Momentum Dance Collective's new multimedia performance "investigation" opens with a solo dancer onstage asking, "What is the effect of one act of kindness and how does that ripple through our community?"
As images of Anchorage's urban and natural spaces are projected on moving screens positioned behind them, a dozen other dancers come out with similar questions, stating something about themselves and why they live here.
To new-age music accompaniment, they go into an hour of balletic, contemporary and hip-hop choreography. The motions suggest helping, waiting in lines, congestion, confrontation, struggles of coping and desperation. At different times the same dancer is seen performing live and simultaneously doing the same moves on the screen.
At one point, home movies of happy birthday parties and family gatherings are juxtaposed with those of homeless people shuffling in the snow. Another segment presents a scene of domestic violence.
"Impact," the title of the piece, is being presented at several Anchorage sites through April 25. The work "is about reminding ourselves that we have to constantly re-engage with the larger community or risk allowing its darkest sides to become normal," said company director Becky Kendall in a press release.
Kendall is listed as the producer of "Impact" and company member Irenerose Antonio is listed as the director. "But we don't use those terms," Kendall told Alaska Dispatch News. "Technically, all of it is collaboration."
Collaboration was there among the performers, composer Christopher Jette, filmmaker Bryan Pentecostes and others. But it's also a collaboration with local social service agencies and the communities where the piece is being performed.
The project had its genesis with Antonio, who spoke with the collective about the different kinds of people she talks to at her day job, which is running an assisted living home.
"They began to represent the 'fringes,' if you will, of our community," Kendall said. "We got to thinking, how do these outliers contribute to the story of our Anchorage culture?"
Among other things, they considered the fact that although hundreds of thousands of people live in the area, most of us tend to run into the same people over and over again. "You know the people you know," Kendall said. "What about all the people we don't know? This is a kind of a grand experiment to get the audience to see aspects of their neighborhood and other people who live here."
The project started last summer when Kendall and Antonio met with various social service agencies, community councils and Native organizations and presented their concept. They took comments from the groups and used them to work up a few ideas and, by October, had a show under construction, getting feedback on what resonated with the agencies and deleting things that didn't seem to work.
As the choreography came together, footage was shot for the video images. The set was constructed to be easily transported from location to location. It consists of six projectors on metal pylons, a back "screen" with sections on rollers and a sprung dance floor, 38 feet by 28 feet, that comes apart in sections.
"It's brand-new," Kendall said at a rehearsal on Easter Sunday. "It's the first time they've ever danced on it."
There's a strong local component in each of the neighborhoods where "Impact" is being presented. The hourlong performance will be preceded by a half-hour of community presentations, including musicians, poets and dancers from the area. People from the agencies partnering with Momentum for the show -- AWAIC, Covenant House and Green Dot, a national anti-violence project -- will briefly describe what they do. Each neighborhood will also have selected a fourth organization to participate. Members of community councils will be on hand to discuss the situation in their jurisdictions.
In addition, the audience will have the chance to donate $5 of their $15 ticket price to the participating groups, "depending on what speaks to them from the show," Kendall said, "violence, abuse, homelessness."
The project's mission of "promoting a culture of helping others" and its themes of how people interact and, literally, impact one another as individuals and groups seems to have a target beyond Anchorage, as expressed in one of the questions put to the audience by a speaker: "What if the choice I make today is felt hundreds of miles away?"
Kendall said the production had her excited. "This is really such a passion project from Irenerose's brain."
"But it's a little complicated," she admitted, referring to both the concept and the execution. "Information, education, performance art and a chance to reflect on our own actions and how that shapes where we live. And is it congruent with where we want to live?"
IMPACT will be presented by the Momentum Dance Collective at the following locations. Doors open at 7 p.m., community performers take the stage at 7:30 p.m. and the Momentum performance starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15.
• Friday, April 17, Pacific Northern Academy, 9251 Lake Otis Pkwy.
• Saturday, April 18, Bartlett High School
• Thursday, April 23, Mountain View Community Center, 315 Price St.
• Friday, April 24, Kincaid Bunker
• Saturday, April 25, Salvation Army Community Center, 1701 C St.