Project Rainbow's fourth dance and media based project, Blue, is an experimental film and dance documentary, installed at four venues in East Vancouver-Centre A, The Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver, The Strathcona Community Centre and Solder and Sons-as well as the LED screens at Robson and Granville Streets, from early February until mid March 2010. The film installation features the Canadian Women's Ski Jumping Team 2009 in flight. The jumpers were filmed ski-jumping while training in Zakopane, Poland, for the 2009 World Championship which took place in Liberec, Czech Republic. This footage will be shown on the LED screens in Downtown Vancouver. The jumpers were also filmed performing gestures based on their physical training and choreographed by Project Rainbow. Both aspects of the film will be shown as Chapters at the host sites in East Vancouver.
Coach Gregor Linsig and jumper Atsuko Tanaka in training Whistler 2008 photo by Dylan Doubt
Yves Klein's performance and photograph, Leap Into the Void, has been inspirational to us in its acrobatic engagement with cityscape and it candid reference to temporality and calculated risk. These latter qualities, physicalized in an image of man's attempt at flight, strike us akin to the efforts of the ski jumpers to defy gravity, and to confront space and time through the embrace of the moment. Much of Yves Klein's work is involved with the concept of the void, and it is this interstitial space between taking off and landing, which came to be expressed as part of his significant relationship to the colour blue. During the course of the production Blue, the women ski jumpers occupied an additional liminal space, as they both waited and prepared for a chance to compete in the world's top athletic competition hosted this winter in Vancouver. A chance that has since been denied.
Nata de Leeuw and coach Gregor Linsig, production still, Blue, photo by Dylan Doubt
After Blue is a guided map to the installations with contributions from Vancouver-based writer and activist Am Johal, author Rebecca Solnit, (courtesy of Penguin Books), and Project Rainbow.
Project Rainbow is: Jesse Birch, Jade Boyd, Heidi Nutley and Sydney Vermont
We would like to thank:
Blue Production Team
Cinematographer
James Liston
Production Manager
Natasha Nystrom
Editor
Jason Schneider
Still Photography
Dylan Doubt
Key Grip, Lights
Mike Branham
Electric
Roger Huyghe
Second Camera, Sound
Ian Barbour
Production Assistant
Iain Mitchell-Boyd
Storyboard
Jesse Gray
Installation Assistant
Sylvain Sailly
Camera Assistant (Zakopane, Poland)
Daniel Farkas
Catering
Potluck Crafts
Location
East Van Studios
Canada's 2009 Women's Ski Jumping Team
Nata De Leeuw
Atsuko Tanaka
Katie Willis
coach Gregor Linsig
Host Sites
Centre A
Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver
Solder and Sons
Strathcona Community Centre
additional thanks
Brad Gough
Derek Root
Judy Hanazawa
Huyghe Meakes Illuminations LTD
Tristan Overseas Production (Poland)
Seeprops
and
The City of Vancouver
Blue is a commission from the City of Vancouver through its Olympic and Paralympic Public Art Program as part of Mapping and Marking artist-initiated projects 2010
