Let there be light

When multimedia artist Naomie Kremer's works demonstrating the interconnection between flowing texts in art were showcased at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art in 2001, she called the show Text Moves. When, in 2005, her set of paintings depicting animated visual art were exhibited in San Francisco, she called it Paint Moves.

So it's no surprise that when her team of artists working on postmodern choreographer Margaret Jenkins' new dance-and-painting collaboration was searching for a name for the project, Kremer suggested Light Moves as a placeholder.

The name stuck.

"We wanted something that conveyed the visual possibilities created by the combination of dance and video," said Jenkins, who is known for heading unique collaborations. "It was quite a challenge."

After a November premiere in San Francisco, the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company will perform the show this weekend at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center's Kay Theatre.

The piece is a blend of four art forms — dance, music, poetry and visual art — centered by the perception of light. Jenkins' choreography is accompanied by a moving set created by projections of Kremer's art onto eight banners, accompanied by live music by composer Paul Dresher and poetry by Michael Palmer.

"I got very intrigued by the possibility of creating a moving set for a dance piece that would deal with the concepts of light and the way that light changes and alters both within us and throughout the day," Jenkins said.

Light Moves does not follow a narrative but frames the performance around emotions and experiences within the light cycle. The work has an abstract nature, so the takeaway is different for each viewer.

"At the end of the day, I want to create an open-ended experience that every viewer is able to enter in a different way," Kremer said. "It is an experience that satisfies and stimulates and surprises, so that's what we're looking to do."

Throughout the process of creating and producing the show, Light Moves has been a highly collaborative enterprise. The dancers created their responses to light through choreography. Then, Kremer developed images to combine paint and light, and Dresher and Palmer created music and language in response to the idea.

Kremer said her art demonstrates the capacity of collaboration, as it only makes sense with the entire Light Moves ensemble. The paintings and video take on a completely different when viewed alone.

"People feel there's a balance between the visual information and the physical information so that one is not more dominant than the other but that they come together to make a whole," Jenkins said. "It's charged with lots of meanings from daily life."

Light Moves, performed by the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company with live music by the Paul Dresher Ensemble, is Friday and Saturday at CSPAC's Kay Theatre. Tickets are $9 for students, $35 for adults.

raghavendran@umdbk.com