Open Dance Project presents 'Flutter' at HBG
The fun, family-friendly and site-specific performance takes place in HBG’s Susan Garver Family Discovery Garden. While exploring the garden and its three butterfly installations created by Houston sculptor Meredith Tucker, each now a permanent part of the garden’s art collection, visitors can check out at their leisure three, half-hour immersive performances by members of Open Dance Project, choreographed by founding artistic director Annie Arnoult.
When it comes to dance and theater, Open Dance Project has never been interested in “the fourth wall.” Inspired by the tumult of the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention, the company’s most recent immersive theater piece, 1968: The Whole World is Watching, had dancers screaming from makeshift scaffolding, running in-between audience members, and at one point, restaging boxer Sonny Liston’s 1964 match with a young upstart named Cassius Clay. Flutter is a bit calmer than that. In performance, the dancers, wearing very colorful, very butterfly-like costumes designed by Houston-based artist Natasha Bowdoin, will shape their movement around Tucker’s sculptures, which depict three different species of butterfly and a plant each pollinates. Beginning with the gestures and movement patterns of butterflies as source material, Arnoult brings a cast of “quirky characters and personalities” to life, each one embodying the spirit of both a sweaty human and a delicate butterfly.
Flutter also incorporates painted textiles and artistic props fabricated by Bowdoin, whose work is often augmented by live performance, and proposes a better future for humankind’s all-too-often adversarial relationship with the natural world.
- From Funky Documentary to Circus and Senior-Citizen Ensembles, Houston’s Fringe Festival Pushes the Envelope ›
- ‘Moments Project’ Addresses Complex Experiences of Houston’s African Communities Through Dance, Photos ›
- New Org Aims to Help Young Dancers Prevent Injuries, Hosts Free ‘Body Wellness’ Event Next Week ›
- ‘Immersive’ Dance-Theater Performance Captures a Year of Tumult in American History ›
- Famous Light Installation to Take Over Houston Botanic Garden for the Holidays, Tix Already on Sale ›
- Colossal Lifelike Lego Sculptures Bloom at Houston Botanic Garden ›
- Houston Botanic Garden Celebrates One Year with Two Must-See Multimedia Exhibits ›
- In Fantastical New Sculptures at Houston Botanic Garden, Tobin Captures the Power of the Natural World ›
- 'Music in the Garden' Series, Sculpture Exhibit Sprout at Houston Botanic Garden - Houston CityBook ›
Jasmin Penelope Charles's 'Zen Garden Security Guard' at ART IS BOND
'With Hands Clasped Tightly' by Daisy Patton
A colorful piece by Ruhee Maknojia