Indigo is a blue dye originally made by extracting pigment from one or more of several hundred species of plant from the genus Indigofera. Dying with indigo involves repeatedly dipping a material into a vat of liquid colorant, or allowing it to steep for some amount of time in direct proportion to the intensity of color desired. It produces a range of hues from pale lilac to midnight blue-black.

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Indigo plants grow throughout a wide range of tropical and sub-tropical regions around the world. Scholars believe that indigo was first made roughly 2,500 years ago. Evidence of its independent discovery, production, and use has been identified on all five major continents.

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Ironically, or perhaps because of its ubiquitous presence in the world, blue was one of the last colors captured (in words, and in dye) by humankind.

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We steep our dancing tonight in some of this historical culture. In doing so we connect with methods and stories of making something beautiful, potent, sometimes enigmatic, and that requires the repetition and refinement of physical effort. The dance you'll see tonight is improvised within a spacious framework called a score. Ninety or so percent of it will unfurl unplanned, as we arrange and re-arrange ourselves among one another and within the context of indigo, light, and sound.

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We hope to take ourselves, and you, on a journey. We aren't out searching for anything in particular. But there's a thing—that's quite literally what we call it: “The Thing”—that is us making something together, or serving as a kind of conduit, or wrestling with the unknown; that feels like at least catching a glimpse of something important we didn’t see before.

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We’re watching the sky for stars.

 

Kori Martodam
Sea ↔ Bus
June 16, 2017

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June 16, 17, & 18
Velocity Dance Center