Through a system of choices, Open Machine explores the survey and navigation of dancing bodies in public spaces. Dancers travel through urban architectures and outdoor, remote environments outfitted with participatory scores. Performers direct and interpret these exterior journeys, layering them into a multi-sensory tapestry of movement, visualization, audio description, and music. Paths converge into a dynamic choreography for the stage that reimagines live gathering, decision-making, and our influence on an increasingly mediated and rapidly changing world.
Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener are New York-based dance artists. Their work involves the building of collaborative worlds through improvisational techniques, digital technologies, and material construction. They met as dancers in the Merce Cunningham Dance company and since 2010 they have created over 25 multidisciplinary dance works including site-responsive installations, concert dances, gallery performances and dances for film in venues such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Barbican Centre, REDCAT, The Walker Art Center, and MoMA/PS1. Throughout they have maintained a commitment to queer culture and aesthetics. Their partnership intentionally blurs authorship and maintains a deep commitment to collaboration with a diverse community of dancers, performers, artists and cultural institutions.