Spine (2016)

Instrumentation: dancer and live electronics

Duration: 30 minutes

Choreography: Leyya Mona Tawil

World Premiere: TBD

About the work:
Spine is a performance score for one dancer and live electronics. Constructed of 26 miniatures, the work is driven by concepts relating to the 26 bones of the spine as they pertain to human mobility and disposition. In each miniature, Leyya’s movement initiations and loop-based actions correspond to a single vertebra. The musical form, inspired by the anatomy of the spine, groups the miniatures into 3 primary sections plus cadence and coda, and follows an overarching progression—miniatures increase in weight and density over time—to convey the grounding quality of the spine as you climb down the vertebrae.

Leyya Mona Tawil is an artist working with dance and music practices. She is the artistic director of DANCE ELIXIR, and has been creating work professionally since 1997. Her performance scores have been presented in 16 countries, including ongoing collaborations in Berlin, Detroit, and St. Petersburg-Russia. Her work has been featured in Movement Research’s Critical Correspondence, Wall Street Journal, American Theater Magazine and PAJ-Journal of Performance and Art. Presentation highlights include New York Live Arts/Live Ideas (NYC), After the Last Sky Festival (Berlin), MOCAD (Detroit), BIPOD9 (Beirut), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts/ConVerge (SF), TransDance15 (Cairo), Museum of Nonconformist Art (St. Petersburg) and Bimhuis (Amsterdam).