Plastic Harvest is a Covid-era dance film by choreographer Jody Sperling exploring the scourge of plastic pollution. Ironically, plastic is something we all share and that connects us across virtual spaces. We wear it, we swim in it, we ingest it, we even inhale it.
In Covid’s wake, Sperling began rehearsing Plastic Harvest remotely with the six dancers of her company, Time Lapse Dance, who were newly dispersed across the country. Each dancer fashioned a unique costume for herself from plastic bags and investigated a different relationship to the material. In the film, one dancer luxuriates in a bathtub filled with plastic bags. Another glides, ghost-like, in a plastic-bag kimono through a church sanctuary. Sporting a plastic tutu emblazoned with yellow-smiley face, a third frolics amid traffic on a busy avenue. Ultimately, the work blurs the boundary between the precious and the expendable.
The music is by acclaimed environmental composer Matthew Burtner. The film features dancers Frances Barker, Morgan Bontz, Carly Cerasuolo, Anika Hunter, Maki Kitahara, and Andrea Pugliese-Trager.
The evening's event features a virtual work-in-progress-screening of Plastic Harvest followed by a special artist talkback. This event is open to the public and free with registration. Additional information regarding accessing the stream will be sent upon prior to the event.
An artist residency at The Center at West Park has supported the development of this work. This work is also made possible in part by funds with Dance/NYC’s Coronavirus Relief Fund.