Dance of Scales

In 2009, Redshift Productions teamed up with Physicist Itai Cohen and Choreographer Maren Waldman to develop Dance of Scales, an interactive performance expressing concepts studied in Dr. Cohen’s Lab. The piece was inspired by Cohen’s research on the movement of particles at different length scales. The one hour performance took the audience through the ways particles move from Brownian motion (movement of the very, very small) to movement at the human scale.  Cohen’s lively demonstrations were woven into the dance, and the dancers became expressions and examples of his concepts.

Kalay Mordock, Maren Waldman, Holly Hibbert, and Sarabeth Matilsky in Dance of Scales

Dancers expressing

Kalay Mordock, Maren Waldman, Sarabeth Matilsky and Holly Hibbert expressing inertia and viscocity among particles in Dance of Scales.

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Taboos

What makes someone a parent? Love? Genetics? Giving birth? This is the question at the center of renowned chemist and playwright Carl Djerassi’s play Taboos. Returning to his scientific roots, Djerassi explores the other side of planning parenthood. When a lesbian couple and an infertile Christian couple each look to have a child, more than biology gets in the way of the idea of the “perfect family.” Taboos is a story about the unexpected, and often messy, results that arise when emotions and science collide.

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Three on a Couch

Commedia meets film noir in this comedy about art, ego, obsession …and sticky fruit. A famous writer obsessed with reputation fakes his death in order to read his own obituaries.  His shrink knows what’s going on, but can’t tell anyone, not even the writer’s wife.  But she’s soon on his trail, as his “death” ignites a chain of outrageous events.

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Phallacy

PhallacyShe’s a top art historian in a world famous museum. He’s a distinguished professor of chemistry. She searches for artistic truth through connoisseurship; he finds scientific fact through cold material analysis. Between them stands the object of her affection: a revered classical statue long thought to be a roman original…and he just proved it to be a 16th century cast.  As personal rivalries and professional reputations clash, how far will each go to prove the other wrong?

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SeaChange: Reversing the Tide

SeaChangeShould everything dance to humanity’s tune, or does such a self-important view lead to the destruction of life on earth? This question is addressed by the performance piece SeaChange: Reversing the Tide, created by Roger Payne and Lisa Harrows. By combining the knowledge of science with the wisdom of poetry Roger Payne and Lisa Harrow argue compellingly that man is not the overseer of life but an integral part of life’s complex web, and that our survival requires that we attend not just to our own wellbeing, but also to the wellbeing of the entire web of life.

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Happy Hour at the Event Horizon

Happy Hour at the Event HorizonIt’s always Happy Hour at The Event Horizon, a bar at the edge of a black hole where legendary scientific mixologists Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr pass infinite good times with their loyal patrons. Particles collide, customers perform experiments with shot glasses and ashtrays, and the laws of physics come home to roost. Regulars at this establishment include a photon that has daringly escaped from a black hole, the oldest galaxy in the universe who imparts the wisdom of her age, and a gaggle of theories that challenge one another to pub games to determine which one will prevail. Take one part Cheers and one part NOVA and you’ve got Happy Hour at the Event Horizon.

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Galileo: The Emotional Life of a Spacecraft

In 1989 we sent an emissary to Jupiter, and for 14 years, the Galileo Orbiter was our eyes and our ears, unraveling the mystery of the giant planet and its many satellites. On September 21, 2003, the craft left the orbit of Jupiter and set on a trajectory that sent it directly into the planet. It was destroyed upon entering the atmosphere. In September 2003, to commemorate its amazing journey and dramatic end, Redshift Productions presented Galileo’s story told in song and seen through its own eyes.