Maelstrom 2021

Activators 7: Maelstrom by Harrison Hall and Luca Dante

Created by digital choreographer Harrison Hall and motion graphics artist Luca Dante, Maelstrom is a sombre meditation on the unseen, hidden and destabilising forces that transform us.  A mutable site for trauma and catharsis, the body exists in this work as a liminal site between the real and imagined.

Combining the motion capture of dancing bodies, 3D animation and physics engines with sound by experimental techno/ambient sound artist Pavel Milyakov (Russia), the work is experienced as an immersive multi-channel projection and soundscape.

In Maelstrom, the vastness of time and space sets the scene for an unsettling dance of nameless skins. The uncanny movements of these digital embodiments forewarn us of the fragility of reality, as bodies fly and swirl in an absurd dance that warps earthly limits.  Neither here nor there, this dance exists in the volume between worlds, through pressures and forces to no particular place.  Maelstrom drags us like rag dolls from the present, flinging our flailing limbs onto the threshold of tomorrow. Into the vortex, we go down, further and deeper, we go down…

Creative Team

Lead Artists: Harrison Hall and Luca Dante

Sound: Pavel Milyakov

Featuring digitised movement from: Yumi Umuimare, Anis Aziz, Parissah Ibrahimi Rerakis, Vivian Schmeider, Robert Tinning, Ren, Imanuel Dado, Yuiko Masukawa and Aoife Carli Hannan

Producer: Kristina Arnott

Technical Team: Blair Hart and Siobhain Geaney

Still by Luca Dante

Still by Cobie Orger