Funky Chicken
Audiences at the University of Calgary have a chance to see a new interpretation of a Greek myth at the University of Calgary’s Dance@Night presentation of Icarus Fried .
A collaborative work Icarus Fried is a multimedia performance with several diverse artists including Melanie Kloetzel (of kloetzel&co) American clarinetist John Masserini dance filmmaker Jeff Curtis visual artist Kristin Smith and Calgary-based poet derek beaulieu — as well as musical scores from avant-garde and modern composers. It is loosely based on the story of Icarus a mythological character who uses artificial wings made of wax to escape Crete only to fall to his death after flying too close to the sun.
For Kloetzel the theme of flying and subsequently of birds became part of her creative process in developing the piece. She began choreographing to Joan Tower’s song “Wings” a composition based on the American composer’s image of a falcon in the sky. “The beauty of [Tower’s] score ended up making me feel kind of trapped” says Kloetzel explaining why she decided to re-create a sense of entrapment into the dance. “And so what I started doing was turning to another image.”
That image the chicken is what Kloetzel considers the opposite of a falcon: “the ultimate flightless bird.” Images of caged chickens desperately reproducing eggs started to inform her movements.
Chance-creation (or random creation) also influenced Kloetzel’s choreography. She used a score by American composer Robert Cogan based on the alphabet to create movement sequences to go with specific letters used by Cogan. She drew out of a hat to decide which letters would be used for the show and in what order. She then gave poet derek beaulieu the set of letters which he made into visual compositions to be used as projections in the performance.
