I INFINITE is a dance installation by British choreographer, Tom Dale, a Laban graduate winning the centre’s Award for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography, but has worked in companies including Matthew Bourne’s Adventures in Motion Pictures.
It is a solo dance piece — blurb time — “Performed in a white cube space with a digitally animated environment. A fascinating fusion of dance, music, art and design.”
I INFINITE focuses on the interplay between dancer, audience and a digital space, probing the limits at which point these aspects merge.
The audience is invited to move around the performance space to choose their own viewpoint, venturing close to the dancer or just sitting to watch the intimate movement so often missed in traditional theatre spaces.
More blurb: “Inspired by the digital world’s quest to recreate life, graphic patterns slice through the space; glowing cubes fracture into a myriad of minuscule squares and pools of light hover in the air like oil on water.”
What drew Tom Dale to this digital world?
I was inspired by robotics, artificial intelligence and how the digital world is moving on an increasingly fast trajectory towards lifelike manifestations. How does the digital explore and master this physical world from its finite perspective? What would a robot or A.I. need to understand or learn in order to move in a human-like way.
His company — The Tom Dale Company, or TDC — is rapidly becoming one of the UK’s leading contemporary dance companies. Using digital media and electronic music with dance is a trademark.
The synergy between dance and the digital arts is the major artery pumping through TDC’s practice, its vision, through its collaborations with the digital arts, is to re-imagine dance.
I INFINITE is a collaboration between Tom Dale, Barret Hodgson and Maria Olga Palliani
performed by Jemima Brown | Maja Naomi Furnes
digital media artist Barret Hodgson
costume by Jane Taylor.
UK Autumn Tour Dates 2018
WARWICK ARTS CENTRE, COVENTRY
11 & 12 October 10.30am, 7pm & 8.45pm
warwickartscentre.co.uk | 024 7652 4524
THE PLACE, LONDON
16 October 7pm & 8.30pm 17 October 7pm
theplace.org.uk | 0207 121 1100
MIDLANDS ARTS CENTRE, BIRMINGHAM
1 & 2 November 11am, 2pm & 6pm
macbirmingham.co.uk | 0121 446 3232
MOUNTS BAY ACADEMY, PENZANCE
4 November 7pm & 8.30pm
www.crbo.co.uk | 01726 879 500
EXETER PHOENIX
6 November 7pm & 8.30pm
exeterphoenix.org.uk | 01392 667 080
GUILDHALL ARTS CENTRE, GRANTHAM
9 November 11am, 1.30pm & 7pm
guildhallartscentre.com | 01476 406 158
THE COUNCIL HOUSE, NOTTINGHAM
15-17 November 7pm & 8.30pm
dance4.co.uk
STRIKE A LIGHT, GLOUCESTER GUILDHALL
20 November 7pm & 8.30pm
strikealightfestival.org.uk
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano’) about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia’ column for Dancing Times magazine.
The Tom Dale Company (TDC) has always been one of my favorite U.K. dance companies. I attended their performance of ROAM at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and was fascinated with the way he merged musical composition, lighting design and choreography all created simultaneously. I watched the trailer of I INFINITE and loved it. Thank you for publishing these awesome pictures of the work and for bringing attention to their upcoming performances.
Thanks Susana – how much you do for new work!