Speakers : 

Jonah Bokaer

Title:

21st Century Integration of Choreography, Digital Media and Visual Art

Abstract:

Jonah Bokaer, Georgia Tech Artist-In-Residence (2013-2015) will present a framework for student, faculty, and professional conversation around 21st century integration of choreography, digital media, and visual art.

Designed as an experiential dialogue with the Brown Bag participants, Bokaer will also discuss Why Patterns, and RECESS (on view at the Ferst Center on February 21), a collaboration between choreographer Jonah Bokaer and artist/architect Daniel Arsham is a constantly evolving and fluid dialogue between the two, exploring movement, representation, temporality, memory, and space.

While never the same performance from venue to venue, each iteration of RECESS looks at the historical work of art, dance and architecture through the combined solo and collaborated work of Bokaer and Arsham. Through conversation, video, and performance, ideas and statements are built upon utilizing still and moving images of both artists’ work, as well as each of them explicitly and implicitly performing for the audience. With measured movements, intentional ellipses, improvisational performativity, the artists seek to engage the audience into a deeper relationship than that of either a strict performance or lecture.

EDUCATIONAL VALUE
During the presentation, Bokaer and Arsham discuss the history of dance, concepts of art and architecture, notions of theatrical representation and performance, as well as the frisson that can come from the sometimes seamless, sometimes awkward, integration of the two. Utilizing a large video screen behind the stage, they reference their own work as examples of, or contrary to, artistic concepts that come up during the performance. By opening up the lecture to questions from the audience, RECESS can change at a moment’s notice from exploring the human body’s limitations within the context of computer image mapping to how the brain processes memory and where technology can recontextualize something as simple as looking at a wall.

Because of its interactivity with the audience and participants, RECESS has the potential to be limited only by the intervention of the viewers. The more playful, inquisitive, and engaged an audience is, Bokaer and Arsham’s open-ended performance can grow into something that will resonate with both the audience and performers.

Bio:

Jonah Bokaer (Choreography & Performance) has been creating dances for stage, museum, gallery, and outdoor spaces throughout the world since 2002. He is the author of 34 choreographies, ten videos, three motion capture works, three interactive installations, two mobile applications, and one film. His work has been produced throughout theaters in Belgium, Canada, Cuba, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, India, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, the U.K., and the U.S.

Often created to accommodate museum spaces, Bokaer’s dances have been performed in New York City at The New Museum, MoMA PS1, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Museum of Arts and Design. His dances and films have also been seen at the Asia Society Texas Center, MASS MoCA, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami (Florida); the Musée d’Art Contemporain (Marseille, France); Carré d’Art (Nimes, France);; La Ferme du Buisson (Marne-La-Vallée, France); Palazzo delle Arti (Napoli, Italy); IVAM (Valencia, Spain); Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen (St. Gallen, Switzerland); MUDAM Luxembourg; La Triennale di Milano; and others.

Bokaer was the first dance artist to be inducted a Young Leader of the French American Foundation (2008–2009) and was among the very few dance artists to ever be recognized with the prestigious Crain’s NY Business “40 Under 40” (2011). Between 2013-2015, Bokaer is among 10 United States artists to receive a Doris Duke Charitable Foundation “Building Audience Demand” Grant Award, in partnership with the Georgia Institute of Technology. He worked with Merce Cunningham Dance Company between 2000-2007. www.jonahbokaer.net