Fans can expect several highlights during the Jessica Lang Dance company’s Houston debut. One is i.n.k., a piece that incorporates video projections by visual artist Shinichi Maruyama. Another is The Calling, which features a solo dancer in a 20-foot-long white skirt. ”I got to know Shinichi really well,” Lang tells us, ”and he was open to having his images projected on the stage. He’s known for throwing water and capturing it on film, photography with such high clarity that you can see the water and ink collide in a way that the naked eye can’t see.” i.n.k. was inspired by one of Maruyama’s images that shows a single drop of water falling into ink, forming a crown shape in the explosion when the two liquids meet.
”The Calling, a short solo with the dancer in this giant white skirt, is becoming a really popular image,” Lang says. ”It’s a very simple solo; Kana Kimura performs it. I had been thinking of doing a piece with a man standing in the middle of the stage and draped in fabric that fell off the edge of the stage. Out of practicality, we ended up making it just a huge skirt because draping the stage would have been a lot of fabric.”
8 p.m. Wortham Theater Center, 500 Texas. For information, call 713-227-4772 or visit spahouston.org. $23 to $73.
See our expanded blog post, including video excerpts from i.n.k.
Fri., Sept. 20, 8 p.m., 2013
This article appears in Jun 14-20, 2012.