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CAPACITOR

Puncture

CAPACITOR   Puncture

source: capacitororg
“The flower in the work’s title refers to the self-pollinating kind, but the underlying idea is the biological utility of beauty as an attractor. The dancers bump bellies, or they climb and swing like gymnasts on three flowerlike sculptures made of looped steel cylinders, pliant under the application of weight. Despite the undulating and arching, lessons about the birds and the bees remain implicit, so it’s fine to take the kids.”
— The New Yorker
“Scientists use the term ‘perfect flower’ to describe flowers that are equipped with both female and male reproductive structures and have the ability to self-pollinate. I have been examining them as an example of self-sufficiency and as inspiration for this project that we are developing with the California Academy of Sciences.”
— Jodi Lomask, Artistic Director

While at Djerassi Artist Colony, Artistic Director, Jodi Lomask designed three 7-foot steel objects using wire from the shed. She then spent six months working in conjunction with architects, botanists, and biologists from the California Academy of Sciences to develop the concepts behind ‘The Perfect Flower’. She worked with blacksmith/artist Mark Nichols, fashion designer Kimie Sako, composer Noah Thorp, musician Kristina Forester, Assistant Director Cari Delaplane, photographer RJ Muna & Anthony Lindsay, and media artist Nate Pagel.
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source: capacitororg
Capacitor Performance relies on corporate sponsorships in order to continue bringing cutting-edge, expressive and powerful live performance to San Francisco. We believe that our extraordinary city deserves extraordinary reflection. Everyone who visits here should be made very aware of the exciting landscape of scientific and technological innovation, natural beauty, experimentation, shifting cultural norms, and athleticism.

Corporate sponsorship allows Capacitor to present “Okeanos” at The Bay Theater, and thus co-brand its name with both the show, the company, and the Aquarium of the Bay. Sponsorship opportunities are available for all of our shows. Sponsorship benefits include marketing and advertising exposure throughout the community, as well as tickets and hospitality opportunities that are ideal for entertaining clients, VIPs, and employees.
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source: ticketsybcaorg

San Francisco’s internationally acclaimed science and technology dance company, Capacitor, takes you multi-sensory journey through a larger-than-life neural forest with their unique cast of dancers, acrobats, contortionists, and aerialists.
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source: ybcaorg

What does the act of creativity look like? Not the art (the products of creativity), not the artist (the vessel of creativity), but the act (the activity in the mind that generates what we call creative work)? San Francisco’s internationally acclaimed science and technology dance company Capacitor tackles this question head-on in the world premiere of Synaptic Motion. Conceived and choreographed by Artistic Director Jodi Lomask, this multi-sensory experience is informed by brain scans taken at UCSF’s Gazzaley Lab to capture the mind during the act of choreography.

The Gazzaley Lab is specifically focused on the study of neural mechanisms of memory and attention. For the development of Synaptic Motion, Lead Neuroscientist Dr. Adam Gazzeley and Engineer John Fesenko used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) — a procedure that measures brain activity by detecting associated changes in blood flow — to monitor Lomask’s brain function while choreographing this work.

Media collaborators Mary Franck, Wesley Grubb, and Johan Bichel Lindegaard then transformed this data into an immersive visualization of the creative process, with a sound score by Danish composer Toni Martin Dobrzanski and a set designed by Erik Walker, which travels through a larger-than-life neural forest with their unique cast of dancers, acrobats, contortionists, and aerialists.
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source: capacitororg

What does the act of creativity look like? San Francisco’s internationally acclaimed science and technology dance company Capacitor tackles this question head-on in the world premiere of “Synaptic Motion.” Conceived and choreographed by Artistic Director Jodi Lomask, this multi-sensory experience is informed by brain scans taken at the UCSF Neuroscape Lab to capture the mind during the act of choreography.

Media collaborators Mary Franck, Wesley Grubbs, and Johan Bichel Lindegaard have transformed this data and more into an immersive visualization of the creative process to the sound of Danish composer Toni Martin Dobrzanski and in a set designed by Erik Walker with lighting FX by William Brinkert. Travel through a larger-than-life neural forest experiencing memories, future self projections, and mirror neurons in action, while Capacitor’s unique cast of dancers, acrobats, contortionists and aerialists challenge notions of the creative process. Let them take you on a trip through multiple states of mind utilizing tensegrity apparatus.

“A particularly dramatic moment during the performance was when a work-specific acrobatic device was lowered from the ceiling and one of the performers climbed into it and, suspended in the air, demonstrated the concept of tensegrity—the structural principle based on the use of isolated components in compression inside a net of continuous tension.”
— Joe Ferguson, SciArt in America
The Impetus

Through art, science, and technology, “Synaptic Motion” addresses the question: What does creativity look like? Not the art (the products of creativity), not the artist (the vessel of creativity), but the act (the activity in the mind that generates what we call creative work)?

Neuro-imaging, conducted by project neurologists at the UCSF Neuroscape Lab, form the basis of this inquiry. The Neuroscape Lab is specifically focused on the study of neural mechanisms of memory and attention. For the development of “Synaptic Motion,” Lead Neuroscientist Dr. Adam Gazzeley and Engineer John Fesenko used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to create an accurate representation of the surface anatomy of Lomask’s brain, and a related procedure called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to capture the topology of her white matter tracts — essentially the 3D wiring diagram of her brain. A prototype high density wireless EEG cap was then used to monitor her brain activity while planning and performing choreographed segments of this work, and mathematical models custom-created to match her detailed brain structure were used in coordination with this brain activity data to create an artistically rendered visualization of her brain activity — the so-called “Glass Brain” technique.