Press Kit - Jody Oberfelder Projects

(photo: wowe)
Jody Oberfelder has been making work in New York for several decades. She has sung in a
rock band, choreographed an array of boldly physical dances including 'Approaching Climax',
'Throb', and 'The Story Thus Far', 'The Title Comes Last', and directed theater and opera, most
recently Stravinsky's 'A Soldier's Tale' (Brooklyn Philharmonic commission) and Purcell's 'Dido &
Aeneas' (Orchestra of St. Luke’s commission). ‘4Chambers’ is her first performance installation
piece. Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects (JODP) has toured internationally at venues such as
National de la Danse in Paris, Die Werkstatt in Dusseldorf, The Pusan National Theater in Korea,
The Belgrade Dance Festival (with performances at The Belgrade State Theater in Serbia and
the State Theater of Montenegro in Podorica), The 20th Annual International Festival of Modern
Dance in Seoul. Nationally the company has performed at Jacob's Pillow (MA), MASS MoCA
(MA), The Yard (MA), Washington College (MD) and in NYC at Dixon Place (three Mondo Cane
Commissions), Dance New Amsterdam, Abrons Arts Center, The Jewish Museum, The Flea
Theater, Joyce SoHo, Lincoln Center's Clark Studio Theater, Symphony Space, and PS 122.
Oberfelder has received commissions from American institutions that include Middlebury College,
Wayne State University, Moravian College, and Alfred University. For the past fifteen years,
Oberfelder has been a Teaching Artist for Lincoln Center Institute in New York. Honors include a
Joyce SoHo Residency (2007 - 2008), a NYFA BUILD Grant (2008 - 2009), annual funding from
the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, and being voted "Outstanding Choreographer" in the
FringeNYC Festival.
As dance filmmaker, Oberfelder has created eight films: 4Chambers, Come Sit Stay, Head First,
Duet, Chance Encounters, LineAge, Rapt, and Snew. These films have been shown in The
Dance on Camera Festival (NY), Cinedans (Amsterdam), VideodanceBA (Buenos Aires),
InShadow (Lisbon), The Tijuana Dance on Film Festival (CA), DTW’s Captured Series (NY), Fear
No Film Festival (Utah Arts Festival), Green Bay Film Festival (WI), Cape Fear Festival (NC), NY
No Limits Festival EDIT2008 (NY), 4th International Dance Film Festival (Budapest), The Michael
Fuchs Theatre at HBO (NY), and Napoli Teatro (Italy). JODP itself has been aired in films on
ABC's Nightline, Metro Arts 13, and Serbian national television. Oberfelder has collaborated with
designers and composers that include lighting designer Kathy Kaufmann, who received a Bessie
recently for her body of work (including Oberfelder's "Landmarks of Dreams"), costume designers
Liz Prince and Katrin Schnabl, Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra, (adapting the orignial C.F.
Ramuz text, with the approval of Schirmer Publishing, in an original production of Stravinsky’s
L’histoire du Soldat and composers Andy Akiho, Rachelle Garniez, Frank London, Dan Goode (all
of whom received Music for Dance commissions) and commissions from Brooklyn Philharmonic
and the Orchestra of St. Lukes (Dido & Aeneas).
Creative support for Jody and the company has come from The Holly Andersen Heart Foundation,
The Department of Cultural Affairs, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, NEA, NYSCA, The
Pfizer Foundation, The Starry Night Foundation, Wello Women, 2wice Arts Foundation, Inc, The
Odyssey Fund of the Jewish Communal Fund, Polar Electro Inc, Lower Manhattan Cultural
Council, The Jaffee Family Fund, New York Foundation for the Arts, The National Endowment for
the Arts, and generous individual donors.
PERFORMERS
Ben Follensbee does many things, dancing is one of them. He appreciates your interest and
support and is very excited to be working with Jody Oberfelder.
Mary Madsen a freelance dance artist based in NYC since 2003. She grew up on a dairy farm in
Wisconsin and holds a BFA in dance from the University of Milwaukee-WI. Mary is currently
working Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects, the Resonance Collective, and performing in Then She
Fell by Third Rail Projects. Other choreographers she has had the pleasure to work with include:
Regina Nejman, John J Zullo, Rebollar Dance Theater (D.C.), Kelly Anderson (Chicago), &
Simone Ferro (Milwaukee). Mary also experiments with solo choreography, film, and
collaborations with music artists namely The Glass Half & Summer Come Yelling & Jigsaw
Soul (’05-’08). She currently lives in Brooklyn, and is thrilled to be a part of Jody Oberfelder
Projects.
Madeline Wilcox, a native to Arizona, is a Brooklyn based dance artist. She holds a BFA in
Dance Performance and a BS in Communication from Arizona State University and works with
choreographers Sarah Michelson and Jody Oberfelder. Since moving to New York, she has had
the pleasure of performing for Jillian Peña, Suzanne Beahrs, Sarah Michelson, Jessica Gaynor,
Kendra Portier, Teresa Fellion, Matthew Westerby, Ashleigh Leite, and The Median Movement.
She has also worked with composer Robert Ashley and Director Fast Forward in the experimental
opera, That Morning Thing. She is an ACE Certified Fitness Instructor and NASM Certified
Personal Trainer at Uplift Studios and enjoys hiking, baking, and yoga. She is thrilled to be
dancing in The Brain Piece with Jody Oberfelder Projects.
