pr0xy-fl3$h: requiem
ORGANIZED BY ALEX JACOBSEN AND LAUREN SIMPSON
MAY 10TH - JUNE 14TH, 2024
pr0xy-fl3$h: requiem, organized by Alex Jacobsen and Lauren Simpson, explored nonverbal communication and consent between bodies, and their interplay with space. The exhibition invited guests to embody new ways of engaging with these rhythms during co-creation processes of Deep Listening and Contact Improvisation.
Guests were oriented to the space and offer their consent before entering the gallery. Once inside, they were enveloped in soundscapes that evoked the hum of breathing together. Consent-based touch and reciprocal movement exercises invited embodied participation from visitors and layered moments of physically articulated spatial change onto the gallery space. Each performance of pr0xy-fl3$h: requiem was calibrated for small group of between five and 10 people lasted roughly fifteen minutes.
pr0xy-fl3$h: requiem closed on June 14th with a panel discussion explored the relationships between power, touch, consent, and control further. Click here to read a transcript of the discussion.
Installation Images
Scenes from pr0xy-fl3$h: requiem Rehearsal
About the Artists
Erin Brandt, an Omaha native, began dancing as a student of classical ballet and pointe through Ballet Omaha from elementary through college. In 2013, Erin began to explore modern dance. Since then, she has had incredible opportunities to study with Bandaloop in Oakland, CA & Gaga technique with Margarida Macieira. Performance opportunities including guest artist spots in both live and film production with tbd an Omaha based dance collective. Choreographic,film and performance opportunities with Fortuna Producción Escénica in Jalisco, Mexico, Andre VanderVelde and Karla Adolphe. Erin considers it a great honor to continue down her path as an artist, working alongside the incredible artists of Vōx Dance Collective.
Natalie Hanson/Facade Queen is a multidisciplinary music, theater and movement artist from Tacoma, Washington residing in Omaha. She came to Omaha in 2014 to study Musical Theatre and Dance and is also a self taught musician and producer. In Omaha, Natalie has performed with the Bluebarn Theatre and The Rose Children’s Theatre, where she recently served as a full time company member and Associate Director of Early Childhood Education. Her solo project “Facade Queen” was nominated for Outstanding New Artist and Outstanding Pop from the OEAA awards and her duo project “Twin Pages” was recently nominated for Outstanding Alt/Indie. Natalie has performed professionally in Chicago, Illinois with Comedy Dance Chicago and Teatro Vista Theatre. Natalie has also collaborated with her sister, Emilie and local artists on their experimental music duo “Court The Muse” and has been a past recipient of Amplify Arts Generator Grant Series. Natalie is interested in exploring many topics in her work including mixed race identity, art for the very young, food, dance accessibility and connecting the community.
Alex Jacobsen explores concepts inter-related to memory and somatics with sound. Their work often incorporates haptic technology and psychoacoustics, encompassing performance essays, radio art, soundwalk, and installation. His performances typically involve feedback, synthesizers, and personal recordings. Alex's work has been performed and exhibited in various parts of the United States, Mexico, and Europe, including ESS's Quarantine Concert Series, KANEKO, Ex Nihilo Festival, The Radiophrenia Art Festival, and Konvent Puntzero. Extending beyond his solo endeavors, Alex has contributed to many collaborative projects, including Movement5 for tbd dance collective and the films These Bodies and Violent Textures of Nature and Flesh, directed by Matthew Strasburger. Alex has previously worked as an event coordinator for the Omaha Under the Radar festival and continues to curate shows that showcase diverse and experimental art forms in the Great Plains region.
Lauren Simpson is an Omaha-based choreographer and educator. She created Moving Truck, a mobile and socially-distanced show performed on front lawns at residences throughout Omaha in 2020. Recent projects include Smithereens, a site specific performance in Joslyn Art Museum with music by Omaha musician Miwi LaLupa, Celestial Real Estate, a collaborative performance at Generator Space gallery featuring local artists Nick Miller (painter), Celeste Butler (textile designer), and Dereck Higgins (musician), and Self-Leveling a performance at ODC Theater San Francisco in collaboration with dancer Galen Rogers and visual artist Emma Strebel. Collaboration across disciplines is at the heart of her art making.
Casey Albert Welsch is a working class writer, cook, journalist, and organizer. Born and raised on a dryland Nebraska farm, he now lives and works in central Omaha. As a multimedia journalist in southeast Nebraska, Casey started a community news service at KZUM radio in Lincoln, was a founding member of the Dandelion Network mutual aid group, and was a regular contributor to Hear Nebraska and Perfect Pour magazine. These days he is focusing on his other life's work as a cook, working at Methodist Hospital, feeding the sick and those who care for them.