereal, fluent movement that is sculpted and manipulated by light. Sperling explains the extent to which the transformation of light projections and color plays an important role in creating the illusion of abstract objects like flowers, water, fire, patterns, and animals like the snake in the famous “snake dance” by Fuller. The stage is a canvas in which she fully utilizes the light projections and sweeping spinning movements to “sculpt” a perpetually moving piece of art.
In one video clip shown, she twirls, arms creating grand sweeping movements, on a box that projects red, orange and yellow lights. Superfluous, lush fabric creates an environment around the dancer that envelops her, making the shape of the body nondescript, she says. Sometimes, there may be bilateral lights of two different colors that play with each other on the abundant ripples of the fabric, which is often white. Green and blue lights combined with fluent movement might mock the essence of an ocean, for instance. Sperling explains how sticks, used as invisible extensions of the arms, are responsible for creating the grand movements, which can be attributed to Fuller. The use of mirrors is sometimes incorporated into the performance, as the running dancers disappear and then instantly reappear. It gives off a kaleidoscopic, transcendental experience.
Sperling allotted a significant part of her lecture to describing the heavy influence of Fuller’s signature “Snake Dance.” It is created by waving the stick extensions, attached to the thick layers of fabric, in a cycle of oscillations. The trail of fabric in motion creates the illusion of a slithering snake. This is one of the factors that caused Fuller’s fame to escalate, which also spurred the rise of impersonators. According to Sperling, the Snake Dance was actually first performed in front of a live audience in France by an impersonator. Sperling showed students old art deco posters advertising the dance, explaining that there are no actual images or video of the real Loie Fuller performing.
Sperling is the definition of a visual artist, just as she is the definition of a dancer. She embraces every facet of visual art, while drawing inspiration from history, to create an impressionable work. Aside from blood, sweat and tears, donations are what keep the company alive, she explains. Visit her website TimeLapseDance.com to buy tickets or to donate.
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