In 4CHAMBERS there are four spaces that people enter and go through, like the flow of blood,
in one direction, and come out on the other side, having had a deeper experience, hopefully, of
their own humanity.
Photo by Julie Lemberger
Last Saturday evening I experienced 4CHAMBERS (running Thurs., Fri., Sat., through March 22
at Arts@Renaissance, N.Y.C.) I spent the day apprehensive -- what might it be like to have a
deeper experience of my self with a small group of strangers inside of a spacial representation of
my heart? What does that even mean? And was this something I really wanted to do? Having
spoken with the artist who conceived the project, director and choreographer, Jody Oberfelder, I
knew 4CHAMBERS would challenge me. According to Oberfelder, this immersive theater piece
differs from other such works because "the story you experience is your own." There is no
narrative, or storyline, just your awareness of your interactions, reactions, proximity and
connection to others. The dancer-docents lead you through the piece, continually reminding you,
through movement and gentle, respectful touch that you are both inhabiting human bodies. This,
I learned, is a powerful thing.
With 4Chambers [I] use the heart as a metaphor to go inside people's bodies. To make them
realize that they have a life that's encased by a body. It could also be because I'm getting older and
it's an issue that I'm facing that this encasement of my life is not going to last forever -- [I want] to
treasure it -- to treasure the motor that keeps me going -- the beat of my circulatory system that
connects with my emotional state of being, and my brain, and how that filters down through my
body. I want to help other people have that connection themselves.
Dancing on Your Own
No date? No problem.
Events for the solo flier this February 14.
By Vanita Salisbury Published Jan 30, 2014
4Chambers Arts@Renaissance, 2 Kingsland Ave., at Maspeth Ave., Greenpoint,
Brooklyn; jodyoberfelder.com; Thu. at 6:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Fri. and Sat. at 7 p.m. and
8:30 p.m., through 3/22
If you're not in love when you enter this heart-themed dance immersion choreographed
by the inventive Jody Oberfelder, you may very well be when you leave. Dancer
"docents" guide participants through the intimate performance, and through movement
and video you'll explore yourself, your docent, and possibly admit aloud to truths you
weren't aware of (that's all we'll reveal about that). Know before you go: Participation is a
great deal of the experience, but no two experiences are alike.
New York Theatre Review
an indie media outlet for indie theater
Ryan Hudak on 4Chambers at Arts@Renaissance
January 27, 2014 By Ryan Hudak
Have you ever listened closely to the sound of another’s person’s heart? The heart is not only an organ for life, it is the
key to emotional connection and desires. If you place your hand on another’s chest and listen, you might just start to
understand each other in ways you could never imagine. 4Chambers, a dance installation by Jody Oberfelder Projects
at Arts@Renaissance, takes the audience on a journey through each chamber of the heart and forms a bond that
celebrates humanity in all its forms.
Oberfelder and her team have restaged and reimagined 4Chambers, expanding on a show that gained significant praise
in its first run on Governor's Island last summer. They combine dance, music, video and science to create a world that
requires the audience be present at every moment. From the waiting room filled with books on the heart to the pulsing
red room that ends the show, the environments that Juergen Riehm has created wrap you into the piece with each step
you take. Kryssy Wright’s lighting design adds a mystery and emotional quality to the work.
What makes this piece so powerful isn't necessarily the rooms of the installation, it’s the performers and audience
members that inhabit them. A large part of how much you enjoy 4Chambers is how willing you are to be open and
play. The audience is limited to twelve people per performance; on the night that I went, there were only four people
along with me and the performers, causing the intimacy between us to grow. Each audience member is assigned to a
dancer, who acts as a guide through the whole piece and becomes a silent friend, moving your hand to your heart on
more than one occasion. Through eye contact and trust, the connection between the dancer and viewer is special: you
found yourself opening up to a complete straner, not in words but in motions and looks. It is a joy to jump and run
around the space with the performers, but sharing a smile or feeling their hearts thump after a particular dance sequence
is even more powerful.
Oberfelder’s choreography is rhythmic and fluid, full of foot-stomping and body contact that reverberates throughout
the space. Her cast is full of dynamic performers who captivate and command your attention. The dancers embrace and
lose each other constantly, flowing out of each other’s arms only to slam into each other a second later. They bounce
off the walls, use their breath to signal large shifts in the piece and, at one point, perform mere inches away from the
person they’ve been with for the whole performance. The choreography goes from intense and complex sequences to
simple actions. There is a sense that much of the movement could possibly change depending on the night and
especially on the audience. As crazy as it may sound, a dancer simply holding your hand to their heart or leaning their
head against your chest can be incredibly moving.
The scientific aspects of 4Chambers cause an interesting contrast to the passionate moments. There are videos from
doctors and professors discussing blood flow from the heart, machines that project your heart rate into a beeping
melody and a questionnaire that will make you laugh as well as think. While the technical and human aspects of the
piece don’t always blend into a cohesive work, the strengths of this show overwhelm its flaws. Oberfelder wants you to
breathe and relax, causing you to become more aware as the night goes on. 4Chambers is hard to shake after seeing it.
If you surrender yourself to it, it will give you something marvelous in return. It is so easy to forget in the busy world
that our bodies are beautiful and human connection is invaluable.
The Jewish Heart
By Jody Oberfelder
June 18, 2013
4CHAMBERS AT GOVERNORS ISLAND. PHOTO JULIE LEMBERGER.
