Project Tool is a performance project in which Onye Ozuzu initiated the building of a collection of sprung wood dance floors with a team of dancer collaborators. What they learned physically, emotionally, and conceptually in the process of building has become the material used to craft almost three years of skill-building, art-making, performance, discussion, community engagement, and learning.
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Project Tool found its culmination and official premiere at Sweet Water Foundation, as part of Hyde Park Jazz Festival September 2019. Sweet Water Foundation (a dynamic Regenerative Neighborhood Development neighborhood demonstration site, campus, and arts + culture hub that spans 4 city blocks on Chicago’s South side) fabricated the final floors to create a complete set of nine modular platforms with an interlocking system. Sweet Water Foundation is the current steward of the handmade floors.
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As in jazz, the performance and the sound, in both composed and improvised scores, respond to one another in real time. The sound, designed by Damon Locks, likewise engages tools—drum machines, sampler, synths, and effects—to bend sound, form sculpture, and effect time through the air. |
Photo by Zachary Whittenburg
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Excerpt of Project Tool premiere at Sweet Water Foundation as part of the Hyde Park Jazz Festival in September 2019. Video by Jovan Landry and Alisha Newsom.
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