The Four World Ages (2023)
Summary
“The Four World Ages” draws on Nigerian-Igbo myth to tell the history of humanity as it unfolds through four eras: the Age of Universal Oneness, the Age of Self-Awareness, the Age of Light, and our current Age of Suffering. This piece features four dancers adorned with body paint as they enact this sweeping saga, and it employs dynamic projections, innovative light design, and spatial augmented reality components that blend artificial intelligence, computer vision, motion capture technology, custom-built software, and real-time 3D rendering. The world premiere live performance took place on July 29, 2023 at The Yard on Martha's Vineyard, MA.
Directors: Marques Redd, Marquita Sams, Mikael Owunna
Assistant Director: Dominique Swift
Choreographer: Marquita Sams
Dancers: Ashley Eleby, Billy J Hawkains III, Jordan Cowan, Rishell Maxwell
Engineers: Jiajian Zhang, Keyin Wu, Kyungseo Cho, Shuyue Wang, Yuan Suo
Production Designer: Eileen Goddard
Costume Designers: Quenette Brooks and Sophie Leininger
Live Performance
July 29, 2023: The Yard (Martha's Vineyard, MA)
The creation of "The Four World Ages" was made possible with the support of the Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh Grants Program, The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University, the Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center, Office for Public Art (Pittsburgh), and The Yard.