There is a reason the heart is a metaphor for all things connected to compassion,
emotions, fullness and emptiness of life. How we act and react in life has to do with
where your heart is. The heart is a muscle that pumps the lifeblood throughout the body,
and responds automatically to keep us going in times of extreme mental cogitation,
stress, alarm. To beat faster with joy, when in love.
The heart is like a house. It even has an entrance way (the atrium). Most Jewish
traditions center in on the home, the hearth, the heart of the house. We cook, light
candles, serve people we love in the home. These traditions in the home keep us going.
The circulatory system is a ritual of passage — from one part to the next, and back
again. So many Jewish rituals are traditions for us to gain understanding of our
humanity. We connect through a layering of inquiry, the mind tries to understand life,
and our connectivity. The beating heart is a rhythmic reminder. We celebrate with song
and dance.
Our hearts know how to fuel our bodies — a microcosm of the world. We know
how to live and function unselfishly. Jewish teaching is all about this life now. The heart
is the basis of most all religions; because we want that circulatory endurance, the system
of knowing we are all working as one organism. All parts of this strong cardiac muscle
work together in “Syncytium” coordinating every cell — the same way religion can bolster
and inform connectivity.
Dance review: ’4Chambers’ explores matters of the heart
Published: July 22, 2013 By Elizabeth Zimmer
Tired of sitting half a block from performers in huge theaters? Try lying on the
floor as their video images flutter on the ceiling or having dancers twirl you across a
living-room floor. Let them place your hand on their chests to feel their pounding
hearts. Interact with them in a room hung with deep-red curtains. Watch and listen as
your fellow spectators grapple with secrets.
Governors Island, the historic site in Upper New York Bay, now harbors a variety
of recreational activities, including a homemade miniature golf course and art classes for
kids. Ten minutes’ walk from free ferries connecting the island to lower Manhattan and
Brooklyn sits a neat yellow house on a tree-lined path. Its empty rooms, painted pink,
host “4CHAMBERS,” an hour-long “journey into the human heart” conceived by
choreographer Jody Oberfelder. Her piece includes film, original music, moody lighting
and sleek design. She’ll lock up your bags so your hands are free to participate.
Five times a day, six performers guide audiences of 12 through the cottage’s four
spaces, where visitors partner dancers, sit for interviews with a mysterious fellow on
video, hear commentary on the relation of the brain to the heart, take in the tale of a
dancer who survived his own coronary interruption and monitor heart rates — their own
and those of the busy dancers.
Interesting ideas come together here, in a program suitable for viewers over age 8
who can climb stairs and are game to engage, physically, with lovely young performers.
“The heart wants what it wants,” Woody Allen famously said. Oberfelder’s house-asheart welcomes you.
“4Chambers” by Jody Oberfelder at
Officers’ House #15 on Governor’s Island
Theater Reviews / Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Review by Sarah Lucie
In our technology-minded world, the out-of-body experience isn’t what it used to
be. How many hours do you spend hunched over a computer, head bent to stare at a
smart phone, or lying prone to watch the flashing television screen? And in all this time,
how aware are you of the body itself—the heart rhythmically thumping to keep you
awake and able to transport your mind somewhere else? Jody Oberfelder’s participatory
experimental dance piece thrusts the body into the limelight, providing the audience
with an opportunity to viscerally understand the importance of the heart, and an
opportunity to feel alive.
Set in an officers’ house on Governor’s Island, the piece transforms four rooms of
a typical abode into the four chambers of the heart, with hallways serving as veins.
Dancers and audience members move through the home/heart while monitoring their
own hearts, joining the micro and macro, tangible and abstract, private and public. After
only a moment, it becomes apparent that movement is an ideal site in which to consider
the heart, highlighting the connection between the body’s powerhouse and the body’s
ability to literally do anything, much less spin and leap.
The performance begins with an abstract film also by Ms. Oberfelder. It’s a
mesmerizing start, preparing the audience for an experience beyond reason and logic.
Then, each dancer docent is paired with two audience members, and the dance
commences with a part improvised, part choreographed experiment in communal
movement. Here the intimate nature of the production is made apparent. Dancers and
audience members move together, undulating through the space, pushing into walls and
feeling the power of a direct body-to-body connection. One can literally feel the life
pulsing between every pair.
The intimacy is taken to another level in a chamber where each audience member
is connected to a heart rate monitor. In something akin to a lie-detector test, the
audience is grilled with some personal questions, and the connection between head and
heart is revealed as the heart races through every high-pressure moment. (Don’t worry;
you don’t have to answer the questions.) The audience also has the chance to consider
the heart in a more literal way through an installation in the vein/hallway, which
includes a film explaining the connection between heart and brain, and another detailing
the circulation process.
It’s worth mentioning the virtuosity of the dancers themselves, as well as the
simultaneously inventive and classically beautiful choreography. The dancers move with
grace and abandon through an impressive array of lifts, kicks, and quirky isolations,
while acting as sensitive guides through the space.
Jody Oberfelder’s “4Chambers” is a visceral experience in which audience
members learn by feeling their own body, rather than distantly considering the subject
matter intellectually. It’s a refreshing opportunity to play, to sense the bodies around you
and react honestly and impulsively. We are called to feel alive. Feel the heart pumping
within your body.
