Wayne State University's Dance Workshop to Present EYES ON THE WATCHTOWER This Month

This April, Dance Workshop at Wayne State University will explore the nuances of digital surveillance and community tracking in its production Eyes on the WatchTower. In this provocative show, Dance Workshop's artists investigate the relationship between humans and technology through virtuosic movement and devised theatre integrated with dynamic digital media design - including live video projection, drones and real-time audio processing.

Eyes on the WatchTower is inspired by the WDET podcast "Tracked and Traced," which examines the real-world impact of surveillance technology on individuals, Detroit communities and society. Eyes on the WatchTower moves through the effects of surveillance technologies and playfully investigates the promiscuity of digital and physical bodies. Throughout the show, performers take audiences down the techno-mediated rabbit holes and into the world of digital surveillance to question if, when, and with whom we feel safe.

Dance Workshop created Eyes on the WatchTower to investigate the utopic and dystopic extremes of the world we share, using Detroit's Project Greenlight as a point of focus. This community-wide surveillance project functions under the premise that the Detroit Police Department's partnerships with private businesses keep us safe. However, critics and activists question the efficacy of police surveillance in this area, instead posing that Project Greenlight increases the criminalization of Detroit citizens.

The question of safety comes up throughout Eyes on the WatchTower. Dancers fluctuate between observer and observed, recorder and recorded. The relationship between seeing people as people and seeing people as suspicious objects provokes the audience to question if we lose ourselves when we relinquish our communal responsibilities to digital surveillance technologies. Through Eyes on the WatchTower, Dance Workshop poses this question: Do you feel safe?

Eyes on the WatchTower takes the stage in the Old Main's Allesee Dance Theatre April 7-8, 2023. Tickets are $15, and seats are general admission. Tickets can be purchased by phone at 313-577-2972, online at https://theatreanddance.wayne.edu/danceworkshop or in-person at the Box Office up to one hour prior to performance time.

About Wayne State University

Wayne State University is a premier urban research institution offering approximately 350 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to nearly 24,000 students. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about Wayne State University, visit www.wayne.edu

Established in 1986, the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts educates the next generation of visual artists, musicians, communication professionals, designers, art historians, art managers, actors, and dancers. The college offers 17 undergraduate programs, 12 graduate programs and four graduate certificates through its departments: the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History, the Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance, and the departments of communication and music. The music and theatre/dance departments are nationally accredited, as are individual programs in communication and art and art history.

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