- Northern Spark - http://2011.northernspark.org -

HOUSEBOAT **Cancelled**

Due to strong currents, high waters and even stronger winds HOUSEBOAT has been cancelled.
We are really sorry we cant deliver the show you all booked for. After nearly a year of planning (included trying to find a houseboat closer to home) and being stuck on shore a whole day because of 50 mph wind gust BodyCartography’s Olive Bieringa, Otto and Uma Ramstad set off from Alma, WI upstream against a current three times stronger than usual . They were not able to battle the high waters of the Mississippi and big winds and waves on lake Pepin to get their 52 foot houseboat to Minneapolis. The boat rental company technician attempted to board the boat to deliver a working horn and fix the kitchen sink in the middle of the high seas! So, with their ETA stretching twice as long as all official estimates to Minneapolis and fearing for performer and audience safety without enough preparation time in Minneapolis they warily turned back, saddened by the prospect of their cancelled performance.
Anyone know of a local houseboat we can borrow in the Metro area for next year?

Otto, Olive and Uma

“The BodyCartography Project invites you on a low-rent cruise. Step out onto the river on a small houseboat bobbing on the black water amongst the twinkling lights. You are on the Mississippi, the watershed of the country. But at night you can’t really see the nature of it, you can feel the movement of the water as it moves through its stabilized banks.

What seems like social hour gets progressively charged by the proximity with the performers, like magnets pushed together in their opposing polarity. Entering the lock and dam, you travel back into time, old time control of nature. As the river surges you upward or plunges you deep into the river the black walls loom up above you pressing you closer together. Submerging you into immersive sound, video imagery and live action. Featuring the original Holiday House cast Minneapolis dance stars Kristin Van Loon, Karen Sherman, Morgan Thorson, Otto Ramstad, Bryce Beverlin II and special guests Justin Jones, HeatdeatH’s Tim Glenn and Andrew Broder.
Directed by Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad.”

the BodyCartography Project

Since 1998 the BodyCartography Project’s co-directors Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad have created numerous dance, film and installation works. Their work extends from intimate solos for the street or stage, to large community dance works in train stations, dance films in national parks, to highly complex works for site or stage amidst installations, video and sound. Their work has been produced across the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Europe, Russia and South America.

Recent highlights include a commission for the Lyon Opera Ballet and the premiere of their work Symptom with visual artist Emmett Ramstad at COIL Festival, Performance Space 122, NYC and Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis, and 1/2 Life with a physicist, composer Zeena Parkins and visual artist Emmett Ramstad at Performance Space 122, NYC, the Southern Theater and Art of This Gallery in Minneapolis. Their upcoming performance work Nature will be co-commissioned by the Walker Art Center in 2011-2012. They are featured artists in the first book about site dance in the USA published by University of Florida Press titled Site Dance: Choreographers and the Lure of Alternative Spaces and are 2010 McKnight Fellows.