Interviews with Catherine about “Lightning”
From: With movement and image, Catherine Galasso pays dual homage
By Michael Fox, December 7th 2009 on www.sf360.org
“I’m interested in using film and video in ways that can help to bring an audience inside of a dance. I agree about Americans having an ‘addictive’ relationship with moving images—but I’m interested in tapping into that addiction and transcending it. I think that film is a form of communication that we’re all very accustomed to and comfortable with. I think integrating this more familiar form of communication into more unfamiliar and abstract vocabularies of movement and visual landscapes helps an audience to experience the work on multiple levels. I’m not necessarily trying to make my work accessible. I want to tap into each person’s way of experiencing things on multiple levels simultaneously.” Read the rest of the interview.
From: Dance Flash: Catherine Galasso’s “Lightning Never Strikes the Same Place Twice”
Becca Hirschman, December 9th 2009, on www.sfappeal.com
“We call it remounting because there’s a degree of updating going on… Not necessarily making the piece more “current” in terms of trend, but bringing it up to date according to the aesthetic development of myself and the rest of the cast.
“Three members of the original cast are reuniting for the purpose of this show, and one is brand new. Three years later we are different people, and it’s interesting to sort of go back in time, and examine who we were then through the lens of the piece. The reason I wanted the original cast is because I built the characters around their personalities. I enjoy working with different types of performers – friends who inspire me. Brandt Adams, who plays Roy, is an actor and teaching artist in New York City. Satya Stainton trained in ballet and modern dance, and currently administers a meditation center in upstate New York. Kathryn Shearman is an SF-based musician, visual artist, and performer under the moniker “Kazoo.” Jesse Hewit, the new member of the cast, is a director and performer, and a current artist-in-residence at CounterPULSE in San Francisco. Each member of the cast provokes and challenges me in different ways, which keeps the process exciting.
“The videos are being re-shot and edited by local video artist Loren R. Robertson. Together we are looking at what worked in the original video in order to make slight improvements. With both the live dance and the recorded video, we’re trying to strike a fine balance between preserving the original vocabulary of the piece and going deeper with it.” Read the rest of the Interview.
