David Appel And John Morton To Premiere BACKCHANNEL, A New Collaboration, November 3-5

Performances are on Friday November 3rd and Saturday November 4th at 8:00pm, and Sunday November 5 at 3:00 pm, at The Doxsee at Target Margin Theater, 232 52nd Street in Brooklyn. https://www.targetmargin.org/tmt-hosts-backchannel/ for more information and tickets (online for $25 including fees or $20 cash at the door).

Backchannel, funded by NYSCA, re-defines the relationship between dance, music, and technology through the creation of a dancer-activated sound environment, where movement and proximity of the performers' bodies generate specific musical responses. A Lidar (light detection) sensor, centered in the space, traces the charted and improvised actions of the dancers, triggering sound as their individual and collective location shifts. 

The piece speaks to motivation and consequence, to synchronicity and conversation, both apparent and “behind the scenes”. Backchannel is also about the path and the journey: how we get from here to there while navigating turns and changes along the way. The alliance and interplay between composer, choreographer, and seasoned movers (Randy Burd, Cecilia Fontanesi, Ava Heller, and Elise Knudson) gives everyone involved a more telling voice in this process, addressing essential issues around how we work and create together. Also included on the program is Morton's Driving Across the Prairie (based on a story by Ed Dorn) and a new solo by Appel.

David Appel is a choreographer and dancer whose work has been presented in a range of situations and settings throughout North America, Europe, and in Mexico since 1973. Part of the early post-Judson generation that transmitted and transformed those artists' innovations, he has since primarily followed his own path, while performing along the way with Simone Forti, Steve Paxton, City Dance Theater of Boston, as an instigator and/or part of several dance/music collaborative and improvisation groups, and with many other individual artists in various media. David has received a number of grants and awards, including three NEA Choreographers Fellowships, and has been invited to festivals in both the United States and abroad. He is particularly fascinated by and explores links between the body's capacity to be more subtly articulate, our connections to and within the world around us, and the ways we find to move together—individually and collectively wielding our abilities and imaginations to create vibrantly danced conversations. [www.youtinydancer.com]

John Morton, composer and sound artist, has presented his music throughout the U.S., and has participated in collaborations at The Kitchen, The Playwright's Center, and at the Kohler Arts/Industry Program. His installations include Central Park Sound Tunnel, a six-channel sound installation exhibited in a pedestrian tunnel north of the Central Park Zoo, a collaboration with artist Jacqueline Shatz on a music box project based on Darwin's writings at Wave Hill's Glyndor Gallery, Sonic Hotel - Lost and Found Sounds of the Adirondacks, an 18 channel immersive sound installation commissioned by the Adirondack Museum and installed in the log cabin hotel on the museum campus, and Fever Songs at ODETTA Gallery and the Morris Museum. He has received support for his work from the NEA, NYSCA and NYFA, and was in-residence at Bellagio and Bogliasco in Italy. An interview and excerpts of his music appear as part of the National Public Radio's “American Mavericks” series and the American Music Center's “New Music Box” [jmorton890.wixsite.com/soundartist]

Most of Morton's sound installations emphasize interactivity with the public, and Appel habitually works with evolving blends of improvised and set material that bring to bear the special skills of the participating performers. They previously collaborated on an evening-long piece (“A Delicate Road”) presented in 2000 at The Kitchen in New York City. The music from that collaboration was later released on John's first CD, “Outlier” (Innova). Backchannel is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.  

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