Mash-Up Body Lab

A young choreographer interested in site-specific performances, 2007 Pew Fellow in the Arts Kate Watson-Wallace has created CAR, during which audience members experience the performance in the backseat of an auto, and HOUSE, which took place inside a Philadelphia row home. With Mash-Up Body Lab, Watson-Wallace worked with four dancers in a three-month research project that embraced, appropriated, and layered movements found in popular YouTube clips, music videos, and more, in order to develop new types of "21st-century" dance. The choreographer and dancers used digital audio, video, and social media to document their process throughout and to invite audience feedback. New York choreographer Miguel Gutierrez, with whom Watson-Wallace had previously engaged in workshops and who shares her interest in improvisation, acted as her "thought-partner" during the process.