The Bauhaus artist, designer and choreographer Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadisches Ballett (Triadic Ballet), a three-act avant-garde “anti-dance” performance which débuted in Stuttgart in 1922, has been given a 21st-century makeover in a new performance, Virtually There, to be presented to the public at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, New Jersey on 21 and 22 November. Virtually There swaps the Triadic Ballet’s exploration of machine culture for a look at how new media has changed contemporary society, but keeps Schlemmer’s inverted approach of creating the costumes before the choreography. The costumes in Virtually There—designed by the Campana Brothers from an assortment of materials, such as LED lights, plastics, holographic mirrors and latex inflatables—are “an intrinsic part in the creation of the movements in our performance”, says Mafalda Millies, who co-directed the production with Roya Sachs. “Only once [the choreographer] Karole Armitage saw the costumes and saw how the dancers could move in them, could she conceptualise the choreography.”
