Normally when attending a dance performance, people expect to see the dance. In the Felt Room this wasn’t always the case. The felt room was about more than just the visual experience. The choreographer enlisted many other senses along with sight deprivation in order to create a unique experience.
Throughout the piece the lighting was dynamic, changing brightness, color, and point of origin. The majority of the piece that was lit seemed to be lit by an overhead light with color changing bulbs. As the light shifted to colors closer in shade to white light, it increased in brightness. There were times when the entire room was visible, but others where you couldn’t see anything. Two sets of curtains at the doorways blocked light from entering the room, so when the lights went out the room truly was pitch black. I can only liken that experience of vision deprivation to a time when I was in a cavern and the lights were turned off so those of us visiting could experience total darkness. The felt room didn’t reach the point of total darkness, but it was dark enough for my eyes to play tricks on me. I would think I saw one movement happen in the dark, but then a flashlight in the corner would flash on and I would realize that wasn’t the case.
The flashlight that was used to break through the pitch black was piercing with its brightness, creating a visual shock. For a moment the room was illuminated. I looked around to get a good idea of what was happening in the room, but as soon as I got the general sense of the room- with dancers crawling on top of each other, nearly climbing up the walls, the light went out. We were back in the dark listening to the events unfold, waiting for another flash of light to see the room once more.
The lack of light gave the audience the ability to notice things that normally are covered up. There was no sound except the noises made by the dancers and the audience. The breathing of the dancers was audible for many different parts of the dance, and sometimes the dance seemed to be focused around the breathing. The dancers breathed loudly, moving with their breaths, slowly synchronizing their breathing in movements until they were all breathing and moving at the same pace and time, all together in a circle. This aspect of dance that is normally ignored or purposefully subdued was made a focus of the piece.
The lack of seating and instructions to place yourself anywhere in the room allowed the audience members to become more a part of the art. The audience members could be touched by the dancers. Often, in the darkness or with their faces covered, the dancers could not see where the audience members were so they could be bumped by accident or interacted with to a greater extent.
In the felt room, the audience didn’t just see a dance. They heard it and felt it.
Anna Johnson
Latest posts by Anna Johnson (see all)
- More Than Sight - March 2, 2017