Leslie Scott is making a splash in the world of modern dance. Scott, a 2004 graduate of Texas Christian University, is artistic director of the New York-based contemporary dance troupe Bodyart, which combines live movement, music and video projections in thought-provoking performances. She's also gaining notice with provocative dance photography, some of which captures dancers suspended underwater.
Scott and Bodyart will perform Monday night at Bass Hall; it will be the company's Fort Worth main-stage debut. Scott's photographs are on view at the dance department facilities at TCU and on the university's fine arts website at www.dance.tcu.edu.
Bodyart's Bass Hall performance will showcase Scott's choreography and the group's collaborative spirit.
In the hourlong piece titled Limbo, a series of movement vignettes will be backed by a sound score by Charles Seich that includes original music, classic-rock cover tunes, found sounds and whispered words. Prerecorded video projections by Patrick Lovejoy will display moving images of cloudy skies; bustling city sidewalks; billowing dust clouds (actually tapioca powder) thrown by the dancers; and other images captured over six months during daylong photo shoots.
Underwater photographs by Chris Crumley -- in which Bodyart's dancers are captured in mid-motion while submerged in a swimming pool -- also form part of Limbo's video montage. (See those images at www.bodyartdance.com.)
The Bodyart creative process
Once video images were settled upon, Scott said, she began creating the physical dance itself. Philosophical themes and movement vocabulary were explored during company-wide retreats, with dancers and the creative team sharing ideas and input.
Limbo premiered in New York last year.
"Limbo is classical in terms of modern dance," Scott explained. "You will look at the stage and you will see an arabesque; you will see lifts. But at the same time we're hoping people can relate to it on a personal level. I love going out in the audience afterwards and hearing 20 people say 20 different versions of what they thought the piece was about."
The second piece on Bodyart's Bass Hall program is Loft, an 18-minute dance without videos set to Arvo Part's haunting minimalist masterpiece Tabula Rasa.
"The reason for the title Lof, came from that feeling where you lose your breath right before you are about to fall, that moment on the roller coaster when you go all the way up and that split second before your body comes down," Scott said. "The thought was, 'What if you lived always in that moment?'"
Scott's growing success is giving her real life a breathless quality. Bodyart will perform Limbo in Norway this year. A book of Crumley's underwater photos featuring Bodyart dancers will be released in the fall.