Wednesday, 12:30am
19 June 2019

(Dance) Noted #93

2wice Arts Foundation; Tanec Praha; identity for Opera Ballet Vlaanderen; flamenco magazine El Canon; illustrated campaign for Texas Ballet Theater

Here is a selection of dance-related things that caught our attention in recent weeks.

Two of Abbott Miller’s contemporary dance apps, Fifth Wall and Dot Dot Dot, developed by Eddie Opara and designed for the 2wice Arts Foundation, have been relaunched for the iPhone. Miller’s original apps were designed for the iPad between 2011 and 2014, and were discussed in Sarah Snaith’s article ‘Dance on the spot’ in Eye 89.

Abbott Miller’s dance app Fifth Wall (2012) featuring Jonah Bokaer. Producer: Patsy Tarr for 2wice Arts Foundation. Video direction: Ben Louis Nicholas. Design associates: Kristen Spilman, Andrew Walters. Developers: Eddie Opara, Frank LaRocca, Hunter Cross, Ken Deegan. Top. Identity for Opera Ballet Vlaanderen by Pentagram / Marina Willer.

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Fifth Wall and Dot Dot Dot use the screen as an interactive performance space. Fifth Wall is a quiet, looping piece featuring solo dancer Jonah Bokaer within layers of black frames. Interaction comes through turning, tapping or pinching the screen, allowing the viewer to manipulate the individual frames to achieve different effects.

Dot Dot Dot opens with an aerial view of nine black dots – that are later revealed to be the tops of nine solid columns – and dancer-choreographer Tom Gold. The app is structured like a four-storey building with several rooms on each floor that are navigated through tapping dots and swiping left, right, up and down.

Dance app Dot Dot Dot, featuring Tom Gold. Producer: Patsy Tarr. Concept, direction and design: Abbott Miller. Developers: Eddie Opara, Frank LaRocca, Hunter Cross, Ken Deegan, Yo-E Ryou.

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Czech digital agency Comtech worked with the current Tanec Praha (6-20 June 2019) to design the dance festival’s advertising campaign; the slogan for the 31st annual event is ‘Curiosity is the gateway to experience’.

Creative Director: Petr Vlasák, Roman Číhalík. Art Director: Bára Prášilová, Roman Číhalík. Designer: Eduard Čaniga, Manuel Prada. Photographer: Bára Prášilová. Dancers / actors: Markéta Jandová, Zuzana Havrlantová, Adam Orszulik, Jan Razima.

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Pentagram partner Marina Willer has rebranded Belgian ballet and opera house Opera Ballet Vlaanderen with an energetic identity that both embodies motion and feels like peering through textured glass into the performance space.

Willer’s identity is paired with photography that departs from perfectly composed imagery in favour of abstraction, which reflects the house’s contemporary programming.

Marina Willer and her team rebrand Opera Ballet Vlaanderen in Antwerp, Belgium.

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Flamenco magazine El Canon, designed by Emilio Gil’s Madrid studio Tau Diseño, released its fifth issue in January of this year. The occasional publication (founded in 2007) focuses on new flamenco masters. Contributors include musicians, singers, dancers, photographers, illustrators and flamencologists.

El Canon: revista del arte flamenco no. 5 is split into two sections, one dedicated to Spanish singer Rocío Márquez and the other, ‘Flamenco visto y leído’ (Flamenco seen and read), features the work of photographer Carlos Rodríguez as well as an article about illustrated children’s book El Ruiseñor Sin Ojos (The Nightingale Without Eyes), among others.

El Canon: revista del arte flamenco no. 5, designed by Tau Diseño.

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Estonian illustrator Olga Skomorokhova has illustrated the poster campaign for Texas Ballet Theater’s 2019-20 season giving the company’s programme – which includes Sleeping Beauty, Firebird and A Midsummer Night’s Dream – an decadent and otherworldly aesthetic.

Olga Skomorokhova’s campaign for the Texas Ballet Theater’s 2019-2020 season.

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Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It is available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions and single issues.