PIMA Group: Look!
A bowerbird@LANDMARKS project
Performances February 1-3, 2008
Powel House Museum
Philadelphia, PA
Curated by Robert Wuilfe and Dustin Hurt

How do we get to know an architectural site? How does one get past expectations and centuries of change to have a profound and evocative experience of the space itself? When Robert Smith—often called the most important American architect of the 18th century—finished the interior of the Powel House, he did so with the intention of creating a home that was both elegant and alive. When the house was saved from demolition in the 1930’s and preserved for posterity, Philadelphia gained a gem that makes a glimpse into the past possible.

In association with bowerbird, Landmarks Contemporary Projects is very pleased to present LOOK!, a new, site-specific performance by PIMA Group, developed through a months-long residency at the historic Powel House Museum. This landmark was the 18th century home of Samuel Powel, the last mayor of Philadelphia under the British crown, and the first under the United States. PIMA performers take an intimate-sized group through this historic home in which Benjamin Franklin’s daughter, Sarah, shared in a dance with George Washington. As the audience moves throughout the rooms of the house, the gentle movement of the dancers creates an immersive experience. The setting of the Powel House offers a multitude of inspiring intrigues, inviting the audience to interact with and examine this historic home through contemporary dance.

The challenge of commenting upon the historical while maintaining a refreshing and new artistic aesthetic is of utmost interest to PIMA choreographer Melisa Putz. LOOK! is inspired by the colors, furniture and the beauty of a historical time period...a time when the Powel House hosted some of the most elegant dancing of the age. By moving the audience throughout the house, LOOK! is an experience of the space itself. The realities of preservation and interpretation often place real and invisible barriers between visitors and historic architecture and collections. By activating empty spaces around the house—spaces that represent centuries of life, work, decay and rebirth—PIMA provides audiences with a rare opportunity to link the past with contemporary experience. They are explorers in a space that is at once inviting and distant, trying to make sense of a site through the haze of time.

Click on images below to advance slideshow.

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