March 09, 2016

In a new performance directed by Dance professor Tania Isaac, Drexel students from dance, music, and poetry backgrounds collaboratively respond to Deus ex Machina, the current exhibition in the Pearlstein Gallery. The site-specific piece, Fragment/Frame, will be performed in the Gallery on Saturday, March 12 and Sunday, March 13 at 7:00pm (3401 Filbert Street). Deus ex Machina is an exhibition of work by artist Jesse Krimes that explores the hidden mechanics of power using ordinary objects and found materials. Blending movement, music and spoken word, Fragment/Frame will create an immersive experience around the work.

“The students will be will be performing in and around the exhibit itself, moving through the pieces and spaces Krimes has created,” Professor Isaac said. “In some sense they are a live component of the existing work, adding a fourth sculptural dimension. The immediate intent is a further articulation of the environment and ideas we take from Krimes' work.”

Primary performers include Dance students Elise Melee, Alissa Zrein and Mary Stickney. They will be joined by a live piano duo from Drexel’s Chamber Ensemble, featuring College of Computing & Informatics student Daniel Perlman and Health Sciences major Jennifer Zhou, under the direction of Eve Friedman. Additionally, three poets—including Engineering student Liz Maclean, Photography student Alicia DeSimone, and Business student Manasa Balaji—will incorporate spoken word in the piece.

Professor Isaac describes how converging their responses to the piece gave the students an opportunity to create in multiple open-ended formats, emphasizing the possibilities of ever-increasing intersections of art, performance and creative practice.

Fragment/Frame is free to the public and light refreshments will be included. For more information, please contact gallery@drexel.edu. Click here to read more about Deus ex Machina, which is on display in the Gallery through March 13.