Finding Your Heart on Governors Island
Wednesday, July 10th, 2013 by Marti Sichel on Playing Around
The first thing I feel I should mention is that we have a very small, very
beautiful, very calm little island lying a mere 800 yards across a narrow strip of water
from Battery Park (it’s legally a part of Manhattan) and separated from Brooklyn by
the charmingly named Buttermilk Channel. Governors Island, once called Nut Island for
the resplendence of walnut trees that grew there when first discovered by Dutch
settlers in the early 17th century, was the location of the first settlement in the New
York, even before the first structures were hammered together on Manhattan’s
southernmost tip. A free ferry shuttles visitors back and forth every 30 minutes on
these hot summer weekends, and once there, there are wide paths for walking or
riding bikes, a large open lawn that’s perfect for flying a kite in the island’s steady
cross-breezes, interesting former military buildings, a Civil War–era cannonade
(complete with uniformed ‘guards’ to watch over them). Among the park’s offerings
are a combination petting zoo and compost, playgrounds and art installations, crafting
classes and displays, historical exhibitions and a charming little neighborhood filled
with pop-up style shops and fun little diversions set up in lovely old houses that serve
to pique your interest while passing the time.
It was in one of these lovely houses that Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects has
installed the interactive multimedia experiential dance production, 4Chambers. Grown
out of a previous work, Throb, 4Chambers is an incredibly intimate production that
quite literally pulls viewers into the experience. It was quite a change, leaving the
beating heart of the city and entering this altogether different heart-motivated
experience.
Inspired by the physical movements of the heart and the blood that it pumps,
that driving life force within us all, 4Chambers contains just what it says. The house
has been transformed into a giant, thumping heart, a series of separate chambers and
arteries in which everything—from the ambient sounds to the paint, lights and draped
cloths—suggest warmth and strength. Each room is distinct from the others, each
marking off an experiential part of the journey.
The first is the Film Chamber, a dark, pillow-strewn waiting room where
visitors have a moment to adjust to the space and watch a brief silent reel of dancers
projected onto the ceiling. At this point I noticed someone in the room I hadn’t seen
enter with the rest. As the film started to loop, he stood, walked across the room,
offered his hands to one of the visitors, and helped her to her feet. He silently turned
her around toward a thick curtain, parted it, and eased her on her way. He did this
again and again, in no particular order, approaching one guest after another, taking
them by the hand, leading them by the shoulders to the curtain, silently suggesting
they take a deep, cleansing breath, and gently pushing them on their way.
A walk down a short, crimson colored, and dimly lit corridor brought each of us
in turn to a room called the Physical Chamber, my favorite part of the entire process.
At the entryway, I was greeted by my “dancer docent,” a quietly intense girl who I
later deduced to be named Mary. This is where things got interesting.
The dancer docents don’t just act as guides, drawing you from place to place
while they scatter and continue their performances. They make you a part of the
performance. Mary took me by the hand, looked deep into my eyes, slid a hand around
my shoulder, and pulled me across the room with her, her invitation to keep in step
made without words, but every move very clearly suggested. The dancer docents all
moved and manipulated their guests, using the space and each others bodies (and the
guests bodies) as part of the choreography. Hands sometimes clasped, eyes sometimes
locked… It’s a very difficult and exposing thing just looking deeply into a stranger’s
eyes. I couldn’t help but feel a wild combination of feelings at it, thrill and
embarrassment and intimacy. There was a distinct struggle for me, looking into those
soft hazel eyes without blushing or turning away. Really, the entire experience of the
Physical Chamber was like that. It was deeply sensual, incredibly physically intimate
without being erotic. And it was also very good fun, like an advanced form of Simon
Says without the threat of being ejected from the game for doing something wrong.
It was great being so inside the piece. All other thoughts just faded away while
I only concerned myself with my partner, what she was doing, and what I should do to
follow. Each of us guests had a dance and then was settled around the room to watch
as the dancers picked up new partners and whirled them around the two-room
chamber. When each guest was in place along the periphery, the dancers surged
together as a group, performing a writhing, pulsing, bit of choreography before pairing
off for stunning variations on a pas de deux. These dances were full of graceful energy,
the heat in the house seemingly adding a kind of urgency to the dancers’ interactions.
As I said before, this was my favorite part of the entire experience and I know I could
have watched and danced along as much as they let me for the full hour. But, alas,
eventually it was time to move on.
The experiences that followed, the Synapse Chamber and Artery of Knowledge,
were the two multimedia portions of the program. The Artery was mostly passively
experiential, a hallway full of things to watch and ideas to absorb. It was interesting
and educational, but was the slowest part of the show. I suppose much of that
depends on which part of the multimedia presentation you are offered. I was directed
to a mounted screen with a pair of headphones attached and watched as the subject
of this presentation described what it was like having a heart attack. There were other
things to do and see, but that was mine.
The Synapse Chamber I’ll leave a mystery, though I do advise you to participate
if prompted to do so. There’s nothing to lose, only experience to be gained, and that’s
pretty much what art is about right? It can be about the technical and the precise,
about the weight, height, size, color, angle and orientation. But it can also be about
the feeling, about the letting go, about the experience and how it alters the way you
think and feel after you’ve left the space.
The last room was the Pulsing Chamber. We were here rejoined by our dancer
docents. Hands to hearts—ours to theirs and theirs to ours—we were again placed with
care around the room, this one draped with thin curtains. This last part of the dance
was pretty self-explanatory. The dancers bounced and bounded around the room,
stopping on occasion to check their hearts and make sure we were following ours. The
music in the room was a slightly muffled ambient piece, its early tranquil mood soon
overshadowed by primal, fast-paced drums, which are again replaced by the sultry
tones of singer Kelsey Lu McJunkins. The whole piece was overlaid with the constant,
regular beating like a heart in its cage, reminding the participants of where they were
supposed to be and where the focus lay.
