Recently returned from a two-week, three-city tour of Egypt, Jody Sperling and her Time Lapse Dance (TLD) ensemble are offering a FREE concert in partnership with The New York Society for Ethical Culture, the site of their ongoing Eco-Artist-Residency. The company was following in the footsteps of Loïe Fuller who toured Egypt with her dancers in 1905! Memories of Egypt features a TLD world premiere in Fuller style, repertory favorites, and a souvenir from the journey. The company’s seven luminous dancers are joined by Emmy Award-winning composer Matthew Burtner for a transporting evening of live music and dance.
The tour almost didn’t happen! A day before the company was to leave for Egypt, the US State Department terminated the award that was partially funding the tour. You can read our story in Medium and Dance Magazine . You can still support TLD’s fundraising campaign to make-up for the lost federal funds.
The evening’s highlight is the world premiere of Fractal Memories, created for the Fuller documentary Obsessed with Light. The dance is a contemporary tribute to Fuller, choreographed by Sperling illuminating the entanglement of bodies through time. The culminating moment is a striking reimagining of Fuller’s Fire Dance, resonant with our own combustible era.
In Serpentine Swells, the company riffs on a spiralling melodic line evoking the crest and fall of ocean currents. This ensemble improvisation was presented in Egypt as musical collaboration between Burtner and Egyptian oud player Aly Eissa.
The evening also reprises Arbor, dwelling on the intimacy of trees, and Sperling’s hypnotic solo Piece for Northern Sky, a meditation on planetary motion.
All of these works feature transformative costumes that abstract human movement into elemental and organic forces, with the dancers appearing to conjure a growing forest or a swirling inferno. The company's unique style of movement draws inspiration from and furthers the art form created by dance icon Loie Fuller (1862-1928) a century ago.
This program is made possible in part by an ongoing eco-artist-residency at The New York Society for Ethical Culture and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
