Core Dance Opens Human Landscapes Tonight at Harrisburg Art Museum

Travel. Attach. Separate. Expand. Contract. Lean. Turn. Fall. The movements of the body are also the movements of peoples, communities, cultures, and both domains are investigated by Core Dance in choreographer Germana Civera’s conceptual dance piece Human Landscapes, performed October 25, 26, and 27 at Harrisburg Art Museum in Houston’s Second Ward.

In Human Landscapes, Civera confronts the effects of migration both on the body and culture of the exiled and on the people and areas they contact and influence, inspired by the artist’s familial history of exile from Francoist Spain. Civera is part of the generation that had roots in a more democratic republic of Spain but came of age during the decades of Fascism when those who disagreed with Franco’s ultra-conservative nationalism either left Spain – carrying their influence to Europe, Africa, and the Americas – or went into an “internal exile” of quiet resistance in their increasingly repressive and artistically sterile homeland. It is easy to see why Civera, who resides in France, has developed sophisticated ideas about why and how one moves, and what results from those movements. It is easy also to see why these ideas are of critical importance for us as viewers today.

Civera is an artist whose work happens actively both on and off stage, and for whom collaboration, mutual influence, is paramount. She has worked with dancers, writers, visual artists, and musicians in her repertoire, and in Human Landscapes she brings fellow French musician and composer Didier Aschour into the process with rich, panoramic music composed especially for this piece.

We Houstonians are lucky to share Core Dance with Altanta, GA, under the capable and eminently creative leadership of Co-Founder and Artistic Director Sue Schroeder, Company Manager D. Patton White, and Executive Director Elizabeth Labbe-Webb. Happy 39th Season, friends!

We Framers are especially excited to see our own Rocket Repass, dancer in the Frame Dance Youth Ensemble, perform in Human Landscapes. Congratulations, Rocket, and break a leg!

Be Advised: this performance contains prolonged periods of full adult nudity.

Photo by Simon Gentry