Six dancers.
Three rivers.
Two confluences.
One dance.
Con·flu·ence (kon-floo-uh-ns) noun
1. a place where two rivers or streams join to become one 2. a situation in which two things come together or happen at the same time
Confluence is a dance project where six dancers performed for a camera at six different sites on the Mississippi River, with an added twist: footage from a small camera strapped to each dancer’s hand. The six dancers performed at at two confluences, the Mississippi-Minnesota and the Mississippi-St. Croix Rivers. There are three dancers at each confluence, separated by water. All six dancers begin together as a sextet at the tip of Pike Island, where the Minnesota River joins the Mississippi. After performing together, they travel by boat or car to their own separate sites.
Later that day, at the same moment, the dancers perform in unison yet physically separated. There is a power to time – these dancers “ride the wave of time” to connect the geographical dots. This project involves two points of view: the traditional outside-eye camera footage we called the “third person” view, and secondly a small camera strapped to the left hand of each dancer, thus providing a “first person” perspective.
A happy confluence of dance and rivers.
Sites and Dancers: Who’s Dancing Where?
See the six locations of the dance along the Minnesota-Mississippi and St. Croix-Mississippi confluences.
360°: Juxtaposing Panoramas
Watch the juxtaposed panoramic videos mixed with the dancers performing the short 360° dance.
Mosaic: From the Dancers’ Hands
View the six dancers performing a dance on Pike Island along with video from their dancing hand-held cameras.
Marylee Hardenbergh is a fiscal year 2015 recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature; and by a grant by the National Endowment for the Arts.