INDUSTRY

This week the University of Illinois' Krannert Center for the Performing Arts will host the world premiere performance of "Come home Charley Patton," the final installment of choreographer/director Ralph Lemon's Geography Trilogy. Researchers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) collaborated with Lemon on the performance piece. Their involvement was spurred by the cross-campus Seedbed Initiative, which is designed to foster collaboration between the arts and sciences. Allison Clark, NCSA assistant director of creative computing and technologies, and Donna Cox, NCSA's director of Visualization and Experimental Technologies (VET), are members of the Seedbed steering committee. "We encourage and support the convergence of art and science through innovative technology," Cox says, "And these efforts facilitate our campus initiatives." Lemon, one of America's most culturally and socially engaged artists, is the 2004 George A. Miller Endowment Visiting Artist. During his six-week stay on campus in the spring, Lemon became intrigued by the possibility of using one of NCSA's robots in part three of the Geography Trilogy, an exploration of critical events in American racial history and the rich folk culture of the southern United States. VET members Dave Pointer and Lorne Leonard worked with Lemon and members of his company to explore the use of a small, commercially available robot—called AmigoBot—as part of the Charley Patton choreography. Lemon initially envisioned the robot, which is equipped with a camera and a wireless transmitter, wandering the stage as two dancers first climbed and then fell from ladders (symbolizing the quest for success). The robot would send images that could be displayed on a large screen, providing novel perspectives for the audience. That plan hit a snag, however. When it came time for the dancers to fall from their ladders onto protective mats on the stage, it was impossible to predict whether or not the robot would be in their way. Unwilling to risk injury to the dancers, Lemon and Pointer had to discard the plan to use the robot. Even though the robot won't be part of the final performance, Pointer said the process was valuable as part of the group's exploration of potential robot applications. "It was a new venue to see what we could do with it," he said. Lemon also collaborated with Jeff Carpenter, a member of NCSA's Collaborative Systems Group. Lemon wanted to incorporate a video into the performance. He provided Carpenter with video footage of several horses in a field, and Carpenter set to work in NCSA's high-definition Avid|DS editing suite, adding effects that would give it a dreamlike, ethereal quality. Carpenter's video will be projected on screen during the pre-show period, as patrons enter the Colwell Playhouse. "Come home Charley Patton" will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 21-22 at Krannert's Colwell Playhouse. For ticket information, go to http://www.krannertcenter.com/perform/detail.php/id/0750086406500780. According to Krannert Center director Mike Ross the collaboration between NCSA and Ralph Lemon is the first in a series of collaborative research explorations with guest artists. Members of NCSA's VET group are already working with writer/director Mikel Rouse, whose "End of Cinematics" production is slated to be performed at Krannert in January 2006. "We're just opening the next big chapter," Ross said, "And it should be very, very exciting." NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) is a national high-performance computing center that develops and deploys cutting-edge computing, networking and information technologies. Located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, NCSA is funded by the National Science Foundation. Additional support comes from the state of Illinois, the University of Illinois, private sector partners and other federal agencies. For more information, see http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/.