BlanketDanielle Kelly and Noelle Stiles
October 16th - November 26th
Opening Reception Performance and Artist Talk
November 5th 7:00pm (First Thursday)
As artists we have observed a cultural denial and gradual removal of the physical in our daily lives, a phenomenon that oppositely coincides with a cultural obsession with persona and the representation of the body as a symbol of control, status and power. Our interest is in the connection between and/or consequence of these two seemingly polar phenomena. We observe this lack of knowledge of the body and the physical via virtual dominance as detrimental to an individual’s sense of agency: is our faith in our ability and desire to effect change in our immediate environment slipping away?
Sculpture and dance: as artistic mediums both are proscribed by the body. Each activate an environment by articulating space and time, physical potential and physical limits. Through the intersection of these mediums, we explore the following questions: How and why do we restrict our bodies? How and why do we extend them? What are the obstacles to mind/body connectedness? Does the color yellow really make you smarter? What is physical intelligence? Is Google making us body-dumb? Or is it extending the sensory experience through the keyboard and into infinitesimal bytes whizzing through cyberspace?
Works in the installation are by Kelly, culminating in an interactive performance by Stiles.
Special thanks to the Caldera Artist-in-Residency program for their generous support of the development of this project.
This project has been supported, in part, by the Cirque du Soleil Cultural Action Department.
Costume design by Rachelle Waldie.
Noelle Stiles is interested in how and where experience is held in the body. This interest provides a framework for extracting the corporeal language that both intimately connects and individuates us. Noelle has been working in the field of dance for over 15 years as a performer, choreographer, administrator and teacher. Noelle has BFA in dance and recently completed her graduate studies in dance/performance at The Ohio State University where her studies were supported by the Schlesinger Fellowship and the Wexner Center. She has taught at The Ohio State University, the Governor’s School of North Carolina and co-founded the dance class series Heavy Rotation with Kathleen Keogh of Wooly Mammoth. She has performed at venues such as the PICA T:BA Festival, On The Boards, Rockhopper’s On The Side, Dance New Amsterdam and the Maryhill Museum.
Danielle Kelly is an artist and writer based in Las Vegas. Kelly received her BA from Beloit College and her MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions nationally, including Los Angeles, Seattle, and Portland.
As an artist, Kelly is curious about the weight of history (personal, cultural, national) and the urgency of physical space: centuries of human hate, fear, love, joy-where does it go? Through objects, drawings, and performative story-telling the artist attempts to materialize emotional and psychic refuse that we all carry with us, both individually and as a community, be it inherited or self-created, in an attempt to minimize its strength and renew its resource.
