Bubble Noir/Strange Spaces

Bubble Noir/Strange Spaces is part of an ongoing series of performance installations, that take place in a bubble structure that serves as a dance partner and stage. Bubble Noir is a 30 minute contemporary dance drag installation featuring dancers Ben White and Megan Beckwith. Ben performs as the female protagonist, Axo Lotal and Megan as the male support role, Splana. The bubble serves as both a physical and metaphorical space, projected with glitched and stressed video elements derived from vintage Film Noir footage. This work interweaves dance, drag, a bubble environment and digital imagery for the Strange Spaces exhibition.

In this work, Axo Lotal embodies the protagonist, grappling with themes of isolation and control, central to the Film Noir genre. Enclosed within the bubble, they face a series of existential questions: Will they escape? Can they find another breath? Or will the bubble ultimately burst? Choreographically the dance explores movement in a confined but shifting environment with the task of connecting with the moving imagery projected onto the bubble. Axo Lotal also becomes the subtext to the snippets of Film Noir imagery as the dancer's movements often seem to merge with the projected imagery, blurring the lines between human and digital. While Axo Lotal grapples with her immediacy, Splana through a desire to prove a point, offends everyone.