The Alt.terre - The Alt.terre is a multi-sensory performance experience that uses dance, music, video projections, and architectural lighting design to construct an uncanny world. Performers dance along the line where deeply embodied movement practices tip into alternate states of consciousness. Tension grows between the warm, generous presence of the dancers and a crisp, post-human aesthetic.
The Alt.terre Concept & Background
Dance and performance can catalyze altered states of consciousness, for both performers and audience. Many dance practitioners talk about performance presence as if they are brought “to another place” in the moment of performance, and share stories of profound or life changing experiences through the act of performance. Where do dancers “go” when they enter an altered state of consciousness? What happens, and what is brought back? Where do audience members go when they experience being profoundly moved or have an epiphany in response to a performance or any artistic experience? The Alt.terre grows out of all of these questions.
The Alt.terre creates a holistic experience for audience members—sonically immersive, visually inviting, and relational. The concepts of hospitality, generosity, and presence are central concerns in this work.
The Alt.terre is also a play on the words “altar” as a place of reverence, focused attention, and worship, and “alt-“ (meaning other) and “terre,” the French word for ground or earth. Magic, artificial or other-worldly intelligence, and the uncanny are all conceptual underpinnings of this work.
About Fidget
Founded in 2008, Fidget is a platform for the experimental, collaborative work of Megan Bridge (choreographer) and Peter Price (composer/video art). Bridge and Price have created more than twenty original works that involve live performance, sound, and visual design. Fidget is a think tank for research and discussion, offering historical, political, and philosophical access points for a deeper understanding of the art. In 2009, Bridge and Price opened Fidget Space, a warehouse live/work space and experimental performance venue in Kensington, Philadelphia, which serves the arts community by providing education, space, production support, employment and internship opportunities for local artists. Central to Fidget’s mission is decreasing the distance between art and life, and between theory and practice.
Megan Bridge (choreographer) is an internationally touring dance artist, producer, and scholar based in Philadelphia, USA. Her choreography presents formalist structures that are populated by somatically generated, often improvisational movement material. She is particularly interested in the historical lineages and discursive frameworks that situate her work. Bridge has worked with choreographers and companies such as Group Motion, Steve Paxton and Lisa Nelson, Jerome Bel, Willi Dorner, Lucinda Childs, David Gordon, and Susan Rethorst. Deborah Hay, Manfred Fischbeck, Brigitta Herrmann, Erin Manning, and Merian Soto have been major influences. Bridge is currently a graduate fellow in the Dance Department at Temple University in Philadelphia, where she is pursuing her MFA.
Meghan Frederick (performer) is a dance artist based in Philadelphia, PA. Her choreography has been presented and supported by creative residencies throughout New York City and the Northeastern United States, most recently by VOX POPULI and Leah Stein Studio in collaboration with Kate Seethaler; Space Gallery (ME), Movement Research (NYC) Brooklyn Studios for Dance (NYC), Arts on Site (NYC), Center for Performance Research (NYC), STUFFED Dinner and Dance (NYC), and The Living Room (ME). Meghan teaches dance to children and adults, as a Guest Artist at Summer Festival of the Arts (ME), and at institutions throughout the Northeast. Meghan was a member of the Brian Brooks Moving Company from 2008-2014 and has recently performed with Liz Lerman, Carlye Eckert, Maya Orchin, Catherine Galasso, and Kendra Portier, and as a guest with SUBCIRCLE Dance Company.
Tyra Jones-Blain (performer) is a recent graduate of Temple University’s dance program. She is currently working as a teaching and performing artist throughout the Philadelphia area. By her sophomore year, she began teaching children and hosting her own adult workshops at local studios. Jones-Blain also participated in Philadelphia's first non-binary performance competition, Mx. Everything. In this 12-week competition, she went head to head with drag queens, magicians, contortionists and ended up taking home the grand prize. She has presented original works in Temple shows, and performed for choreographers including: Dara Meredith, Merian Soto, Laura Katz, Marion Ramirez, Megan Bridge, and Dinita Clark. Dance for Jones-Blain has always been second nature. It exists within her habits, how she talks, how she interprets; It is her soul's playmate. She discovers new things about herself and her environment everyday through the act of dancing, and she loves to share her discoveries with the world.
Rachel DeForrest Repinz (performer) is a New York based dancer, choreographer, teaching artist, and creative director. Rachel received her BA in Dance from SUNY Buffalo State College, and is an MFA candidate in Temple University’s Dance Performance and Choreography program. Rachel has presented her work nationally and internationally, at venues including the biennial Decolonizing Bodies: Engaging Performance conference at UWI Barbados, the 2018 NDEO conference held in San Diego, the 2019 NDEO conference held in Miami, DaCi’s 2017 national gathering, the Institute of Dance Artistry and more. In the past year, Rachel has been honored to perform premiere works by Dr. S. Ama Wray using Embodiology techniques, Merian Soto, Awilda Sterling-Duprey, and as a principal dancer for Enya Kalia Creations among others. Rachel has created works for the UN’s World Water Day, Utah All State Dance Ensemble, the Buffalo State Dance Theatre Company, and more. Most recently, Rachel has returned from Tokyo, Japan, where she conducted fieldwork research on pedestrianism as improvisation in preparation of her upcoming MFA thesis concert, All You Can Eat!
Peter Price (music) is a composer, electronic musician, video artist and media theorist who creates sonic and visual environments for live performance. His musical compositions, dance films, multi-media productions, and lectures have been presented in Bogota, Warsaw, Kraków, Tokyo, New York, Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, Philadelphia, Istanbul, Johannesburg, Zurich, and the Universities of Basel and Lausanne. Peter’s deepening engagement with digital media technologies/practices and critical theory/continental philosophy led him to study at the European Graduate School (EGS) where he earned his MA and PhD. Peter has published two books of music philosophy with Atropos Press: Becoming Music: Between Boredom and Ecstasy with in 2010, and Resonance: Philosophy for Sonic Art in 2011.
Tiana Sanders (Performer) is a dancer and choreographer from Wilmington, Delaware. She is currently an undergraduate student at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as a dance major, and Delaware Technical Community College as a business major. She trained at Christina Cultural Arts Center also in Wilmington, Delaware, under Dara Meredith. She attended the DCNS Summer Dance Intensive where she’s taken numerous Master Classes with Nationally and World-Renowned choreographers. In 2015, she joined Eleone Connection, under Charon Mapp, and was a part of this company for two seasons. She also taught an introduction to modern and two hip hop classes with Christina Cultural Arts Center’s HeArt Under the Hoodie Program.
Mijka Smith (performer) is a dancer and choreographer from Elverson, Pennsylvania. She has been dancing since age three, primarily trained in ballet, contemporary/modern, and hip hop techniques. She spent her junior and senior years of high school as a dance dual enrollment student and company member at West Chester University while continuing to study, teach, and choreograph at her home studio, Remix Dance Collective LLC in Morgantown, Pennsylvania. Mijka is now studying at Temple University where she pursues a BFA in dance. Since coming to Temple in 2018 she has had the opportunity to perform various works, some of her favorites including Megan Bridge’s Malo as part of the Grounds that Shout! project and Marion Ramírez’s kNots and Nests. Now working as an Administrative Assistant for Fidget, Mijka continues to study, perform, and choreograph as she enters her final year at Temple.
