Bodies in urban spaces

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bodies in urban spaces

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Having freshly escaped from Kiasma [read his shirt], Cie. Willi Dorner spoke to the cast of his bodies in urban spaces troupe for its inaugural performance at the 2008 Live Arts Fringe Festival. There was stretching and hugs from friends and family of the performers before everyone was ushered off to their starting places and the audience to the LOVE statue.

After somebody from the Festival thanked the group of about 100 for coming out (on a really hot afternoon) a blur of bright colors blasted behind the crowd running east to west along the southern edge of LOVE Park. The crowd followed in pursuit to the welcome center where one group of performers were already in place.

10 bodies lay on the steps cascading down from one part of the crowd to the other. Oohs and ahhs filled the crowd as they got within eyesight of the first installation, but there was more at the Parkway corner of the park. The transitions from one setup to another were lead by color runners jumping over one installation and running to the other.

Every step of the way, the crowd became bigger and bigger. People milling about asked questions. Some had answers, but others were just as curious and were just tagging along as well.

Down towards Market St, one performer wedged between two planters. Many people were completely oblivious to the performers. Others took a double and then triple take to make sure they weren't seeing things that weren't there.

How they got up there, I have no idea. The security guard for this 18xx Market St building looked like he had some questions too. [note: The previously group got permission from every place they installed themselves.]

Down Market St were spots of color dotting a basement SEPTA plaza.

Into the Comcast Center everyone ran. 6 or so performers curved around a walkway at the base of the grand stairway leading up to the gigantic HD screen above. That's a performer running to the next installation.

In the Comcast Center marketplace at the height of lunch hour were these two performers. Wedged underneath the chair of a construction worker enjoying his lunch (who was indifferent about being a part of this spectacle).

Here, 3 performers hang next to the Winter Garden to the applause of the crowd. I'm actually helping hold up one of Philly's most prolific photogs, JJ Tiziou who I finally had the pleasure to meet (we were both quite sweaty after the 90 minutes of running after the dancers.

Back to Market St where a dozen plus dancers were face down on a piece of inlaid polished stone in front of the Mellon Bank Center.

The individual mini-installations were quite intriguing. They got the most quizzical looks from random passers by.

Down a grungy alleyway (I think it was 17xx Iconic St) we were led and 4 dancers had wedged themselves into a space just behind a grimy dumpster. Complaints were murmured for the smell of the alleyway, from those who didn't have their faces deep in the stink of things.

People were whipping out their cameraphones all over the place. People were in the streets, holding up traffic and hanging off of signs (like JJ!) to get a nice shot of the incredible live sculptures the groups were making.

Right at the corner of 18/Walnut, in the nook behind the stairway of Anthropologie, were staked a pile of butts and legs. This one got a lot of laughs from the crowd.

Here the group gets an incredible round of applause from a crowd of about 200 behind the fountain at Rittenhouse Square. Sweaty dancers and sweaty audience members who dared keep up with the dancers.

The group will be performing again tonight at 7p and tomorrow if the rain holds off.

A flickr set of 54 shots from the performance.