encyclopedia

Referring to the Greek enkyklopaideia, which means ever-widening circles of knowledge, audiences will experience aspects of city life through the lens of the company’s 11-year body of knowledge as dancer/acrobats– from Jane Jacob’s notion of the "Sidewalk Ballet" to the intricate choreography of "superorganisms" like beehives and ant colonies.

encyclopedia’s "entries" will include “Diving in the Dark,” an urban warrior piece in which the brave women of LAVA dive, leap and fly through circles of wood that are balanced on top of each other– feats typically performed by men throughout the world; “Invisible Leader,” an improvisation on group intelligence inspired by systems of movement unification such as those used by birds flocking, bees swarming, and ants colonizing; “You Don’t Own Me,” set to the 1964 recording by Lesley Gore, using two-person tangos, contact improvisations, capoeira and wrestling moves to perform the passion, tension, devotion, and coordination of coupling; and “Sidewalk Ballet,” a Jane Jacobs-inspired examination of the intimacies and tensions of strangers on city sidewalks with choreography that evokes the grid of city streets, the rise and fall of energy around rush hour, and the many times we grab or sometimes miss meaningful connections with a neighbor or a stranger. Sidewalk Ballet is accompanied by a music score by DJ Tikka Masala that brings together the structural complexity of classical Indian music with the pulse and drive of contemporary hip hop music.