10 Can’t-Miss Photos from SMU Dance’s Interactive Performance During Metropolis

Fourteen SMU dance students performed with the Dallas Chamber Symphony (DCS) at a special showing of Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent film classic Metropolis, the first event of the DCS 2015-16 season and part of Dallas VideoFest 28. The symphony accompanied the film with a new score composed by Brian Satterwhite. The SMU students presented a interactive, multi-dimensional dance performance during the film, choreographed by Associate Professor Christopher Dolder. The event took place at Dallas City Performance Hall on Tuesday, October 13.

From SMU Meadows’ press release:

Metropolis portrays the often disruptive effects of industrialization and technological innovation and its resultant social class stratification. “Metropolis lends itself to a multi-disciplinary collaboration,” says Dolder. “The trick for us will be to create a cohesive experience, where the new score and the dance element serve and enhance the film without distracting. Ambience and an otherworldly atmosphere will be created not only by the music, film, set and dancers, but also by the strategic projection of video elements from the film, isolated onto the dancers, and set. I intend to bring a certain level of contemporaneity and physicalized reality to the nearly 90-year old silent film with the hope of weaving a humanistic commonality between the ‘then’ and the ‘now.’”

See more on the Division of Dance