The Arts at JMU's New Dance Festival reimagines how audiences experience performance
Where movement meets technology and the audience becomes part of the experience
College of Visual and Performing Arts
What happens when a dance performance moves beyond the traditional stage? This fall, James Madison University’s (JMU) School of Theatre and Dance is exploring that question through the premiere of its reinvented, sold-out show, New Dance Festival: Off-site & Rewired, an immersive performance experience that brings together dance, projection, sound, and virtual reality.
Taking place at JMU’s Office of Creative Propulsion in downtown Harrisonburg, the festival challenges the conventional relationship between performer and audience. Instead of watching from a fixed seat, audiences are invited to move through the performance environment, experience choreography from different perspectives, and encounter technology as part of the artistic experience.
The festival features Adele Myers and Dancers, a nationally recognized dance theater company based in Miami, performing excerpts from a world Gone Fabulous. The program also showcases JMU dancers performing new choreography by Cecilia Benitez, a member of Adele Myers and Dancers and an emerging choreographer. Benitez’s work, Traces, explores new possibilities for movement and performance.
By bringing professional artists, JMU students, and emerging technologies together in an unconventional performance space, Off-site & Rewired reflects the School of Theatre and Dance’s continued exploration of contemporary approaches to creating and presenting dance. Attendees are encouraged to move through the space, walk amongst the dancers, and try the virtual reality installation.
The festival also highlights the Office of Creative Propulsion’s role in fostering collaboration, experimentation, interdisciplinary creativity, and new approaches to the Arts at JMU.
The success of Off-site & Rewired, which has sold out all performances, reflects growing interest in new and immersive approaches to the performing arts. As JMU continues to explore what’s possible when artists, technology, and disciplines intersect, the Office of Creative Propulsion provides a space for these ideas to take shape.
To discover more creative projects, performances, and interdisciplinary work from JMU’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, visit jmu.edu/arts and follow JMU Arts Instagram on social media.