It was in this room that the whole performance was brought to a quiet,
delicate end. Glasses of cool water awaited us as we stepped out onto the porch and
into the bright, hot air. This kind of dance-based performance art may not be for
everyone, but it’s definitely worth giving it a try. The worst case scenario? You have a
lovely day on a lovely island with a spectacular view of the city. But try it. It may
surprise you, and you may surprise yourself.
4Chambers
Choreographed, created, and directed by
Jody Oberfelde Off Off Broadway, Dance Runs through
7.21.13 Governor's Island, Building 15, Officer's House in Nolan
Park by Jane Sato on 7.17.13
BOTTOM LINE: It might be the most surprising and innovative thing you've seen all
year.
Upon entering 4Chambers, you leave your cell phone and belongings in a locker. This
separation really forces you to pay attention and I could see a few people panic at the
thought of it. 4Chambers is separated into four parts like the heart itself and each
section is exactly the right amount of time. The six dancers act as docents and lead
each audience member through the arteries and veins of the historic house as the
piece progresses. You can tell that this is a well thought out production from the
moment you enter until the time you leave and are handed a nice cool drink of water
on the porch. It seems that your movement is choreographed as much as that of the
dancers as you find yourself placed in exactly the right spot. The dancers do an
amazing job at giving each audience member attention and a full experience. They
took each person in the audience (there are only twelve per show) and danced with
them; in a city where eye contact with strangers is rare, it creates an interesting
dynamic to watch and feel yourself.
This is Oberfelder's first site-specific installation of this nature and scope. I
think this atmosphere suits her work incredibly well. I could imagine this work
translating to a gallery space as well as to some abandoned building. It has almost
universal appeal in reaching to the science geek or the hipster, the conservative or the
liberal.
The audience enters a dark room with a dance film projected on the ceiling.
This familiarizes you with Oberfelder's physical aesthetic. The dancers fling themselves
off the walls and break off into quirky movement phrases. Then, one at a time, each
audience member enters a room where they are swept up and maybe even lifted by a
dancer. You can feel their heartbeat, and then when they place your hand on your
own, the difference is remarkable. They direct you to walls where they perform in
between you and fellow audience members without ever knocking into anyone. My
dancer, Michele Jongeneel, worked seamlessly around a fireplace and an air
conditioner. Now that's grace and precision. The duet with Jongeneel and Zachary
Denison is delicate and violent in the same moments and stands out in the first section.
Each of the dancers has an alluring personality and concentrated gaze that reaches the
span of a rainbow.
Dancers then lead visitors up the stairs; as they pass out heart monitors, a high
tech computer program asks each person questions such as " What scares you most?"
and you begin to relate to the piece in an entirely different way. The program asked
me "What is the last thing that surprised you?" I had to answer, "This." Next is
a hallway full of found objects and film. It's a nice way to let everything begin to seep
in and learn facts about the heart. There was even an app that took your heart rate
from face recognition software (I just downloaded it onto my phone). The show comes
to an end in a red chiffon-lined and beautifully lit room. This final section starts out
with a monologue and erupts into very visceral dance phrases and crashing pulsations
into the walls by all the dancers; as the end nears, this group tackles each other and
huddles into a tight knit group. After doing ten shows a week together, that is exactly
what they are and you feel the honesty in that.
It was
a pleasure to watch the full experience and become more in tune with my own heart.
For me, 4Chambers was about getting out of your head and syncing up with feelings.
Especially on a hot sticky summer day, we need more art like that. I loved it and want
to see it again.
A Mini Interview with Choreographer Jody Oberfelder
This entry was posted in Ohio Interviews on June 24, 2013 by
Photo of Jody Oberfelder by wowe
Jody, tell us about “4 Chambers,” which you are performing in Officers House #15 on
Govenor’s Island for audiences of 12 at a time in July. Did you create the work specifically
for this space? What is your hope for how audience members will experience the piece?
I knew that this piece was not meant to be sited in traditional performance space. At the
Documenta last year in Kassel, I was inspired by an installation in an old house by the train
station. There was something about being in a space with historical ephemera, ghosts of past lives,
rooms and hallways where we were allowed to have our own individual experiences that exited
me.
“4Chambers” has been brewing ‘in my head’ for a long time. And that’s pretty rough for
a choreographer. We’re used to conceiving our art with live bodies in a room. The dancers are
primary in this work, also as ‘docents’ guiding audience members through different experiences
in each chamber: visual, physical, ‘mind’ led, and pulsing. In this work, rather than have the
audience empathize kinetically with action on a stage, we are creating an intimate experience for
audiences to feel their hearts from the inside out. The audience will feel they are on the inside of a
giant beating organ while also remembering that their body the container of their own heart, with
its attributes of both the scientific and the emotional. It is my hope that the audience will feel
more alive!!!!
Was the work choreographed to music? What sounds will be part of the performance?
