{"id":153712,"date":"2019-09-06T08:16:44","date_gmt":"2019-09-06T12:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu?p=153712&preview=true&preview_id=153712"},"modified":"2019-09-09T14:44:43","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T18:44:43","slug":"the-colony-approved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2019\/09\/the-colony-approved\/","title":{"rendered":"Professor Blends Art and Science in ‘The Colony’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anna Lindemann has had a long fascination with insects, starting from childhood: some of her earliest music compositions were about bugs. As an undergraduate at Yale University, she majored in biology but also explored her wide-ranging interest in multidisciplinary art that ultimately led to her earning an MFA in integrated electronic arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.<\/p>\n

Today, as an assistant professor of motion design and animation in the Digital Media & Design Department in the School of Fine Arts, Lindemann describes herself as an “evo devo artist,” focusing her work on combining animation, music, video, and performance to explore the emerging field of evolutionary developmental biology.<\/p>\n

Lindemann\u2019s newest work is The Colony, an art-science performance about sisterhood and the evolution of communication in two of the most social creatures on earth: humans and ants. The performance will be presented Sept. 6-8 at the Studio Theatre, located in the School of Fine Arts building.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s about telling a story and thinking about different modes that can bring that story out,\u201d Lindemann says. \u201cThis show is about complex social systems, but we also wanted it to be a compact show that could travel to multiple places and unexpected venues like science conferences or natural history museums.”<\/p>\n

The Colony draws visual materials and research in part from the Carl W. and Marian E. Rettenmeyer Army Ant Guest Collection at UConn and is one of more than 16 \u201cAntU\u201d initiatives inspired by the collection. In The Colony, Lindemann plays the role of Mona, which reunites her with long-time collaborator Lucy Fitz Gibbon, a Yale classmate and classically-trained soprano who plays the role of Mona\u2019s sister, Hennie. Pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough has the role of Ian, Hennie\u2019s husband. Director of The Colony is Michael Hofmann, an opera director and arts administrator based in New York\u2019s Hudson Valley. Lindemann composed the music and co-wrote the script with Emma Komlos-Hrobsky, associate editor at Poets & Writers.<\/p>\n

Students from the Digital Media & Design and Dramatic Arts departments at UConn have also been involved in developing the performance. Under Lindemann\u2019s guidance, Sarah Shattuck, Jasmine Rajavadee and Allie Marsh have developed animations for the show over the past two years. Shattuck is also serving as the stage manager for the premiere. The creative team also includes costumes by Brittny Mahan, lights by Sam Biondolillo, sound by Katie Salerno and additional film direction by Ryan Glista.<\/p>\n

\"Anna
Professor Anna Lindemann as the character Mona in her play “The Colony.” (Contributed Photo \/ Kelly Daigneault SFA 22)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A cross-disciplinary work, The Colony combines projected animations and video, and live spoken and musical performance.<\/p>\n

“How can we create a show that only has three performers but is also about social life?” Lindemann asks. “In response to this question, we ended up including a video dance sequence within the performance that is inspired by an army ant swarm raid and was shot in the Storrs Price Chopper with the participation of 50 students, faculty, and community members. In the same way that a video sequence expands the visual palate of the performance, I used electronics to expand the musical palate when composing the music. The electronic accompaniment to Lucy and Ryan\u2019s live performance allows the sound world of two people to expand, at times becoming a chorus of ants or revealing the complexities of Mona\u2019s inner turmoil.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cross-disciplinary and collaborative nature of The Colony draws on the creative team\u2019s past experience. Hofmann\u2019s recent directorial work includes Knot an Opera!, which combines electronics and diverse musical styles ranging from popular to operatic.<\/p>\n

\u201cReturning to direct a performance that has so many different elements and different collaborations is a thrilling and enjoyable experience for me and something that I seek in other projects I do,” he says.<\/p>\n

Adds Fitz Gibbon, \u201cI\u2019m used to performing with electronics as well as theatrical work, such as opera, and Anna and I have collaborated on many projects. This piece really is a Gesamtkunstwerk [total work of art, synthesis of the arts] in that we are using innovative technologies for so many different aspects of the production and drawing on so many different departments at UConn to create something new and, I think, really meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it\u2019s always so tantalizing, it\u2019s a lot of work making these kinds of collaborations come together,\u201d says McCullough. \u201cThere are inevitably little points of miscommunication along the way, human or electronic, but then you learn something. And it\u2019s always rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colony will be presented in The Studio Theatre, 802 Bolton Road, Storrs, on Sept. 6 at 8 p.m., Sept. 7 at 8 p.m. and Sept. 8 at 2 p.m. Tickets are free, with reservations highly recommended by visiting www.thecolony.show<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Colony, a performance about the evolution of communication in two of the most social creatures on earth \u2014 humans and ants \u2014 can be seen tonight, Saturday, and Sunday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":153822,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1711,1914,2225,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1918],"class_list":["post-153712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-sfa","category-uconn-storrs","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-24 07:28:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153712"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153972,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153712\/revisions\/153972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/153822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153712"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=153712"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=153712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}