We dance, You eat.

door frames as dance frames
jars as windows
sharing,
watching,
dancing,
FOOD.
First presented by the Buffalo Infringement Festival 2012 in conjunction with The Nickel City Housing Cooperative: Ol' Wondermouth.
Amidst two years of research BCIJPG has developed an event that magnifies the mysterious and obvious relationship of the performer and the audience. It is a current pursuit of BCIJPG to find audience participation within our medium of creation in dance and contact improvisation.
Audience participation is always voluntary and the dancers tend to find a “no” response from the audience to be an interesting and valuable challenge: the rejection makes a space for the unanticipated reaction, naturally instigating a deeper level of creativity.
The Script:
BCIJPG members decide on a clear “beginning” moment together. 5 or more dancers move through the space: sometimes as an ensemble, at other times in solos and duets. We dance all in one room as well as separate into other rooms. This often means that the audience must choose to watch one thing and therefore choose not to watch something else. With this in mind, the audience members should feel free to change their location as often as they wish in order to regard the dancing.
Performers become audience also – often by stepping away from the dancing and sitting down in order to watch each other dance.
As the performance goes on, food should slowly be introduced and audience may start eating.
15-20 minutes into performance we reveal our “Alice in Wonderland Jars” which contain small papers with simple written movement instructions: “Take 3 steps backward” “Clap 3 times and jump” “Wave at the person across from you”. The audience is invited to open the jars and read the papers inside. They may or may not choose to perform the action requested on the paper.
The performance ends with the guests rediscovering their audience role while BCIJPG members dance to a clear conclusion. The rest of the food is then revealed and shared.