INTERVIEW: Jody Sperling / Time Lapse Dance celebrates 20 years with 20 weeks of programming
Photo: Jody Sperling is the founder and artistic director of Time Lapse Dance. Here she dances on sea ice on the Chukchi Sea. Photo courtesy of Time Lapse Dance / Provided by Michelle Tabnick PR with permission.
The talented choreographer Jody Sperling, artistic director and founder of Time Lapse Dance, will celebrate two decades of the company’s accomplishments with a special season of unique, interesting programming. The anniversary will find Sperling and her dancers staging 20 weeks of programming, one week for each year of Time Lapse’s existence.
The virtual celebration kicked off in mid-May and continues for several months. Fans can expect a variety of programs, including dance routines, interactive events, workshops, rehearsal visits and more. The events will be shared on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
For those who have never experienced a Time Lapse Dance event, the company has largely been focused on the theme of climate change throughout its two decades of history. However, they have also mixed in inspiration from early dance technologist Loie Fuller, who lived from 1862 to 1928.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Sperling about the 20 weeks of programming. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What can your fans expect from these 20 weeks of programming?
We’re providing a range of online experiences that go beyond what we would be able to do in a theater. The 20 weeks is more than a retrospective — we’re using this ‘pause’ to reflect on where we’ve been, where we are and to explore the path wending through the uncertain times ahead. Each week has a topical theme with a main interactive event as well as related clusters of media content (photos, videos, memories, gifs and whatnot). Topics include climate change and dance, street performance and reimagining the streetscape, musical collaboration, sustainable costuming, Loie Fuller (our muse) and Pride, dance and wellness, a look into the rehearsal process, and so on. We’re sharing livestream conversations, online premieres of performance videos, workshops for kids and grown-ups, and more. We’ll also be adjusting the offerings and platforms on an ongoing basis as we learn more about what works in the virtual world.
Are there extra logistical problems with presenting everything online?
Yes, for sure. I’ve spent my whole life navigating the technical situation of live theater and making magic happen on stage. Back in early March, I was performing at The Clark museum, and the music wouldn’t start. No sweat. I took the opportunity to engage in banter with the audience. When we launched our digital season on May 14, we had a technical snafu that interrupted the livestream with my composer-collaborator, and I felt a flash of panic like nothing I ever felt onstage. There’s a steep learning curve with the technology, and each online platform has its quirks. But we’re pulling out all the stops to ensure that all future live events run smoothly.
Can you believe it has been 20 years since founding the company?
No, and yes. There’s a great deal of elasticity in how we experience time. My company is called Time Lapse Dance after all! A time lapse is a filmic device that allows you to see the shape of change. When I first thought of that name, I was thinking about bringing influences from the past, such as vaudeville and the dance genre of the icon Loie Fuller (1862-1928), into the current moment. In recent years, I’ve been thinking about the choreography itself as enacting a time lapse. I sometimes compose the dancers’ movements so they appear as a time lapse of geophysical forces, such as melting ice or wind cycloning. Over the past 20 years, I’ve made more than 40 dances, some of which feel very present to me, and some have truly evaporated.
How much has the coronavirus impacted the dance company?
We’ve had to completely reconceive how to fulfill our mission. We had a stellar year planned, and it was devastating to cancel all our live rehearsals and performances. We’ve lost a ton of revenue as well as organizational and creative momentum. These hardships have forced us to consider what we can still do well, which is engage creatively with the public and continue to explore the relationship of the moving body to the world we all inhabit. We’ve survived 20 years, and we fully intend to survive for another 20 (at least!). The question for us is how, when the economic and social systems are crumbling around us, can Time Lapse Dance play an active role in creatively visioning a more sustainable, just and equitable future.
When did addressing climate change become such an important part of the company’s mission?
In 2014, I had the incredible opportunity to participate in a polar science mission to the Arctic. I was embedded with scientists on an icebreaker for six weeks and was able to research ice processes — and dance! Upon return, I sought to share this experience with choreography that transported the icescape to the stage and by programming climate literacy outreach.
Since then, our work has focused on ways of merging choreography and climate science. I’ve always been interested in the fuzzy line between the skin and the air — where does a human stop and the atmosphere begin? Once you start to see yourself as part of the environment, and not separated from it by any firm boundary, you feel a more urgent need to protect it.
This slippage between body and earth is a theme in the work and what we want audiences to experience when they watch it. The climate emergency is so dire that it forces everyone to rethink who they are and what they do in response. Everyone is responding to this crisis, knowingly or not. If you are an accountant, count the rising seas. If you are an architect, make sustainable buildings. If you are a choreographer, make dances that help us feel the connection between ourselves and our planet and mobilize us to act.
What’s the future for the company once the pandemic settles down?
I don’t think there’s going to be a normal, even a new normal, for a long time. It’s important not to wait to live, or dance, until then. Our 20-week virtual season ends the week of Oct. 5-11 with what we hope will be some sort of live performance event at The Center at West Park, the venue where our original celebration was to take place. Our future projects include outdoor performances, more site-specific dance-films and (eventually) live full-company performances. Our plan is to continue advocating for climate action through dance, whether that happens on screens little or big, the stage or the streets.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Jody Sperling / Time Lapse Dance is in the midst of presenting 20 weeks of virtual programming to celebrate its 20th anniversary. Click here for more information.
