If you love dance and nature, you must try to make it to see one of San Francisco’s most interesting and creative shows during the month of December. The show is called Okeanos and was developed by Capacitor, a group which uses a laboratory-style creative process, called Capacitor Lab. For each new work, they assemble a cross-disciplinary team of the world’s leading artists and scientists to explore a specific concept, find common threads, and create a shared vocabulary. From this collaboration, a performance is born.
Their dance performances often have a theme around nature, sustainability and the ocean. Often what we fail to remember is that the ocean covers 99% of Earth’s living space, and while it equally terrifies and excites us, it’s an integral part of our lives even if we don’t know that much about it. The ocean as we know it is being destroyed by growing human demands. Coral extinction, plastic trash contamination, over-fishing, oil spills, climate change – our immense impact on the ocean is undeniable. What once felt vast, endless, and overwhelmingly deep is now vulnerable to our increasingly destructive ways of living.
Okeanos explores the ocean artistically and beautifully; their awe-inspiring one hour performance will leave you speechless and begging for more.
Inspired by the Coral Triangle and California’s Kelp forest, Okeanos was developed in collaboration with world-renowned marine biologists and oceanographers. This dance/cirque performance incorporates choreography, apparatus, and set design by Capacitor Artistic Director Jodi Lomask and the voices of Dr. Sylvia Earle and Dr. Tierney Thys.
Okeanos includes video art by RJ Muna and Toshi Hoo, underwater cinematography by David Hannan, sound composition by EO, Kaya Project, Beats Antique, edIT, and Tipper, vocalizations by Anka Draugelates, violin by Julia Ogrydziak, and costumes by Kimie Sako & Becky Karthage. Okeanos is performed by Mayuko Hosoai, Elliott Gittelsohn, Naomi Hummel, NancyKate Seifkar, Maggie Powers, and Micah Walters.
The Experience
Capacitor created a 60-minute performance that gives audiences a sensory experience of the ocean and continues to develop its blueprint for art/science collaboration. Okeanos features the distinctive artistic and technical components that Capacitor has come to be known for – inventive and articulated dance vocabulary, abstract steel forms that mirror nature, poetic integration of audio/video/media forms, sculptural costumes, scientifically supported content, and conservation partnerships.
Born out of the collision of cultural influences found only in the San Francisco Bay Area, this performances explores the patterns and relationships inherent in nature and the cosmos. Through dance, interactive video, cirque nouveau, live music, and large-scale movement sculptures, Capacitor humanizes abstract scientific concepts, transcending cultural barriers and widening the scope of basic human experience for audiences of all ages.
What I found so beautifully stunning about the performance was the unique and creative representation the dancers performed in each scene, i.e., how they represented the sharks, the sea lions, the crabs, the jelly fish and more. As they performed the dance on stage, images of fish under the sea were displayed on video in the background. Each one so unique, each one remarkably breathtaking.
The Okeanos show is being held at the Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco at Pier 39, The Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94133. It is running on Thursdays and Saturdays through the end of December 2013. You can learn more about the performance and get tickets here.
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
