Monthly Guest Artist Series: John Toenjes

Monthly Guest Artist Series

John Toenjes

Residency October 17 - 25, 2015

 

PERFORMANCES

LAIT (workshop)
Friday, October 23
12:00 - 2:00 pm
xMPL (Experimental Media Performance Lab)

INTERFACE: Public Figure
Friday, October 23
7:30 pm

Saturday, October 24
2:00 pm
xMPL (Experimental Media Performance Lab)

John Toenjes, Associate Professor and Music Director at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Department of Dance, will be a guest artist in dance as part of the Department of Dance's Monthly Guest Performance Artist Series from October 17-25, 2015.  While here, Toenjes will collaborate with Assistant Professor Chad Michael Hall to create phase one of their collaborative project INTERFACE: Public Figure.  There will be two showings of the work- Friday, October 23 at 7:30 pm and Saturday October 24th at 2:00 pm.  

John Toenjes will demonstrate the LAIT (Laboratory for Audience Interactive Technologies) system, and lead workshop participants through a participatory mobile device improvisation using the LAIT app. Afterwards, based upon feedback from participants, we may remake the app and redo the improvisation, to explore possibilities within this innovative art form. Participants are urged to bring Apple or Android smartphones and/or tablets, and to have their batteries fully charged just prior to the workshop. Additionally, Toenjes will guest teach in INTERFACE Ensemble (Hall's student ensemble), Dance and Video, and will present his LAIT workshop which is free and open to the UCI community in the xMPL Theater on Friday, October 23rd at noon.

John Toenjes Bio
John Toenjes is Associate Professor and Music Director of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Department of Dance, and past President of the International Guild of Musicians in DanceWorks include the evening-length interactive music/dance work Inventions Suite, last performed at the 2008 Cleveland Ingenuity Festival, and e’s of water, a dance/computer installation at UW-Milwaukee in 2007. John wrote the score and designed the wireless sensor networks used in Trisha Brown’s Astral Convertible Reimagined at UIUC in February 2010. In 2011-12 John wrote the music for and designed the computer systems used in FraMESHIFT,  produced at Teatro Astra in Turin, Italy. For 3 years he served as Technical Director for IJPAN, the Illinois-Japan Performing Arts Network, overseeing online broadcasts, culminating in his own online performance Timings: An Internet Dance, with dancers in three locations, including Tokyo, connected to live avatars via Kinect. His latest interactive dance work, Kama Begata Nihilum, featured a cast of dancers carrying networked iPads, and an audience AR app that augmented the stage action. Currently John is the Director of LAIT, the Laboratory for Audience Interactive Technologies, which is designing a platform for the easy creation of audience apps specifically designed to be used in the theater.

www.jtoenjes.com

This event is free and open to the UCI Community.

Thank you for attending! Watch Anteater TV's coverage of the event.

Dates: 
Saturday Oct 17, 2015, 12:00 am to Sunday Oct 25, 2015, 12:00 am
Friday Oct 23, 2015, 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm
Friday Oct 23, 2015, 7:30 pm
Saturday Oct 24, 2015, 2:00 pm