Ben Levine
Lighting, Scenic, and Projection Designer
Upcoming: September 18, 2021
The REACH at the Kennedy Center
LENS
LENS is a series of four movement-based installations each viewed through different technological means created/produced by Ben Levine in collaboration with over two dozen artists from the DMV and across the US.
Featuring both live and digital performance, audience perspectives are reshaped with the use of infrared goggles (choreography by Shannon Quinn + Boris Willis), binoculars (choreography by Sadie Leigh), virtual reality headsets (slowdanger + Anna Henson), and a 360-degree projection installation (Orange Grove Dance).
LENS is made possible thanks to the support of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Projects, Events, or Festivals Grant program; Aunt Karen’s Farm; Dance Place; and Rosslyn BID + JBG Smith (View of DC).
LENS Producing Director
BEN LEVINE
LENS Associate Producer
ANNIE PETERSON
far field
far field
slowdanger + Anna Henson
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far field
slowdanger + Anna Henson
far field
Direction: slowdanger + Anna Henson
Creative Technology: Anna Henson
Character Creator: H. D. Harris
Project Management: Anna Wotring
Sound: slowdanger
Performance/Choreography/Motion Capture Artists: Maxi Canion, Symara Johnson, taylor knight, anna thompson, Anna Wotring
Technical Advisor: Dimitri Diakopoulos
Creative Technology Intern: Maricel Reinhard
far field is an embodied archive and artifact of our time that explores the distortion and fragmentation of the dancing body within digital arenas and virtual space via an immersive headset based virtual reality experience. This project was developed throughout the pandemic between April 2020-August 2021, via digital process periods and one in-person
residency period. Through this continually adaptive process we worked to make interior landscapes of the performers' self perception physical, both in tangible daily rituals of self care and hyper fantastical surreal constructions of self imagining. Through motion capture, character creation, and game technology audience members will enter a virtually constructed world where their choices influence what they will experience.
far field’s creation has been supported by the Heinz Endowments Small Arts Initiative, The Pittsburgh Foundation A W Mellon Grant, Unique Projects, Pentacle ASP, Ben Levine/Extreme Lengths Productions, Dance Place and The Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
far field
far field
slowdanger + Anna Henson
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PASO
Orange Grove Dance
PASO
Direction & Choreography: Colette Krogol & Matt Reeves (Orange Grove Dance)
Cinematographer: Jonathan Hsu
Performer: Juliana Ponguta Forero
Composer: Dylan Glatthorn
Video Editors: Mark Costello & Matt Reeves
Projection Design: Mark Costello
Scenic Design: Ben Levine
PASO is a kaleidoscopic cinematic experience that brings dance film into an exciting new container where audiences peer into a grand heptagonal structure to watch the adjacent walls come to life. A unique panoramic world unfolds seamlessly with each of the seven panels offering a unique viewing experience that investigates the prism of paths inside oneself and within nature.
far field
slowdanger + Anna Henson
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howeverlong
Sadie Leigh
howeverlong
Choreography: Sadie Leigh
Music: Emma Pauline Rothman
Costume Design: Lucy Wakeland
Performance: Krystal Collins, Carolyn Hoehner, Dylan Lambert, Stephen Lyons II, Annie Peterson, Emma Pauline Rothman
howeverlong is three duets meant to be witnessed from as far away as possible. it’s like this: part of a song that’s stuck in your head that you can’t place. trying to recall the name of your great-great grandmother. traveling somewhere familiar with someone new. deep in the back of your brain. at the tip of your tongue. knowing we’ll get there, without knowing when, exactly. eventually. howeverlong.
Photo by Ryan Maxwell Photography
Dark Room
Choreography & Performance: Boris Willis & Shannon Quinn
Sound Design: Stephen Johnson
Costume Design: Lucy Wakeland
In Dark Room, audience members will use infrared technology to try to decode a secret message as dancers disappear and reappear in total darkness.
far field
slowdanger + Anna Henson
I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It’s easy. Just click “Edit Text” or double click me.