When I choreograph, the idea usually comes before the music, unless it’a a piece that’s
totally music driven, like my 10 piece suite to Stephen Merritt’s songs (Magnetic Fields) or a
commission like Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale (Brooklyn Philharmonic) , or Dido &
Aeneas (Orchestra of St. Luke’s). So the chicken or egg question is usually starting with the big
idea, working with movement, (or film) and then as the piece simmers, listening to a lot of
different pieces and seeing what lines up. The four composers for this work are a diverse lot. But
all could fall under the new music. Andy Akiho and I worked together on THROB, last year’s
piece in which the dancers wore heart monitors. Matt McBane’s work is inviting, gradually
accumulating a richness of texture, and Richard Einhorn’s work, composed for two string
quartets, is intense–get’s you stirring. Jonathan Melville’s Pratt’s work was composed for this
piece. He sampled his own heart beat, there are strings, a singer–it conveys a pulsing journey.
First “Throb,” now “4 Chambers”– tell us about the source of your interest in the heart.
My husband, Juergen Riehm, is an architect. One of his clients, Dr. Holly Andersen, is a
cardiologist. She heard I was a dancer and said, “Oh, that is such a wonderful thing. When my
patients come out of cardiac surgery, I tell them the best thing they can do it put on music that
they love, maybe a piece they grew up with, and slowly move to it, not rigorously, but gently.
This will strengthen the heart. This let me to a whole study of happy hormones, endorphins, the
physical mechanics of the heart, connections of brain and heart, states of being, feeling and
thinking. THROB was a pretty sexy duet with an ersatz scientist giving them tasks, tracking their
heart rates and playing the synthesizer to the timing of their accelerating hearts.
I was curious if it was possible to have the audience share the same inflections of heart
rate chance as the onstage action. So 4Chambers is my more ‘up close and personal’ response to
that questions. Are we able to create an intimate individualized experience for each audience
member, and yet have a collective trajectory?Also, thinking about the heart–that it’s all we’ve
got–the great life signifier–you could say I’ve been thinking about mortality in general, but not in
a morbid way.
How are you collaborating with neuroscientist Dr. Wendy Suzuki? Also, after your focus on
the heart, might the brain be next?
Yes–Wendy is actually part of my piece–I interviewed her on the connections between
the heart and the brain. She is part of the ‘Artery of Knowledge.’ Her interview is one of several
short films, [presented] gallery style, where participants can learn more about the heart. There’s a
demo on pulse points, my friend tells his heart attack story, Sarah Science talks about the
circulatory system…lots to read and reflect upon.
The brain as a future project–let me think about that!
Dd Preview of Jody Oberfelder’s
4Chambers: A heart to heart
July 12, 2013 By Sara Sessions
The house looks like a Norman Rockwell painting: quintessential Americana,
rocking chair included. Step inside, however, and you begin an interactive journey
through a dance performance that leads you to the four corners of the heart.
4Chambers by the Jody Oberfelder Dance Project is “a sensorial journey into the human
heart” and presents an opportunity to literally step into the world of that rhythmic organ,
and therefore dance.
Funded by a Kickstarter campaign and free to the public, this intimate installation
transforms the rooms and corridors of Officers’ House #15 on NYC’s Governors Island
into the arterial pathways and insulated chambers of the heart. The small audience is
ushered through the performance by six dancers who silently guide the audience from
room to room. It leaves one feeling cared for, catered to, loved.
The dancing is interspersed with short videos that inspire both a rational and emotional
connection to the functions of our circulatory system. The physical description of how
blood flows through the heart—hand gestures indicating the pattern—is a witty
pantomime dance unto itself. The video and live performance strikes a balance between
thinking and feeling, mind and body.
But the most compelling thing about 4Chambers is the interactive component. Once
inside the draped interior of the house, the dancers take audience members by the hand,
and sometimes by the heart, to encourage participation. As a dancer, I was comfortable
dropping straight into a game of contact improvisation, but I also found myself holding
back, respectful of the dancers’ dance, watching and waiting for the next invitation. For
my non-dancer friend, it meant exploring uncharted territory as he found himself “in” the
dance, interacting rather than observing.
For the dancers, this component means that each show is different, requiring a careful
gaging of the audience’s reactions. At the preview I attended, they made sure the
audience/participants felt nurtured and safe, until the body-flinging finale demanded
each dancer place an audience member’s hand over their pounding heart. In a heartbeat,
two rhythms race to find a common ground, a common pulse, and in a very short space
of time I had, for a moment, unconditionally connected with another person’s heart.
New York Theatre Review
Posted 10th July by Jody Christopherson
Sherri Kronfeld, interviews Jody Oberfelder on her
piece 4Chambers at Governor’s Island
I had the pleasure of experiencing a preview performance of 4Chambers, a site-specific
immersive performance experience that blends dance, theater, film and visual installation, in
an officer’s house at Governor’s Island, this past weekend. I then had a live-Skype-chatinterview with choreographer (and in this show’s case, writer and director, but more on that
to come) Jody Oberfelder about her process of creating this work.
Please note the photos you see here, while lovely, do not quite do the visually lush piece
justice, as they show only one room of this house (one chamber of the heart). The house is
used from end to end and has been spectacularly transformed for this piece.
SK: I've never done an interview this way! Let’s see how we go..
JO: Fingers poised..
SK: What will audiences who attend 4Chambers experience?
JO: Each 'guest', as we call them, will have his or her own experience. Everyone will go
through the same trajectory, one-way traffic, like blood, into four chambers. There are veins
and arteries connecting the spaces. They will experience a sensorial journey in a big old
house.
SK: Can you be a little more specific?
JO: The performers’ job, as docents, is to guide each person to connect their mind with
their heart. (SK Note: there are 6 performers and 12 audience members in each
performance.) There's a mixture of mediums, from film, to physical, to interactive video, to a
'gallery' we call the Artery of Knowledge, an interstitial space, to a pulsing room. All through
it the audience is monitoring their own connections, thoughts and feelings.
