Vanderhoef Studio Theatre (2011)
Fri – Sat, Feb 18-19, 8PM
Thu – Sat, Feb 24-26, 8PM
Sun, Feb 20 & 27, 2PM
General: $17/19
Students/Children/Seniors: $12-14
Body of Knowledge, by Karl Frost/Body Research, sits in the
territory between somatic psychology, experimental theatre and
human ecology. The performance begins with the audience
participating in a behavioral experiment looking at human
interaction. As the experiment deconstructs, the audience freely
wanders the stage with the performers exploring the relationship
of their bodies, emotions, and minds to each other and the
environment in an audio and video installation.The installation
incorporates scenes from nature, the human constructed
environment, and lands modified by human action.
The audience chooses their level of interaction. They
can just sit back and watch from a distance or come closer
to the performers, creating different views of the work and, if
they choose, accepting invitations from the performers to engage
in verbal or physical explorations of the themes of the piece.
The work juxtaposes different ways of knowing and acting:
“scientific” knowledge versus other, perhaps more intuitive, ways
of processing experience.
Karl Frost is currently pursuing an MFA in
choreography at UC Davis as well as graduate level studies in
ecology and anthropology. He is the director of Body
Research Physical Theater. His work varies between the
purely kinesthetic and the psychological, between works for the
stage and interactive performance works inviting audience members
into greater degrees of agency in performance and life. His
current artistic passion is around creating work that reflects
the spirit of “research,” scientific and intuitive, applied to
questions of how we choose to live our lives and how this
affects, and is affected by, the world in which we live. Karl has
been pursuing interdisciplinary performance work since the late
1980s and is recognized internationally as a leading teacher and
innovator in the world of contact improvisation. Since 1997, Karl
has directed the Dancing Wilderness Project, an ongoing
laboratory into the interrelationships among wilderness
experience, body-based creative process, and how we choose to
live our lives.
UC Davis Department of Theatre and Dancepresents Body of
Knowledge choreographed and directed by Karl Frost/Body
Research Physical Theater. This interactive work explores how
awareness and feeling live in our bodies, how knowledge of and
debate on environmental and political issues exist alongside
personal and private realities.
