BodyCartography Project

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BodyCartography Project is a dance performance duo composed of Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad. Their work is influenced by their studies at the Body-Mind Center, where dance is taught based on a somatic movement approach. The pair have created over 150 dance works, including site-specific creations, [1] stage productions, [2] film, and installations. [3] BodyCartography Project makes dances that engage with the vital materiality of the body, embodiment, and interaction of body and space. [4]

Contents

History

Olive Bieringa, originally from New Zealand, studied dance at European Dance Development Center in the Netherlands. She went to the US to study with Lisa Nelson and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. Otto Ramstad grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota and began studying with Suzanne River, when he was seven years old. Bieringa and Ramstad started to work together in 1998 and have been based in Minneapolis since 2001.

In 2001 and again in 2002 and 2003, Body Cartography Project participated in the New Zealand Fringe Festival, winning the Outdoor Award each year and the Pelorous Trust Creativity Award in 2003. The pair were well received at the Kerry Film Festival in Ireland in 2004.

In 2005, BodyCartography Project won the Dance for Camera prize at the American Dance Festival. In 2006 and 2008 they won the Minnesota Sage Award for Outstanding Performance. [5]

They were presented with a Brooklyn Arts Exchange Passing It On Award in 2006, and became Public Art St. Paul Sustainable Arts Fellows in 2007. City Pages named them Artists of the Year in 2007, and they won a McKnight Fellowship for Choreographers in 2010.

In 2012, they presented Super Nature at the Walker Art Center, with music by Zeena Parkins. [6]

Super Nature was performed at American Realness Festival in 2013, receiving a positive review from the New York Times . [7] They also performed at the newMoves Contemporary Dance Festival in 2015. [8] They were named the area's best dance company of the year by City Pages. [9]

In 2015, they received a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Art. They presented "closer" in various venues in the Twin Cities, [10] beginning as a series of one-on-one dances and winding up with a full-length production at the Red Eye Theater. [11] [12] They also sold these one-on-one performances at the Walker Art Center Shop as part of the Intangibles Collection. [13] [14]

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References

  1. ↑ "Barefoot Dancers, Pro Skaters, and Punk Legends Make Music in the Twin Cities". Wired, Douglas Wolk 09.13.2013.
  2. ↑ "Touch Compass - doing things differently in dance". Stuff, Adele Redmond August 26, 2015
  3. ↑ "MN Original". mnoriginal.org. Twin Cities Public Television. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  4. ↑ Bieringa, Olive. "BodyCartography Project Mission & History". www.bodycartography.org. BodyCartography Project. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  5. ↑ "4th Annual Minnesota SAGE Awards (2008)" Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine . Sage Awards website
  6. ↑ "Review: BodyCartography's wild kingdom Twin Cities dance troupe explores human behavior and the psyche in a bold, smart world premiere." By Caroline Palmer, Star Tribune. October 26, 2012
  7. ↑ "Maybe Naked, Curvy or Clumsy, and Probably Socially Unorthodox: BodyCartography Project at American Realness Festival". New York Times. By Alastair Macaulayjan. 17, 2013
  8. ↑ "New Moves Contemporary Dance Festival continues to inspire Pittsburgh arts scene". May 10, 2015 By Jane Vranish / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
  9. ↑ "Best Dance Company Minneapolis 2013 - The BodyCartography Project". www.citypages.com. City Pages. Archived from the original on 28 September 2014. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  10. ↑ "Spotlights: Old Log's 'Whorehouse,' 'Lawnboy' and Park Square's 'Illusion'". Star Tribune, June 11, 2015
  11. ↑ "Top dance of 2015: Dazzling moments here, there and everywhere". By Sheila Regan Star Tribune December 20, 2015
  12. ↑ "In BodyCartography's 'closer,' audience becomes a dance partner". Star Tribune, Sheila Regan August 14, 2015
  13. ↑ "A Gift Shop That Sells Snapchats, Avatars, and Voicemails". Wired, Liz Stinson 05.01.2015. 05.01.15
  14. ↑ "This museum gift shop sells art you can’t hang on the wall". PBS Newshour, May 27, 2015
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