025 Urban Songline(Uncertainty Principle), 2015 – PRAVA Festival – Rockville, MD – US

For PRAVA Festival the 6th floor of a building site was translated in an Urban Songline for Roller Derby Girls as they described the 360-degree glass surrounded ‘arena’ in a specifically designed choreography. Highly reflective safety material costumes allowed the audience to activate the building by using flash, bringing into existence the shapes derived from the skewed and distorted columns in the space, symbolizing the transformation, birth and possible futures of this place.

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I am interested in the idea of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle that states that the position and the velocity of an object cannot both be measured exactly, at the same time, even in theory. Having the roller derby girls go around the darkened empty space they function as sub-atomic particles that only exist in velocity (time) as they race around the audience and can only be heard, and in place (position) at the moment one flashes (photographs) them. This experience becomes a totally personal one as the highly reflective safety material that the costumes are made of only reflects fully and directly to the sender of the flash and not to the person standing next to them. The experience illustrates possibilities rather than limitations as personal narratives unfold during the performance.

Performers of the Charm City Roller Girls of Baltimore: Karin Brown aka Tearin’ Tina | Cindy MacInnis aka Fat Stax | Rebecca Overly aka AX’ess Denied | Karencita Leung aka Killy from Philly | Nicole Tucker aka Sadie Stingray.

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Part of the project Urban Songlines, a utopian/dystopian series of collaborative translations of buildings, urban structures and public spaces into music through site-specific sound-generation inspired by the tradition of the Songlines, a system for relating to-, mapping of- and caring for their land among Aboriginal Australians. These performances are a way of connecting to places by listening to them as well as a research into how we use and experience the public domain and to what degree we can claim ownership over it, discussing notions of inclusion, becoming and belonging.

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Costume design by Annie Bassin, Scott Dolphin and Steve Lanasa.

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The Pike & Rose Audio Visual Arts (PRAVA) Festival was curated and produced by Nuit Blanche New York (NBNY) in partnership with Materials & Methods.