Higher ED (Ecology + Dance) researched the effects of the urban heat island through weather observation, movement scores, and DIY aerial mapping strategies with kites and weather balloons developed by Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (PLOTS). The collaborators utilized these tools to better understand and articulate the physical interrelatedness of climate, weather, built environment, and the body. They developed a wind-determined performance practice that grew throughout the following year.
Lailye Weidman
Lailye Weidman is a dancer and maker, currently based in Boston. Her present projects include a short dance film with artist Leila Simon Hayes, a dance theater duet with improviser Alli Ross, and mining in the studio with choreographer Hana Van der Kolk. Lailye also serves as a guest editor and editorial assistant for Contact Quarterly, a biannual journal of dance, improvisation, and performance. She received her BA from UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance. During her senior honors work on the Intersection Project, she choreographed a live city‐map and initiated an improvisational walking and observing practice that has since been taught at Otis College of Art and Design and Williams College. At UCLA, she was awarded the Forti Family Scholarship and the Soo Jin Kim Dancing Scholarship, which she used to fund a professional training program in Contemporary West African Dance at Germaine Acogny’s Ecole des Sables in Senegal.
While in L.A., she danced in the choreography of Victoria Marks, Hana van der Kolk, Christine Suarez, and Carol McDowell, contributing extensively to the creation of several new works, including Vic Mark’s debuts for the AWARD! Show and NOW Festival 2011 at REDCAT and van der Kolk’s recent evening length work Vessels at the Hammer Museum. Lailye’s work has been shown at Anatomy Riot and Pieter PASD in Los Angeles, CounterPulse in San Francisco, APE Performance Space in Northampton, and SOOP (Stories of Our People) in Boston. She has been an artist‐in‐residence at the Hothouse summer residency program at UCLA and the SEEDS Festival 2009 (Somatic Experiments in Earth Dance and Science). She teaches movement in academic and community settings and co‐taught a dance/geology workshop with Dr. Chris Weidman at SEEDS 2008. Her writing has been published in Contact Quarterly and ITCH dance zine.
Adaptability + Flow
This symposium focused on the phenomena of New York City’s waterways and weather systems, particularly the impact of Hurricane Sandy on the city and the role of interdisciplinary strategies to create flexible responses to large-scale phenomena. Presenters included Liz Barry, Jessica Einhorn and Lailye Weidman of Higher E.D.; Rebecca Boger, Damian Griffin and Paloma McGregor of Follow the Water Walks; professors John Waldman and Victoria Marshall and research scientist Philip Orton. Performances by Paloma McGregor and Meredith Ramirez Talusan.