fayettevillearts.org

BY SUSANNAH PATTON Northwest Arkansas Times

A free public art installation is expected to bring thousands of visitors to Dickson Street this fall.

Slow Dancing, created by David Michalek, is a series of 43 larger-than-life, hyperslow-motion video portraits of dancers and choreographers from around the world.

The videos will be projected on three 12-foot by 24-foot screens on the front of the Walton Arts Center from Oct. 16 through Nov. 13 and will be visible to pedestrians in the vicinity.

Projections will run from 7-10 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday and 7 p.m. to midnight Thursday through Saturday.

Terri Trotter, interim president and CEO of the Walton Arts Center, said Fayetteville will be the third city in the United States where the project is seen. It premiered in New York City, appeared in Los Angeles and went to Montreal this summer, she said. It will show a few dates in Europe before coming to Fayetteville, she said.

“There’s been some good buzz about it,” Trotter said. “It’s been publicized numerous times in The New York Times and Los Angeles Times. We plan to publicize it region- ally, and I think we’ll have some good regional draw for it.”

She said she also expects a lot of visitors from all over Northwest Arkansas.

“It should be a beautiful time of year, and it’s a free activity,” she said.

Trotter suspects people will come to see the show and also take time to shop, eat and drink.

According to the Arts and Economic Prosperity III Study conducted by Americans for the Arts, Trotter said, people in Northwest Arkansas spend an average of $20 beyond the price of the ticket when they go to an arts event. People coming from outside the two-county area spend an average of $50 above the ticket price, she said.

With a conservative projection of 25,000 attendees, Trotter predicts $683,000 could be added to the local economy over the course of the event.

For that reason, she’s hoping the Fayetteville Advertising and Promotion Commission will contribute $20,000 to help with the costs associated with the production, a total of approximately $200,000.

Trotter said the production can create a festival-like environment. People react to it differently, she said, and either watch intently or carry on conversations about the videos.

According to the production’s Web site, each of the video portraits is shot on a specially constructed set using a high-speed, high-definition camera recording at 1,000 frames per second. The result is about 10 minutes of extreme slow motion.

Three portraits are randomly selected for each cycle, allowing viewers to watch and compare dancers from different styles and cultures.

Trotter said the project has been called stunning simply because of its scale.

“The movements are almost undetectable at first until you watch it for a while,” she said. “It creates an interesting experience because you can see so much.”

The production seemed like a great follow-up to the Walton Arts Center’s highway flowers, a public art project along Interstate 540, Trotter said.

“We like to be able to offer that public art component, and it’s also very focused on the heart and soul of what we do, which is performing arts,” she said. “It’s an interesting mix of visual arts with a special emphasis on the dancers. It seemed to be something that fit with what we’re doing.”

Publication:Northwest Arkansas Times;     Date:Aug 1, 2008