Bridgman and Packer
(NY)
2006
- Guggenheim Fellows in Choreography, Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer have collaborated as performers and choreographers since 1978. Their innovative work developing "video partnering" — the total integration of live performance and video technology — has been acclaimed for exploding the duet form into a magically populated stage where image and reality collide.
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Since 2001, they have been creating their own alchemy of the live and the virtual in works that probe the themes of identity and perception while asking the question: “what is real and what is image?” This has led to their current works, Trilogy and Double Expose, where they enhance the possibilities of dance by multiplying, transposing and manipulating their own life-size video images, and integrating these images into their live performance. Their distinctive use of technology, their sensual partnering, and their surprising humor give the work a physically and theatrically riveting edge.
Bridgman and Packer are the first to have been jointly awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in recognition of their collaborative work. They are also recipients of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (’07, ’08, ’09, ’10, ’11), New England Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, USArtists International, Performing Americas Project, National Performance Network, and La Red. They have received two Choreography Fellowships, as well as a BUILD grant, from the New York Foundation for the Arts, three National Performance Network Creation Fund Awards, and commissions from Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, the 92nd Street Y New Works in Dance Fund, and Dance New Amsterdam.
Based in New York City, they have been presented by City Center Fall For Dance Festival, Lincoln Center, The Baryshnikov Arts Center, The 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival, Dance Theater Workshop, Danspace Project, Performance Space 122, Dance New Amsterdam, and Central Park’s Summerstage.
They have toured throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Central America, performing in festivals, art centers, and universities including: Spoleto Festival USA, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Munich International Dance Festival, The Institute for Contemporary Art/Boston,The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts (St. Paul), Festival Internacional de Artes Escenicas, Panama, Aronoff Center for the Arts (Cincinnati), Bates Dance Festival, and Kintetsu Theater, Osaka, Japan.
Bridgman/Packer have been guest artists at over 100 universities including New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, California Institute of the Arts, Ohio State University, Arizona State University, and the University of Utah.
Bridgman and Packer were selected as Dance Theater Workshop Digital Fellows. They were highlighted in Dance Magazine’s issue on Great Partnerships, and their work in live performance and video technology is featured in the 2009 book “Gegenwelten, Zwischen Differenz und Reflexion” (Against Worlds, Between Difference and Reflection) by Jurgen Schlader and Franziska Weber, published in Munich.
Memory Bank
Technology Residency | March 27 – April 2, 2006 | April 24 – 30, 2006
Collaborator in Residence: Peter Bobrow [filmmaker + video artist]
Bridgman and Packer worked on the third installment in their trilogy of interconnected dance and video works where image and reality collide. The first two pieces were Seductive Reasoning (2003) and Under the Skin (2005). In Memory Bank, the alchemy of living form and virtual image expands into an exploration of time and its role in intimacy, identity, and perception. The work was developed using custom-designed time-delay software by Matthias Oostrik, allowing the performers’ images to be recorded and then projected back at delayed intervals.