Dancers in FUNDING THE ARTS

Our live cast is now in rehearsal.  Here are (l-r): Victor Oniel Gonzalez (Tom), Djassi DaCosta Johnson (Zelda), and Rebecca Whittington (Margot).  

Victor Oniel Gonzalez and Rebecca Whittington

Cameos in FUNDING THE ARTS

I am very proud to be able to share our stage with other contemporary New York City dance artists, who will be included in our "moving set" video.  Here Paradigm's Director & Choreographer, Gus Solomons jr plays two roles at once (the fictional "Mayor," and the real Gus, wearing his "hat" as a dance critic). -- Felice Lesser

Anime Pro in FUNDING THE ARTS

SmithMicro generously donated its animation software ANIME PRO to our company for this project. Here is an example of how I'm using it to create a backdrop and combining it with Life Forms. The red and purple shapes transform from rectangles to triangles and from circles to crescents.  Some rotate as well. Meanwhile the white-colored Life Forms dancers in the center perform their inhuman feats on top of the moving shapes. -- Felice Lesser

Video in FUNDING THE ARTS

In addition to computer animation, video will also play a prominent part in the "moving set."  This will allow us to use realistic settings (a parking garage, a space shuttle launch, a limousine) in the work.  So if you're curious to find out what dogs and squirrels are doing in a dance piece, please come to our performances! -- Felice Lesser

A look at the text of FUNDING THE ARTS

In addition to live dance and projected animation, Funding the Arts will also include dialogue to help tell its story.  Being that the live performers will "interact" with cartoon characters throughout the work, I've written the text in a combination of stage and screenplay formats to accommodate both going on simultaneously. So that everything will come together on the stage at the right time, the dialogue will be prerecorded along with the musical score using Final Cut Studio. The following short excerpt shows how a live dancer (KEVIN), and a cartoon character (EDGAR) will appear to interact. (Although it's difficult to see on this Blog page, the live characters are written in Plain Text, the screen characters in BOLDFACE to avoid confusion.) -- Felice Lesser            

                                           KEVIN 

                           (quietly, reading LU's note)  

 "Are you still working for that idiot?   Sorry we missed you. Love, Lu." 

                            (to Edgar) 

Nothing sir.

                                          EDGAR

                  I'm sure Lucinda and Robin were involved.

                  I can feel it. I'll get those traitors if it's the last thing I do.

© 2009 Felice Lesser, All Rights Reserved