'Vertical dancers' to use ION Orchard's facade as a high-rise performance stage
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'Vertical dancers' to use ION Orchard'southward facade as a loftier-rise performance stage
Californian company Bandaloop volition exist executing gravity-defying moves while suspended in the air using rock climbing equipment from Sep 20.
Bandaloop dancers perform while suspended off the footing. (Photo: Basil Tsimoyianis)
06 Sep 2022 eleven:00AM (Updated: 04 Jul 2022 06:22AM)
There was a moment almost 30 years ago, while Amelia Rudolph was hanging off the side of a cliff in California, when a thought crossed her mind: "What would it exist like to trip the light fantastic here, in this kind of dark and challenging environment?"
That thought led to the formation of a vertical dance company, Bandaloop, which she founded in 1991 in Oakland, California. The grouping is 1 of the pioneers of the art form, which sees highly skilled dancers performing choreographed routines while suspended off the ground using rock climbing equipment.
Founder and artistic director Rudolph, who is 55, has been a dancer since she was a child but it wasn't until she started rock climbing in the Sierras in her twenties that she began to think about the possibility of combining her two loves.
"I thought, 'What would it look like to combine the strenuousness of mountaineering and climbing with the grace and interpretive qualities of dance?' They seem so dissimilar still so the same to me," she said.
Starting Sep twenty, Singaporeans volition get to see this unique dance class for themselves as Bandaloop comes to boondocks to perform at ION Orchard as role of the mall's 10th ceremony celebrations.
For the evidence, four dancers will perform two different programmes – each dance lasting approximately 20 minutes – all while suspended from the fifth floor of ION'south glass facade.
According to Yeo Mui Hong, principal executive of Orchard Turn Developments, "Nosotros wanted a evidence-stopper along Orchard Road for our 10th anniversary and Bandaloop was the ideal troupe to squad upward with and put together spectacular, 1-of-a-kind performances on ION Orchard's iconic media facade."
DON'T Phone call THEM ACROBATS
While what they do is certainly gravity-defying and scenic, Rudolph wants to make articulate that they are starting time and foremost a trip the light fantastic company.
"We're not a circus company and nosotros're not acrobats. Nosotros are all deeply rooted in the dance earth and the lineage of dance," she said.
When she first started the grouping 28 years ago, most of the members were climbers who were interested in dance. At present, all of Bandaloop'due south members are highly-trained dancers considering, as Rudoph explained, it'southward easier to teach people how to apply the equipment than it is to teach people to dance.
Throughout the years, the grouping has performed at more than a hundred unlike sites around the world, including skyscrapers and even in the Himalayas. They'll perform near anywhere, Rudolph said, unless they deem a edifice or area to exist structurally dangerous.
"Nosotros also worry about heat, like how hot is the surface?" she said. "Air current is often a factor, as is temperature in the air and pelting, which could make a glass surface slippery."
Withal, don't worry if it starts raining on the days they're slated to perform in Singapore as their general dominion is "if the audience tin take it, we tin accept it."
THE MATRIX
While Rudolph is Bandaloop's chief choreographer, she firmly believes in collaborating with her dancers. "I create environments where we improvise together and we build work together, so they are contributors," she said.
The process of coming up with moves for vertical dancing is non that different from choreographing traditional dance moves, except there's an additional step to experiment and ensure they work on a vertical surface.
Because what they exercise is so unique, some of the moves they come up with don't have names, for example, a pirouette. To get around this, they came upward with their own unique names for the moves, similar The Matrix, which is "like a cross between a flip and a pirouette," said Rudolph.
STRONG REACTIONS
For their upcoming functioning at ION Orchard, the dancers will exist suspended from the 5th floor and dancing on the side of the edifice between the third and 4th levels.
At that place will exist two different choreographed shows, which volition focus on the "connection and the blending with the curve and smoothness of the building," according to Rudolph.
She admits that the sheer spectacle of their operation oft elicits strong reactions from the oversupply. However, she'due south besides hoping that Singapore audiences will be touched and moved by it.
"I also hope that they will never see that (building) face the same way – that something that was very normal to them has now been transformed," Rudolph said.
Bandaloop will perform at ION Orchard at 7pm, 7.45pm and 8.30pm on the following dates: Sep xx to 22, Sep 27 to 29 and October 4 to 6.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/entertainment/ion-orchard-events-bandaloop-vertical-dance-229286
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