Shaking up step-ball-change
One-woman performances are a 鈥渃ombo platter鈥� of media styles.
When Michelle Ellsworth was seven, the Ernest Flat Dancers on The Carol Burnett Show caught her attention.
Captivated by the jazz-dance performances that served as segues between the show鈥檚 segments, Ellsworth knew that was what she wanted to do.
Now she uses dance as just one of a number of components in her one-woman performances.
鈥淚 am not sufficiently articulate in any one media to function effectively,鈥� said Ellsworth, an associate professor of dance at CU-Boulder. 鈥淚 require a combo platter to communicate. Dance is my first language and love as an artist and is absolutely central to my efforts.鈥�
A number of elements show up in her performances: improvised dialogue, performable websites, dance, drawings, videos and physical objects. Some ideas lean toward movement, some toward performance sculptures. Others are about the body colliding with technology and the stage.
Ellsworth asks herself a question to begin a piece. Then she experiments, makes observations and refines her question鈥攐ver and over. As new information surfaces in the world, she regularly changes and adds content to a number of 鈥渇inished鈥� works.
鈥淭he seed idea for a piece is arbitrary in a certain way and I have very little loyalty to it,鈥� she said. 鈥淪ome people watch my work and think that I am talking about the tyranny of rectangles or the post-9/11 world; others think I鈥檓 funny, while others think that I have well-trained legs, and others think other things.鈥�
She describes her work as using humor and technology to explore such themes as gender, genetics, politics and ecology.
鈥淒ance, for me, is inextricably linked to politics and social issues,鈥� she said. 鈥淭o talk about these neighborhoods without including the body has always seemed odd to me. I don鈥檛 have an agenda for my audience. I feel grateful that they even show up!鈥�
Her 2015 Clytigation: State of Exception work explores protocols for avoiding surveillance, interpersonal drama and death. Crafted as a performance and an installation art piece, the work incorporates audience-run mechanical devices, like a coin-operated apparatus that shares a short phrase of movement for 25 cents and an exercise bike that controls a video鈥檚 speed and direction.
Her work is gaining recognition. In 2011, she won a $50,000 USA Fellowship Grant, designed to put unrestricted grants 鈥渋nto the hands of America鈥檚 finest artists鈥� and this summer she was one of six dancers nationwide to win an $80,000 Doris Duke Impact Award. The award recognized her 鈥渞adical experimentation鈥� in unconventional displays of dance.
Ellsworth, who received her Master of Fine Arts in dance from CU-Boulder and has been on the faculty since 2000, is unique among the dance faculty for combining dance, science, music and film and collaborating with colleagues from engineering, environmental science, film studies, computer science, art history and ATLAS (Alliance for Technology, Learning and Society).
鈥淏eing at CU profoundly impacts my work,鈥� she said. 鈥淢y colleagues in the theatre and dance department have an extremely contemporary and interdisciplinary definition of dance and have always encouraged my most experimental impulses.鈥澨�
Creations
Garden sculptures
鈥淭he garden鈥攊ts historical development, myriad forms and metaphoric language鈥� has informed my work for years and is a primary lens through which I understand my environment,鈥� artist Kim Dickey wrote in her essay 鈥淭he Garden as Model and Muse.鈥� A ceramics professor in the Department of Art and Art History whose work has been widely exhibited nationally and internationally, Dickey translates this vision into intricate botanical sculptures that consist of thousands of glazed terracotta and porcelain pieces. 鈥淚n some ways gardens are like cinema or TV, a form of illusion that transports us from real life into a fantasy world.鈥�
Staging opera
Every summer, operatic professionals join College of Music students on campus to stage an opera from initial rehearsal to final performance. Part of CU NOW鈥擭ew Opera Workshop鈥攃omposers and performers work together for three intense weeks through all aspects of the process. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 stress enough how important programs like this are for opera,鈥� said Egemen Kesikli, who is pursuing a doctorate in musical arts at CU-Boulder. 鈥淎s young composers today, the biggest challenge we have is that we cannot get enough performances.鈥� CU NOW is led by Eklund Opera Program Director Leigh Holman, who co-founded the program in order to provide students with experience in developing new music and new roles. When she started CU NOW, programs devoted to opera were few and far between. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really important to keep the genre alive,鈥� she said.