BIODANCE Premieres First Ever Virtual Show

The artistic duo that has brought sold-out shows to Rochester Fringe Festival year after year creates their first-ever virtual show. BIODANCE choreographer/artistic director Missy Pfohl Smith, media artist W. Michelle Harris and poet Lauren K. Alleyne, will premiere an onscreen dance for the 2020 KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival, captured on video by Pfohl Smith during quarantine this past June. Viewers will also enjoy an excerpt from the stunning and renowned 2018 Fringe hit Aria, as well as an earlier BIODANCE short film Thou Hast Trespast (2010), a zany outdoor adventure featuring some of the original company members. BIODANCE member Natalia Lisina will premiere an all-new video dance short as well entitled Lullaby.

The featured premiere was filmed on-location in a forgotten sculpture forest (exact location undisclosed), inspired by the site and by the heart-jabbing poetry of Lauren K. Alleyne. Alleyne of Trinidad and Tabago, and Pfohl Smith met in 2006, when they first began experimenting with joining poetry and dance through an interdisciplinary workshop. "Since we first met, Lauren has gone on to publish award winning collections of her activist poetry that cuts right through you as a reader and witness to injustice" shares Pfohl Smith. "I was eager to introduce W. Michelle Harris to Laurena and her work, and to collaborate together." Alleyne's voiceover of her poem Red Pilgrimage provides a soundscape for this work that thoughtfully grieves and beautifully hopes for a world where we can exist together in harmony without hate, without violence and without fear.

BIODANCE is known for its innovative multi-media performances, notably those in collaboration with media artist W. Michelle Harris. Creating three distinct evening length works designed for Rochester Museum and Science Center's 4-story Strasenburgh Planetarium, BIODANCE now ventures into the virtual realm of art-making for the first time, keeping its dancers and multi-disciplinary artists in the creative process, and broadening its reach to homes all over the world. Although 2020 has presented an unprecedented challenge for the performing arts, BIODANCE has always welcomed experimental forms of art and is thrilled to be part of Rochester's first Virtual Fringe.

Tickets are $5, on sale at https://www.rochesterfringe.com/tickets-and-shows/biodance-at-home and can be purchased now through Sept. 26. Once purchased, the show can be viewed anytime between Sept. 15 and October 10, 2020. BIODANCE invites comments and questions for the artists, who will respond on our Facebook and Instagram pages.

Website: www.biodance.org

Phone: (585) 201-1002

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