ALIVE FROM OFF CENTER: SUMMER DANCES (TV)

Summary

One in this series of arts programs featuring the work of leading avant-garde artists in video, music, dance, theater, and film. In this program, dance pieces by five different choreographers are featured. "Summer" is the theme of the dances, which are performed outdoors. Inspired by the teenage life in a working-class neighborhood, the first dance, "You Little Wild Heart" by Marta Renzi, is performed to music by Bruce Springsteen in an actual suburban neighborhood. In the second dance, "District 1" by Rudy Perez, Boston's City Hall Plaza is transformed into a kind of summer playground. In "George's House" by Dan Wagoner, a group of young women play "hide-and-seek" by popping their heads in and out of the doors and windows of a cabin to the rhythm of the country music accompaniment. In "Secret of the Waterfall" by Charles Atlas and Douglas Dunn, performers move to the phrases and words of a poem, which appear on screen as part of the visual composition. The final piece, "From An Island Summer" by Atlas and Karole Armitage, follows a group of dancers through Coney Island from the boardwalk to the amusement park, as passersby react with surprise.

(Series title varies; as above, 1985-1991; as "Alive TV," 1992 onward.)

Acquisition and cataloging of this program was made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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