SK: What inspired you to create 4Chambers?
JO: I've been a physical person my whole life. And making dances for the stage seems to
have always satisfied my urge to create. This time, I wanted to make something more 'lifelike'.
SK: That's interesting, by life-like do you mean.. the use of one-on-one performances,
performers touching audience members?
JO: I mean more like life. The idea for the piece started by meeting a cardiologist, Dr. Holly
Andersen, who told me dancers were lucky to be so in tune with their bodies. She told me
that after cardiac surgery, she suggests to all patients to listen to music they love and
dance to it, slowly at first, and then as the heart muscles get stronger, to rock out.
SK: How cool!
JO: Back to life-like. Sometimes performances are stilted. We sit and watch. Rather than
relating to that picture onstage, I'm interested in proximity--how close can you get?
SK: So you started to mention the heart and the cardiologist. What is it about the heart that
you want to express?
JO: The heart is a great signifier of life.
SK: Why make a piece about the heart?
JO: It's every metaphor that's been dumbed down, but it's also emblematic of being alive.
SK: So a piece about the heart is in a way a piece about life itself?
JO: Yes! You've called me out as a humanist!
SK: ;)
SK: Why is 4Chambers for only an audience of 12 at a time?
JO: We really wanted it for 6 dancers/ 6 guests, to give the full effect. But we've devised a
way where everyone (12 guests) gets to participate in almost everything, with breaks.
SK: But why the limited audience in general, why does that suit the piece for you?
JO: Because it's intimate. It makes an experience more personal. Most good things feel
intimate. You feel like you are in a surround-experience, vast, yet at the same time detailed
and small. I want this transformation to be palpable. For people to feel something under
their skin, and think about it. Viscerally, and intellectually.
SK: You are known primarily as a choreographer. Why did you chose to make a piece that
includes several film and written elements, as well as dance? What do the various genres
do to serve the piece? Why go beyond 'just dance'?
JO: To add more dimension. This piece calls for different treatments of a spatial
environment. Dance is amazing, yet I needed to stretch my vocabulary to include these
other modalities. Sometimes it felt like I was not making art because the familiarity of being
in the studio with dancers, getting sweaty, using kinetic choices to express, was not there.
But in the end, there is enough physicality in this work.
I also get frustrated trying to get it all out with movement alone. This directing of dancers to
be guides where the stress is on other people's experience was revelatory. We do that
anyway in a 'come with me in this real time moment' fashion. That's the art of the
ephemeral. I want to make an experience that happens in time and slips inside you.
SK: In addition to choreographing, you had to do a significant amount of directing (dance
film and video interviews) and writing. Did you enjoy that process and working with those
non-dance collaborators?
JO: I did. I love the back and forth of ideas’ collaborating.
SK: Did you learn new things about other folks' processes/ways of working?
JO: I know what I want in general, but I give space for the artistry and aesthetics of each
person to be in their voice. We talk a lot.
SK: Cool. What excites you about the current location for the show, in an officer's house
on Governor's Island?
JO: This site is unique, and enchanting. It has big rooms and history. Some very important
officer lived there as this house is a single family house. It feels now like we've moved in,
after being on my hands and knees, and on top of ladders cleaning up the place. It has a
front porch and a back porch. Each space we do 4Chambers in can be different rendering,
all we need is four rooms and a few hallways, to funnel people through.
I was at Documenta last summer and loved this one exhibition where you went inside a
house and it was all about artifacts, and how you experience pieces of your life. I loved it. I
knew at that point that this investigation of the heart had to be in four chambers, not
onstage.
SK: Ah, awesome! What has been the biggest challenge leading up to this production?
JO: Working on an installation is a new ball of wax. There are so many details. I'm used to
rehearsing in a studio and making the big move to a stage, bringing the magic in to make
the stage a jewel box that glistens. With this piece, there is not a corner we ignore. There
were a lot of trips to the hardware store.
SK: So, the physical transformation of the space was the most challenging?
JO: Exactly. So that people who pass through it have their own transformations.
SK: As someone who makes site specific work myself, i've often found that there is more
work to be done in transforming a non traditional space.. which i think the public is not so
aware of.
JO: Oh yeah.
SK: Somehow it seems like it must be easier and cheaper if it is not a theater etc- but
rather it's bigger and harder in pretty much all ways!
JO: I'm working with my husband, Juergen Riehm, as a set designer, who has a very clean
aesthetic, so he's all against tchotchkes. And I had to push my ideas through in certain
places to get a little funk in there.
SK: Right. What has been the most pleasant surprise of your process leading up to this
point?
JO: How it's all come together. The dancers, the ideas, the space, against all odds. Having
just been a concept, and seeing it ripe now, is quite rewarding.
I also am thinking of myself a little different.
SK: How so?
JO: This has been a scary process, out of my element, or out of my primary element.
Really new. A stretch. Back in 1994 I felt this way making a collaborative piece (created
with Kim Irwin) with all former cheerleaders called "Wanted: X Cheerleaders" --raw and
raucous-- we didn't know what the hell we were doing, but the piece was wildly engaging.
A leap from my comfort zone.
I think we want to engage audiences this way too. Play with comfort and discomfort.
SK: Right, speaking of audiences, that takes me to my final question. In a sentence or two,
why should people come see this piece?
