The Prelude is a multi-art form performance, created through a three-year international exchange between Phillip Adams and US choreographer, Walter Dundervill, delivered in partnership with Chocolate Factory Theatre, New York.
In The Prelude, Walter and Phillip channel their shared enthusiasm for forgotten rituals, physical and visual decadence and cathartic actions, using 1973 film The Exorcist as source material. As they deconstruct the film, the artists (including dancers Caroline Meaden, Michelle Heaven, Rachael Wisby and William McBride) create physicalised improvisations in response to its characters, generating a choreography of embodied exorcisms and symbolism. Through these processes, the film and its characters will be subverted into highly stylised anachronistic landscapes that relocate it from its original source including a giant field of prototaxites and the film’s 70s garb and priests’ attire, all in cosmic green couture. The artists’ fetishizations of the film’s narratives combine in their directorial roles, which are live in the work – part film director, fashion designer and sound mixer.
This durational, experiential production culminates in a hijacking of the film’s experimentations with exorcism, climaxing with the levitation of constructed beds.
Stay tuned for announcements about the premiere of The Prelude.
ABOUT WALTER DUNDERVILL
Dundervill’s work has been presented at Dance Theater Workshop, New York Live Arts, MoMA PS1, New Museum, Danspace Project and Participant Inc. He is a recipient of the 2016 Foundation for the Contemporary Arts Grants award and was a 2016 NYFA finalist. He is a member of the Advisory Council at Movement Research and is Artist-in-Residence at New Museum and New York Live Arts.