Soft Currents | Action at a Distance & Ballet Edmonton

Soft Currents is inspired by murmurations, which are enormous groups of starlings that twist and swirl across the sky in shape-shifting clouds. This inspiring idea of collective responsibility and understanding of movement is an underlying value of everything Action at a Distance does.

Soft Currents is a task-based composition with original sound created to a highly structured co-authored score designed for a large group of dance artists. Ultimately about social responsibility, the movement score works with text surrounding sensory proprioception in the body and asks the performers to find a collective sense of time while reacting to their environment. Working with headphones, the dance artists respond to a text composed by Goodman and the group that only they can hear. The audience witnesses a work of spontaneous eruptions, compositions and delights, alternating between collective unison and individual focus. The result is highly collaborative and creates a sense of anticipation from moment to moment.

The opportunity to bring together communities from Edmonton and Calgary in a collaborative work engaging artists from diverse practices in work centred around social responsibility and reciprocal knowledge sharing. Soft Currents brings attention to the collective understanding of compassion while creating an inviting performative work that engages a broad audience base.

Presented as part of Contemporary Calgary’s Free First Thursdays Programming.