JO: People should come because it's something to experience. It's art meets science. It's
skin meets organs. It's fun, but not in a funhouse way. It's something to go through, like life.
And it is fun.
SK: Is there anything else that we didn't cover, that you would like to share?
JO: This show is free this time around, as we're performing in a public park. (suggested
donation $25).
THIS WEEK IN NEW YORK The Insiders Guide To The
City Since 2001
4CHAMBERS: A SENSORIAL JOURNEY INTO
THE HUMAN HEART
July 17, 2013 By
New York City-based choreographer and filmmaker Jody Oberfelder takes twelve lucky
people on a fascinating trip in and around the human heart in her wonderful new
multimedia, interactive work, 4Chambers. The immersive, site-specific piece takes place
inside Officers’ House #15 on Governors Island, where six dancers (Michele Jongeneel,
Mary Madsen, Zachary Denison, Jake Szczypek, Joey Kipp, and Mercedes Searer) lead a
dozen people through a series of rooms (Film Chamber, Physical Chamber, Synapse
Chamber, Pulsing Chamber), each one examining a different aspect of the body’s central
organ. Using film, movement, sound, visual art, and touch, Oberfelder investigates the
many functions of the heart, from its core responsibility as a blood-pumping muscle to
its romantic relationship with love. The sixty-minute piece also gets educational in an
“Artery of Knowledge” section where text and video offer further insight. The show is
beautifully paced, echoing the work done by the heart itself, going from a restful period
to one filled with frantic activity as the dancers run around, bounce off walls, and fall to
the ground. Be warned: You will be touched by the performers, both literally and
figuratively, particularly in a pas-de-deux in which you can become as involved as you
are comfortable with being. It’s amazing to consider that the same dancers are doing
this five times a day, but that also reveals the vast capabilities of the heart. Admission is
free, but advance RSVP is required; 4Chambers continues this Saturday and Sunday at
11:30, 1:00, 2:30, 4:00, and 5:30. (While you’re on Governors Island, be sure to also
check out the always fun Figment art project, LMCC’s Terrerform ONE: Governors Hook
Urbaneering exhibit, the charming Fête Paradiso: A Festival of Vintage Carousels and
Carnival Rides, the New-York Historical Society’s “WWII & NYC: Photography and
Propaganda,” and other special art shows, family-friendly activities, and live
performances, most of which are free.)
Dancing Up Close to Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects
Jody Oberfelder’s 4Chambers
Director/Choreographer: Jody Oberfelder Performers: Zachary Denison,
Michele Jongeneel, Joey Kipp, Mary Madsen, Mercedes Searer, Jake
Szczypek.
By Tara Sheena for The Dance Enthusiast
Jody Oberfelder and her company of six dancers have taken up
residence on Governor’s Island and transformed Officer’s House 15, a
single-family home in Nolan Park, into a site for an immersive performance
experience.
In 4Chambers, a 60-minute site-specific installation, an audience of
no more than twelve is ushered through various rooms meant to resemble
veins and arteries coursing through the circulatory system. Each room
functions as a different “chamber,” with four in all: visual, physical, synapse,
pulsing. Oberfelder also worked with video artists, Jason Bahling and Jake
Witlen, to expand the idea of how the heart functions across varied
performance contexts. The video work consists of interviews with other
“performers” like cardiologist Dr. Wendy Suzuki and choreographer
Ishmael Houston-Jones, speaking about his recent heart attack.
A recent trip to documenta, a contemporary art festival that takes
place every five years in Kassel, Germany, inspired Oberfelder. At the
festival, she saw an installation that took place in a house and credited that
as the initial impetus to divorce 4Chambers from the proscenium.
“It’s not just movement. There are other strands,” Oberfelder said in
a rehearsal at the site in early July. “It’s about how we are going to give the
audience their own experience.”
In 4Chambers audience members are expected to react and
participate. Whether that means engaging in short duets with the
performers or strapping on blood-pressure finger monitors, they share. “It’s
a little bit about being a hero in your own body,“ Oberfelder notes. “Life is
pretty heroic and when your heart stops, it’s over. Taking everybody
through the relationship to their own life is the goal.”
Dance Performance at Governors Island
Beats to Heart's Rhythms
Officers House 15 Is Transformed to Represent the Heart
Sunday June 30, 2013 By Lizzie Simon
We expect cardiologists to inspire things like fiber consumption, but for
choreographer Jody Oberfelder, a conversation with a cardiologist inspired
"4CHAMBERS," her new dance and video installation opening July 6 on Governors
Island. "[The doctor] said that she advises her patients to put on music they love after
surgery, and to slowly move to it, to get the heart muscles moving. And that's been my
whole life, needing to move, needing to be in touch with my body."
Ms. Oberfelder's new piece takes place in Officers House 15, which she
transformed to represent the heart, with corridors functioning as arteries and veins. "I
want people to walk out of there happy to have a brain and a heart," she said, "A lot of
people are stuck in their heads, rushing through life. I want to get people to that place
of sensation without distraction."
Situating the work on Governors Island, she said, only enhances the
experience. "It's a five minute free ferry ride and when you get off, it's la-la-land:
hammocks, chairs to sit on. Except for the helicopters above, it's beautiful." As the
island is only open to the public on weekends, rehearsing there during the week was a
bit like camping, she said, with limited, spotty cellphone service, and a lack of running
water in Officers House 15. But few settings in New York offer as much uninterrupted
quiet. "You're on an island doing your work. You're doing nothing but concentrating."