September 10–December 31, 2011, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Introduction

After Ghostcatching (2010) is a video installation that evokes a mysterious realm inhabited by a disembodied figure comprised of ephemeral traces of color and light. The dancer’s movements express a broad range of emotion, and his captivating vocalizations are elusive.

After Ghostcatching is a collaboration between Bill T. Jones, dancer, choreographer, founder and artistic director of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company; and digital artists Marc Downie, Shelley Eshkar and Paul Kaiser of OpenEndedGroup. It reinterprets an earlier collaboration, Ghostcatching (1999), through enhancements and advances in stereoscopic illusion (3-D) and high-resolution technology.

Process

To create Ghostcatching, OpenEnded Group used motion capture, a technology that tracked sensors attached to Jones’ body as he danced. In After Ghostcatching, this data, according to OpenEndedGroup, was “edited and staged for a digital performance in the 3-D space of the computer.”

Title

Jones was reluctant to have his original Ghostcatching performance documented, believing that pure dance is about the “ephemeral moment of the performance.” Jones related it to a belief found in some cultures that taking a photograph of a person steals their soul—a kind of “ghostcatching,” he said. Jones embraced computer technology when he saw the effects of motion capture, and 11 years later, was pleased when he saw the updated 3-D version of After Ghostcatching.

Dance

Jones’ dance sequence relates to a series of characters and begins with Ancestral Figure, who moves in relation to a vertical, rectangular box. According to Kaiser, “he is the progenitor of all the figures that follow.” Athlete is characterized by his robust, aggressive movements, and Sculptor is named for Jones’ penchant for sculpting his body into fixed poses. Viewers alternately see characters dancing as single figural forms or as a number of performers, which are all Jones’ body digitally transformed.

In After Ghostcatching, computer programs transform Jones’ fluid movements into ribbons and tracers of streaming light and color that seem to fill the space. Kaiser says that Jones’ “ghostly figure seems to hover within a hand’s reach of the viewers”; indeed viewers wearing 3-D glasses may even seem to feel ribbons of color “brushing against their foreheads.” Jones’ improvisational style is one that originates from a deep wellspring of memory, tapping into the body as a dynamic force of energy. His movements emphasize rhythmic patterns of action and rest, expansion and contraction. Jones’ dance is autobiographical, full of feeling, expressing extended moments of joy, bursts of ecstasy, flashes of aggression and quiet repose. Jones says that movement expresses the “deep truth of being.”

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of After Ghostcatching is as moving as the visual experience. In a resonating low tone, Jones’ vocalizations rhythmically mirror his movements and the ephemeral quality of his form. The sounds seem not quite of this world. Jones’ voice and what he sings and says are linked to his African American identity. He sings phrases and fragments of traditional folk songs and recounts childhood memories of his grandmother’s ghost story, about a hungry child. Throughout, Jones’ autobiographical incantations are altered and mediated by echoes and reverberations, created by OpenEndedGroup.

Finale

After Ghostcatching transforms the gallery into an imaginative space where time is suspended. Jones’ dance and life are one. He lives with HIV, and AIDS took the life of his partner, Arnie Zane, in 1988. Jones’ song, “If I had wings like Nora’s dove, I’d fly away to the one I love,” resonates with meaning. He recently said that Nora’s Dove “has been moving to me since I learned it. It is a song about regret, about meaning and life, at a time when I was thinking a lot about mortality and death.”

Jones is quick to express his gratitude to OpenEndedGroup for their recent transformation of Ghostcatching into After Ghostcatching. As Kaiser says, “We are intent on making works of sufficient beauty and depth as to engage viewers on multiple levels. Much of our imagery reflects what one apprehends with the mind’s eye.”

This exhibition was supported by the Campbell Calvin Fund and Elizabeth C. Bonner Charitable Trust for exhibitions and the Rheta A. Sosland Fund.

Image, sound and software: OpenEndedGroup

Choreography, movement and voice: Bill T. Jones

Commissioned by SITE Santa Fe

Original version of Ghostcatching commissioned by The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art

Running time: 13’10”