09 Jun Other Nations

Posted at 20:59h in dance, film, installation, works by

interdisciplinary performance installation merging dance, music and olfaction, 2024.

Creators: Carla Bengtson, in collaboration with choreographer Darion Smith, composer Juliet Palmer, and perfumer Dannielle Sergent
Presenter: Oregon Contemporary, Portland Biennial, April-August, 2024

Through multi-sensory creative forms Other Nations enacts the voicing, sensing, signifying life worlds of other creatures while shining a light on our own animal-related modes of being. We are particularly intrigued by ways of seeing, sounding, hearing, moving and smelling that slip the perceiver and the perceived between visibility and invisibility. In the bigger picture, we are curious to see whether we can learn to navigate through the noise of human existence to a deeper attentiveness to other living beings.

Other Nations: video, 2024

Dance by Darion Smith. Videography by Steven Myat. Vocal score by Juliet Palmer in collaboration with Lieke van der Voort, Andrea Kuzmich, Jackson Welchner and Elizabeth Lima. Recording engineer: Jean Martin.

Choreographer Darion Smith and composer Juliet Palmer invite ground squirrel, coyote and rattlesnake to flow through the human body as movement and vocalization. Moving then sounding, the singers responded to three choreographic sketches by Darion Smith. Unaware of the animals they were channeling, their voices betray an intuitive, embodied connection to the more-than-human. Dancing between traffic, grass, concrete, and water, Smith underscores the illusory separation between human and more-than-human beings, nature and culture.

Photos: Mario Gallucci