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SATELLITE-DANCE COLLECTIVE

Founder, Artistic Director - Mary Lynn Babcock

WaterTower Theatre

Choreographer - Mary Lynn Babcock, Kihyoung Choi and Jessica Thomas
Dancers - Kihyoung Choi, Jessica Thomas, Taryn Thompkins


Reviewed Performance: 3/5/2011

Reviewed by Mary L. Clark, Associate Critic for John Garcia's THE COLUMN

If you take Satellite-Dance Collective's name literally, it is a wonderful description as their work is collaboration between dance and interactive media camera and computer. The first piece, The Eclipse Project, use two tripod cameras at each side of the stage with a V wedge projection screen at center. As the two women move from behind and around the screen and into the cameras, their images are distorted by both the computer and the screen. One camera did not seem to be projecting anything but it did not deter from the performance.

I hardly ever use press release text to enhance my reviews, but in this case, it will assist in describing the beauty of their second piece, Water's Edge. This work "is an intermedia dance infused with text, sound score, and projected water images . . . illuminating a continuum of change". "Three women aboard a vessel (and)forage into the abyss of change . . . pouring, drowning, climbing . . . approaching the water's edge" . . . "and resolve into freedom on the other side". These three are clothed in diaphanous tunics and pants of red, navy and gold. As they flow, battle and succumb to the water, gauzy color images are projected in the background. The piece is so ethereal, so delicate and beautifully performed.

Artistic Director and Choreographer, Mary Lynn Babcock, founded this company in 2009. While they are still young, the talent onstage is far from novice and has the richness and confidence of more seasoned dancers. I am anxious to see where this young company will perform next and am now intrigued to see more of this imaginative blend of dance and technology - human and machine.

www.Satellite-Dance.com