The Object of Her Affections

University of Colorado at Boulder dance professor Michelle Ellsworth is like the Roz Chast of performance: neurotic, quirky, concerned with the minute. But humor isn’t her intention when she creates a new work, which invariably employs choreography as a vehicle for something much more complex than sheer movement.

“People think its funny, but it’s not a part of my agenda in any way,” Ellsworth insists. “I actually tell sad stories, and people incidentally think it’s funny.” In her newest piece, The Objectification of Things, a multimedia venture into a more complicated world of simple objects, she uses everything from a miniature green screen to shadow puppets to study life from a very different, scientific perspective. “I’m tired of the centralized nature of the human agenda,” she explains. “It’s been a real pleasure to work with objects, and that’s meant in the most respectful way.” In the course of the work, said object experiences sex (in a stop-action animation), torture and death (without meaning to give away too much, death spurs a section called the “Wheels of Blame and Explain,” which include a foray into Kübler-Ross’s stages of grief).

Ellsworth and troupe will perform Objectification tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the Irey Theatre, in the Theatre and Dance building on the CU-Boulder campus; admission is $10 at the door. For more perspective, go to www.michelleellsworth.com.
Fri., Oct. 10, 7:30 p.m., 2008