"The most thrilling dance work this reviewer has seen in recent memory...flat-out exhilarating." -Karen Campbell, The Boston Globe
Current Repertory:
Bridgman/Packer Dance is currently touring their Trilogy of dance and video works: Seductive Reasoning, Under The Skin, and Memory Bank, created in collaboration with filmmakers Peter Bobrow and Jim Monroe. Trilogy explores the intricacies of identity, gender, perception, and intimacy through Bridgman/Packer's choreographic concept of "video partnering"—the highly visceral and visually arresting integration of live performance and video technology. Through interaction with their life-size video images and the use of bodies and costumes as projection screens, Bridgman and Packer blur the lines between image and reality, distort identity, and reveal hidden multiple layers of consciousness. Evocative transformations play out in sensuous, intensely physical partnering and surprising shifts of scale. Together the three pieces comprise an evening performance (approximately 70 minutes running time plus one intermission). Composers Robert Een, Ken Field, and Glen Velez have created original musical scores, and shows can include their live performances. Lighting design is by Frank DenDanto III. See Bios for more about collaborators.
Under the Skin
Premiere: March, 2005, The Duke on 42nd Street, NYC—92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Festival
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In Under the Skin, the performers' bodies and costumes become projection screens creating a morphing and redefining of identities and the revealing of hidden psychological depths. The duet form explodes into a magically populated stage as Bridgman and Packer interchange with their ever multiplying virtual selves. The original score of resounding horns and striking rhythms was created by composer/saxophonist Ken Field (kenfield.org).
"Video projections have seldom been used so adroitly or with such profligate imagination."
Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times
"The finest mixed-media dance I have ever seen."
Francis Mason, WQXR, radio station of The New York Times
"Packer and Bridgman never cease expanding, vanishing and defying the laws of gravity under our astounded eyes."
Stephanie Brody, La Presse, Montreal
"an astonishing dance/video experience, merging the real and unreal into the surreal."
Janet Anderson, Philadelphia City Paper
The creation of Under the Skin was supported by funds from the 92nd Street Y New Works in Dance Fund.
Memory Bank
Premiere: March 8-11, 2007, Dance New Amsterdam, New York City
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In Memory Bank, the alchemy of living form and virtual image expands into an exploration of time and its role in intimacy, identity, and perception. Sections of Memory Bank were developed using custom-designed time-delay software by Matthias Oostrik, allowing the performers' images to be recorded and then projected back at delayed intervals. The past collides with the present, creating an altered reality removed from the usual past/present/future framework.
The performers enter, exit and move within the video images projected on screens created from layers tulle and satin, conjuring up an other-worldly environment of memory and the subconscious. At times, their live and virtual selves are mixing, swirling, interfering, and colliding with each other.
Grammy Award-winning composer/percussionist Glen Velez has created an evocative, polyrhythmic percussion score rich in resonant textures.
"Ingenious...magical and fascinating"
Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times
"genuinely bewitching...thoroughly disorienting, and never less than gorgeous."
Helen Shaw, The New York Sun
The creation of Memory Bank was supported a commission from Dance New Amsterdam in New York City.
Memory Bank was made possible in part by a 2007 National Endowment for the Arts Grant.
The early stages of development of Memory Bank were supported by a 2006 Creative Development Residency at MANCC (Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography), and a 2006 Dance Theater Workshop Digital Fellowship.
Seductive Reasoning
Premiere: February, 2003, Joyce SoHo, NYC
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Seductive Reasoning is a reflection on sensuality, identity, and desire through a richly textured mix of performance and media. Interacting with their life-size video images, they create a dialogue between the distancing nature of video and the visceral nature of live performance.
Robert Een, Obie and Bessie Award winning composer/cellist, has created an original score of sonorous musicality, soaring vocals and intricate rhythms.
"In Seductive Reasoning, a tour de force of embracing and letting go, Bridgman's softly muscular partnering accepts and redirects Packer's attack, the angular articulation of her long limbs. Their simple tango is multiplied when he turns to partner her recorded video projection, as she does his."
Jim Dowling, Dance Magazine
"Supported by multiple simultaneous video projections that magnify and skew their fluid, dramatic choreography, bodies leap out of themselves in surprising personae."
Chris Dohse, New York Press
"Bridgman and Packer challenge the boundaries of our perception with work that is truly visionary."
Jorge Ávalos, Elfaro.net, el primer periódico digital latinoamericana
Carried Away
Premiere: January, 2000, Joyce SoHo, NYC
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Created in collaboration with Grammy Award-winning composer/percussionist Glen Velez, this piece delves into the desire to be carried away and to get carried away. As part of a simple yet dramatic set design, there is a translucent wall of hanging fabric allowing work in both light and shadow. The shadow projections transform their movements, altering the view while creating a simultaneous, parallel existence. Glen Velez has created a score of powerful, driving rhythms.
"The downtown equivalent of a Cecil B. DeMille spectacular...the sudden shifts in perspective are both funny and magical."
Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times
"Bridgman/Packer and Velez created a unique and powerful evening that brought our sold-out audience to its feet."
Derek Emerson, Director, Great Performances, Hope College, Holland, Michigan
Point A to Point B (You Can't Get There From Here)
Premiere: April, 2001, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio
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A mix of video and live performance, this piece looks at the giving and following of directions as a metaphor for the choosing of one's path in life. Set to a harmonica score by composer, Glen Velez, the piece matches poignancy with humor.
"Impeccably timed composition for two that—through sleight of hand and manipulation of media—cast entire worlds on stage."
Thea Singer, The Boston Globe
"Resonant, remarkable and engaging"
Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice