BodyCartography image

Pictured: Otto Ramstad and Emmett Ramstad; Photo: Sean Smuda

BodyCartography Project

Symptom

FEB 14-17, THU-SUN at 8PM

Eventbrite - Symptom

In Symptom, twins — dancer Otto Ramstad and visual artist Emmett Ramstad — create a performance that bridges the gaps between seeing, knowing, and empathy and investigates the symptoms of postmodern reproductive biology. Symptom queers concepts of naturalness by asking viewers to question their understanding of the human body and kinship. With a white paper set, microphones, scores by Dan Graham and Bruce Nauman and sound by electro acoustic composer Andrea Parkins, Symptom is a bold visual work of sculpture, drawing, movement and text.

Reading Room

  • Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality by Anne Fausto-Sterling
  • Making Parents: The Ontological Choreography of Reproductive Technologies, by Charis Thompson
  • Queering the Nonhuman, edited by Noreen Giffney and Myra Hird
  • Born and Made: An Ethnography of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, by Sarah Franklin
  • Dan Graham: Beyond, edited by Simpson and lies
  • Bruce Nauman, Toplogical Gardens by Basulado

About BodyCartography Project

BodyCartography image

Pictured: Otto Ramstad and Emmett Ramstad; Photo: Sean Smuda

As co-directors of the BodyCartography Project Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad investigate empathy and the physicality of space in urban, domestic, wild and social landscapes through dance, performance, video, installation work and movement education. Our works range from intimate solos for the street or stage, to large community dance works in train stations, short experimental films in national parks, to complex works for site or stage amidst installations of video and sound.

We have created numerous performance works, short films and installations across the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Europe, Russia and South America.

Recent works include Super Nature, with composer Zeena Parkins, commissioned by the Walker Art Center, Performance Space 122 and PADL West. Symptom, with Minnesota twins Emmett and Otto Ramstad. Mammal, a commission for the Lyon Opera Ballet, ½ Life, a performance and installation with physicist Bryce Beverlin II, visual artist Emmett Ramstad and composer Zeena Parkins. Our triology Holiday House (2005-2007) was commissioned in part by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and was the winner of two Minnesota Sage Awards. Our site spectacle Lagoon was the winner of the Perlorous Trust Creativity Award at the New Zealand Fringe Festival in 2003. We are featured artists in the first book about site dance in the USA published by University of Florida Press entitled Site Dance, the Lure of Alternative Spaces.

Our presenters include Dance Theater Workshop, Movement Research, Dance on Camera Festival, NYC; Philadelphia Dance Project; Anti-Festival, Finland; Stromereien Festival, Zurich; Les Subsistances, Lyon; South East Dance, Cheshire Dance, UK; NZ International Film Festival; Cinedans, Amsterdam; Polish Public Television; Bryant Lake Bowl, Southern Theater, Minneapolis International Film Festival, and Minnesota Public Television. Their work has been supported by residencies at the Walker Art Center, Bell Museum of Natural History, Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, Headlands Center for the Arts, K3 in Hamburg and Les Subsistances, amongst others.