Painter, dance company collaborate April 9 on campus
04/01/2011
Cyrus Khambatta Dance Company performs in collaboration with the college's visiting artist from Buea, Cameroon — Max Lyonga, 7:30 p.m., April 9 in the Black Box Theatre. Tickets range from $9-16. Lyonga's exhibit of paintings "Therapy of Hope" shows April 11-June 10 in the college art gallery, third floor of Lynnwood Hall. Lyonga speaks as part of the college's lecture series 12:30 p.m., Thurs., April 7 in the Black Box Theatre. A reception with the artist will be held 4-6:30 p.m., Fri., April 15 in the gallery featuring new music by Gypsy Reeds, Strings & Skins and food prepared by Edmonds College Culinary Arts.
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Cyrus Khambatta Dance Company performs April 9 on campus.
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Khambatta Dance Company presents collaboration with Cameroon’s premier painter, Max Lyonga at Edmonds College's Black Box Theatre
SEATTLE — Khambatta Dance Company will present a collaborative installation merging dance and real-time painting at the Edmonds College Black Box Theatre with Max Lyonga.
The collaborative installation, part of a series of events with Lyonga at the college, will turn the theater into a “live” art studio where dance and paint will intersect. Using a large semi-transparent canvas, Lyonga will paint while dancers penetrate and pierce into the specially-built surface on which he is painting, the dancers responding to the strokes and Lyonga responding to the movements.
Another set-up has a large surface area on the floor covered with paper, a space into which the dancers will move and onto which Lyonga will paint, each using the space, movement and color as a real-time three-dimensional “canvas.”
Lyonga said he is inspired by “…various cultures, books and from the power of nature," he “also views painting as some part of health and inspiration.”
In the past five years, Lyonga, one of whose paintings was selected by the French Ministry of Culture in 1998 as the best artistic work in the country, has steadily built a solid reputation for himself as a serious and talented painter. And his popularity is fast spreading beyond the borders of Cameroon; a German art gallery recently bought 42 of his paintings, and his paintings have been displayed in art galleries in Côte d’Ivoire, England, Italy, France, Spain, the United States, Australia, Lebanon, and South Africa.
Khambatta Dance has a long history of collaborating with artists from international destinations. It has presented performances and conducted residencies internationally and nationally for 20 years.