‘INVISIBLE JAZZ LABS’
Dance meets science in new choreographed series
Outer space has fascinated choreographer Pearlann Porter since she was a child.
“I remember feeling like I can dance in space,” she says.
Then she found out that astronauts had to be “really good at math. So I had to become a spectator to science.”
That hasn’t stopped Ms. Porter from tiptoeing into the unknown, with projects on thermal imaging and astronomer/astrophysicist Carl Sagan, the last of which spawned a professional relationship (“A Pale Blue Jazz”) with George Klein, associate teaching professor in the physics department at Carnegie Mellon University.
Now she has returned to Earth in a new undertaking with Mr. Klein, plus assorted CMU physicists and scientists, in “The Invisible Jazz Labs.” The four-part project melds dance, music, poetry, art and science. It will make its debut Friday at The Space Upstairs above Construction Junction in Point Breeze and continue through the fall, along with “a host of little onsite field studies” at CMU.
Ms. Porter says this project seeks the place where everything intersects.
“I really thought there would be a different language, and I wasn’t sure how that would translate because our [dance] language is free.There’s no right or wrong, and it’s expressive.
“But when you get down to it, that’s a principle of science. You can’t be afraid of being wrong. There is this beauty in creating and discovering the equation.”
The disciplines are different, but the intent is the same.
“To look at a page of insane notes and music and bars — I don’t understand that,” she says. “But I know it contains something so beautiful.”
She notes that dance movements, science equations and jazz all involve “experimentation and trying new things and having failure always be an option. ... I think that is the place we all meet.”
The lab format is important, as well. “You don’t know what you’re going to get. You’re putting elements together and seeing what happens.”
Whether you’re a scientist, artist or dancer, “we want to share the passion. We have this excitement.”
Ms. Porter hopes to start some great conversations in The Space Upstairs and beyond.
“Our work can serve as a touchstone to bring in new people to dance and, equally important to me, bringing in new people to science.”