Created and performed by Laura Schandelmeier & Stephen Clapp, with Ilana Faye Silverstein, Mervin Primeaux, and installation artist Lorne Covington.

The Loving Project: E-Race reflects Schandelmeier & Clapp's responses to the intersections between racism and the highly charged debate around same sex marriage. The work also features a virtual environment created by installation artist Lorne Covington in which the music and movement effect the projected visuals. The work is a dance/theater/music performance that explores interracial marriages and nontraditional partnerships through historical and present-day perspectives.

This timely and relevant work offers reflections on racism, sexism, and gender bias, and highlights aspects of union that make partnership between "unlikely" couples viable (and desirable) despite an adverse status quo. The work weaves together a tapestry of stories that include: the case of Loving vs. Virginia, which in 1967 overturned the law against interracial marriage in Virginia; the marriage between Russian Inventor Leon Theremin and dancer with the American Negro Ballet, Lavinia Williams; and the case of Beth and Terence Humphrey-McKay, an interracial couple who in October 2009 were denied a marriage license from a Justice of the Peace in the State of Louisiana. Schandelmeier & Clapp's fifth evening length work, The Loving Project: E-Race celebrates distinctive partnerships and the rare gifts they bring to the world.

The Loving Project: E-Race is in its second phase of development. In October 2009, Dance Box Theater premiered the work at Dance Place in Washington, DC. The piece will be re-developed by adding contextual and structural changes as well as the creation of new sections. We have been in dialogue with the Humphrey-McKay's and have their permission to include their story and perspectives in the content of the work. This next phase of The Loving Project: E-Race will re-define the performers' spatial relations to include [for the performances at Joe's Movement Emporium] a thrust stage with audience on three sides, offering a multi-dimensional perspective to the movement vocabulary and subject matter both literally and figuratively. An additional element for this phase of the work is created in partnership with installation artist Lorne Covington. Covington has created a dynamic, interactive environment that uses specialized video cameras to analyze the dancers' positions, speeds and gestures. This movement analysis translates the movement into electronic data which dictates video projection on the stage.

As part of an extended residency with Joe's Movement Emporium, Dance Box Theater will engage with teens enrolled in Joe's apprenticeship program through a creative workshop that explores curricula addressing the issues brought forth in the work. Performances will include post-performance dialogue with the artists in order to initiate a platform for discussion and stories around issues addressed through the work.

The premier performance of The Loving Project: E-Race at Dance Place in October 2009 was created with Peter DiMuro, Ilana Faye Silverstein, and Ken Yamaguchi-Clark. The performance was also ASL interpreted by Marcia Freeman and included the fall 2009 Dance Place repertory performers: Michelle Anthony, Christine Curella, Heather Doyle, Jill Newman, Stacy Paull, Maria Tripodi and Pamela Williams.

For booking information, please contact us.