ARTIST STATEMENT

In 2014, I had the unique opportunity to participate in a polar science mission to the Chukchi Sea as the first-ever choreographer-in-residence aboard the US Coast Guard Cutter Healy icebreaker. I was invited by Woods Hole oceanographer Dr. Robert Pickart as part of an outreach team on climate science communication. During the journey, I danced on sea ice at a dozen ice deployments. The footage from these onsite performances was edited into this short film by other WHOI team members. My motions are designed to suggest a timelapse morphology of ice formation and dissolution. The music remixes early subice recordings from the polar regions. The costume is patterned after a photograph of early-stage ice formation in the same region where I was dancing. -Jody Sperling, Choreographer-Director

CREDITS

Directed, choreographed, and performed by Jody Sperling
Video Editing: Ben Harden & Amanda Kowalski
Camera: Frank Bahr, Pierre Coupel & Jody Sperling
Music: Beo Morales & Brooks Williams
Costume Design: Mary Jo Mecca & Gina Nagy Burns in collaboration with Jody Sperling
Costume Construction: Mary Jo Mecca | Costume Painting: Gina Nagy Burns

Special thanks to the National Science Foundation and the entire HL1401 crew and science party, especially Robert Pickart, Chris Polashenski, the Takuvik team, BMCM Tim Sullivan, Executive Officer Stanclik and Captain Reeves.

BIOGRAPHY

A NYC-based dancer-choreographer, Jody Sperling is the Founder/Artistic Director of Time Lapse Dance. She has created 50+ works and is the leading exponent of the style of early performance technologist Loïe Fuller (1862-1928). Sperling has expanded Fuller’s genre into the 21st century, deploying it in the context of contemporary and ecological performance forms. Sperling is developing an inquiry called ecokinetics that cultivates the relationship between the human movers and ecological systems while forging strategies for climate-engaged artmaking.