“Breathtaking”
—Dance Enthusiast
AMERICAN ELM (2022)
Solo, 5-7 minutes
American Elm deepens the ongoing climate-engaged collaboration between choreographer Jody Sperling and composer Matthew Burtner. In this solo performance embodying tree-ness, Sperling begins by slowly unfurling her costume of white silk (in the style of Loie Fuller), hand-painted with tree limbs by textile designer Gina Nagy Burns. The dance explores shifting tempos, from arboreal stillness to human hurriedness, to mingle the perspective of tree and person. The music sonifies tree ring data from an elm, compressing the rhythm of its life into a few haunting, looping bars. The work is grounded in parallel practices of ecoacoustics (music) and ecokinetics (dance), pioneered by Burtner and Sperling respectively, that relate human-generated sounds and movement to natural systems.
CHOREOGRAPHY: Jody Sperling
MUSIC: Matthew Burtner
COSTUME PAINTING: Gina Nagy Burns
COSTUME FABRICATION: Mary Jo Mecca
LIGHTING: David Ferri
EXCERPT STAGE PERFORMANCE
"Sperling was a master of stage presence as she evoked the deep-rooted majesty of the tree, rising and commanding the stage in stillness. Once she began moving, I could sense the canopy of leaves as the wind worked on them, while Burtner’s electronic music produced a haunting sound sampled from sonic waves emitted by the rings of live trees."
—Karen Hildebrand, Fjord
STREET PERFORMANCE
FULL STAGE PERFORMANCE