Theater & Dance CAST and STAGE by a canary torsi

The Department of Theater and Dance is excited to present a special showing of CAST, STAGE, AUTHOR by a canary torsi, a project invested in how meaning is created by audiences and performers in real time through the languages of theater: spectacle, casting, scores and scripts. At Amherst College at Kirby Theater, for the first time, CAST and STAGE are being presented as one evening with an intermission.

Amherst College is partnering with A.P.E. and The School for Contemporary Dance & Thought to bring AUTHOR to 33 Hawley as part of the Bodies in Motion Festival. The interactive installation runs until Jan. 31 at the Northampton Center for the Arts, located at 33 Hawley Street in Northampton.

CAST is a performance by four of the performers that created the trilogy. At each performance, a new, computer-generated script is culled from transcripts of conversations on casting and representation. The performers receive their roles and the never-before-seen script in front of the audience and perform it for the first time in their presence.

STAGE is a visual and aural fantasia with live music. STAGE explores the role of theatrical devices in affecting what an audience sees and perceives.

AUTHOR is a participatory video installation that invites each visitor to interact with the performers through a text-based computer game. Forming a poetically mediated stream-of-conscious between visitors and the video recordings, visitors navigate their relationship to the performers’ language and images on the topics of performing, representation and casting. The algorithm of the game invites each visitor to discover their own voice inside the machine, to construct their own meaning in “conversation” with the personal material of the performers.

The presentation of CAST, STAGE, AUTHOR is generously supported by a New England Foundation for the Arts Expeditions Grant, and by the Arts at Amherst Initiative and the Groove Fund at Amherst College, in cooperation with the Northampton Center for the Arts.

Admission for all events is free. To reserve tickets for CAST and STAGE, call (413) 542-2277. Seating is limited, so reservations are recommended.

For information on AUTHOR exhibit times, please visit the A.P.E. webpage: http://www.apearts.org/events--projects.html