Jody Sperling, "Ice Station Practice 7"

A workshop presentation by choreographer Jody Sperling, her company Time Lapse Dance, and composer Matthew Burtner. Presented as part of the Arctic Spring Festival at the National Museum of Natural History. 

Choreographer Jody Sperling and composer Matthew Burtner present a workshop performance and discussion of Ice Cycle, their collaboration expressing the dynamism and fragility of the Arctic icescape. Choreographer and composer share a passion for ice and aim to bring its many phases and transformations to life through movement and music.

Sperling first encountered sea ice on her trailblazing journey to the Arctic as the first-ever choreographer-in-residence aboard a US Coast Guard icebreaker. Accompanying a 43-day science mission to the Chukchi Sea, north of the Bering Strait, Sperling danced on the polar ice sheet a dozen times. With this project, she draws on her unique experience and reimagines the frozen territory for the stage.

Burtner, a specialist in concert chamber music and interactive new media, has composed many works that explore the unique acoustical environment of the Arctic. Burtner spent his childhood in the far north of Alaska and this profoundly shaped his musical language. He is the leading expert on the eco-acoustics of snow and ice, and has worked extensively with systems of climatology applied to music.

Ice Cycle, to be danced by Sperling’s ensemble of five women--with Burtner performing his music live--utilizes expansive costumes that allow the dancers a range of transformations in suggesting ice topography. Sperling’s dance style can been seen as “kinetic sculpture” for the way that it distills energetic forces into visual forms. For this project, music and dance crystalize in forms conjuring the expansive grandeur of the Arctic. 

Opening performance by Uummanaq Greenland Youth Ensemble of the Children's Home in Uummannaq.