an echo in reverse
role: choreographer//performer
Blending dance, music, projections and a live video feed, ‘An Echo in Reverse’ is an improvised performance centered around perceived motion and real-time surveillance. It starts with a dancer, building movement over time both in front and behind a transparent screen. Multiple cameras and phones around the room film the performance in real time, including a phone held by the dancer as well as several phones used by audience members. The videos are then projected live on top of the screen and mixed and matched to a live musical score created in conjunction with the dancer's movements. All the cameras are from different generations and have varying quality and lag time, creating the sense of seeing something that hasn’t quite happened or just missing one another. Throughout the arc of the performance, each element is both improvised and reacting in real time to the other ongoing pieces, creating an unexpected outcome in each performance.
Performed at Pageant in New York City, July 2023
Molly Valdez: Co-Director, Videographer, text
Judson Valdez: Co-Director, Music, Projections & Tech Performance, text
J Gash: Choreographer & Performer
photos by Christian Michael Filardo
Bad Body Dance Collective
co-founded by Charlotte Mclean and J Gash
Bad Body Chaos Code are a band working with our bodies as instruments. We are traversing the space between dance as entertainment and dance as artistic exploration, and questioning how we can facilitate a more physical and visceral experience for our audiences. By choosing to break the barrier as often as possible between the stage and the audience, we invite our audiences to break the audience/performer rules with us, to dance with us, enabling a more embodied viewing experience. We want to recreate and share the feeling of joy that one might feel when watching their favourite band; a meditative and euphoric experience that we are often lucky enough to feel as performers, but rarely as intellectual contemporary dance audiences.
Noteable Performances
Victoria & Albert Museum
Yellow Days festival, London
Peckham festival, London
Brain Child Festival, East Sussex
The Place Theatre, London
Dance Base, Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Saint Maud
Saint Maud is an A24 horror film Directed by Rose Glass
Dancing and Choreography by J Gash, Bun Kobyashi, Florence Blackmore, and Isobel Ripley
