How do we remember the past? How does that knowledge influence current events? When Somerville-based Zoe Dance celebrates its 10th anniversary with Past Is Prelude, those questions will fill a 50-minute multimedia exploration.
Choreographer Callie Chapman Korn has worked as a web designer, and her technical chops allow her to envision her live choreographies with digital overlay. She remembers that even in her student compositions at Boston Conservatory, she screened VHS video along with the dancing. "I love to manipulate color and texture as well as the movement of bodies," says the Lynn native. "You can control so much of what the audience feels without physical props, and change it up very quickly."
In Past Is Prelude, the dancers will be interacting with delayed effects, so that, for instance, a dancer will find herself dancing alongside three images of her past selves.
"I've added historical footage of artists who have changed the world, positively and negatively" by choice or by unintended consequence, Chapman Korn says. Look out for a series of familiar faces, from Albert Einstein and Bob Marley to Liliuokalani, the last queen of Hawaii, and uber-bad guy Charles Manson.
ZOE DANCE :: IN PAST IS PRELUDE :: Dance Complex, 536 Mass Ave., Cambridge :: March 1-3 :: $15-17 :: 781.738.3272 or zoedance.org
