Photo by Ron Hammond
FEATURE
EZRA DICKINSON, DA ‘07, GRADUATED IN DANCE, BUT HE USED HIS TIME AT CORNISH TO GOOD ADVANTAGE. IN SATING A THIRST FOR STUDIO ART, STREET HAPPENING AND PERFORMANCE CONCEPT HE’S MAKING A CAREER OUT BREAKING MOLDS. EZRA IS AS UNLIKELY AS A …
BLACKTOP BALLET – Maximilian Bocek
Ezra Dickinson and two friends are walking very slowly up till their walk seemed near normal speed, but, of course everything the middle of a street. Literally up the middle, right up the double that had been at normal speed became super fast. “Slow walking,” yellow lines. It’s in a YouTube video. Around them, a street fair is as Dickinson calls the technique, requires massive concentration. going on, but everything is strangely out of synch. The gaits of The effect is mesmerizing. the three walkers are halting and surreal, the people around them zip by at hyper speed, their pixels smeared across the screen, “A lot of people ask me, ‘Do you get bored in that place?’ relates making a vaguely musical chattering sound like a giant anthill. Dickinson of the movement experience. “And I think, being a Sometimes groups of people will light on the pavement to in movement artist, I am anything but bored in that place. You’re in spect the three walkers, freezing into a slower time signature, then the most intense way mapping out the process of doing one of suddenly they flit away once more like hummingbirds into the the most basic things we do, taking a step. You’re feeling every blur of activity. last moment of that step. There’s a really amazing sensation that comes out of doing that.” The piece is called “Children.” It’s secret is that the three were not walking just slowly, they were walking excruciatingly slowly. This “Children” is the work of an iconoclastic artist whose work is was filmed in normal time with them nearly motionless and people garnering increasing notice. His career is itself a work of art he is moving very normally around them. Then the film was sped up creating on his own terms. It was not always that way. The road
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