You’ve heard the saying, “Talking about music is like dancing about
architecture.” What about dancing about the architecture of the
brain? Former U.S. Ski Team member Amy Caron has plunged
headlong into the field of neuroscience, but from the point of view
of an artist, helping to initiate the emerging genre of “artscience,”
which merges the two disciplines to create fertile new
cross-pollinations.
From an art installation two years ago at the Women‘s Art Center
here, Caron’s project Waves of Mu—based on newly discovered
“mirror” neurons in the brain, cells that aid in social interaction—
has grown into a multimedia dance piece that places the audience
inside the workings of the cranium. Small groups of audience
members are first let into a room in their socks to explore the
interior environment physically. Then, in the theater proper,
Caron as mad scientist with lab coat and clipboard directs her
“research team” of performers.
The main stage extends into the audience, and the work is all about
connectivity. The mirror neurons appear to provide a neurological
basis for social connection and mirroring others’ behavior, and a
whole host of human interactions might be explained by this
burgeoning branch of brain-tacular barnstorming.
This Salt Lake City premiere takes the show full circle from a
sojourn to New York City beginning in August 2008, and it has been
commissioned by the Room Project of Performance Space 122, and
receives support from the National Performance Network.
Dance Theatre Coalition: Amy Caron’s Waves of Mu @ Rose Wagner Center,
138 W. 300 South, 801-355-2787, April 3-4, 8 p.m. AmyCaron.com
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