Site-Specific Creation and Production - Koplowitz

photo by Lynn Lane

This course will look into the process of creating real world site-specific choreography/performance from conception to performance. Techniques towards generating site inspired choreography and all aspects of navigating technical issues (lighting, sound, media) including a primer on producing (budgeting, obtaining permissions, insurance, fundraising, audience/event design) will be covered. Urban, architectural and environmental inspired site projects ranging from large-scale to small (guerrilla) style productions and lectures towards delineating definitions of site-specificity and the history of the field will be covered. The Bates College campus will serve as a laboratory for creative explorations.

Stephan Koplowitz is a director, choreographer, media artist and educator known for his work on stage, film and creating original site-specific multi-media works for architectural and environmental sites. As a graduate of both Wesleyan University (BA Music) and the University of Utah (MFA Choreography), he has created 65 works since 1984 of which 45 are commissions. He has been awarded a 2004 Alpert Award in the Arts, a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship, a  “Bessie” (2000) and six NEA Choreography Fellowships from (1988-97). His work has been produced and commissioned for eight seasons at NYC’s Dance Theater Workshop (now NY Live Arts) from 1987-2006, Dancing in the Streets, the American Dance Festival, Lincoln Center, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, the Bates Dance Festival, London’s Dance Umbrella Festival, Choreographic Center, Essen, Germany, among other venues. Stephan Koplowitz: TaskForce, his touring site dance company, has created new works in Idyllwild, CA, Los Angeles (2008) and Plymouth, UK (2009) and Houston, Texas (2012). He has collaborated with composer, John King, on two recent projects, the opera, Dice Thrown (2010) and Stabile/Mobile, a series of site specific works in Spoleto, Italy as part of the La Mama Spoleto Open Festival (2012). Koplowitz, with architects KBAS, won a design competition for a permanent visual/media installation for The Center for New Media in Salt Lake City (2013). He is a contributor to Site Dance, the first book on site choreography published by Florida University Press (2009).  After 23 years in NYC, Koplowitz, moved to Los Angeles in 2006 as dean and faculty at The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance at CalArts.