Consistent Partial Attention

Photo by Josh Dookhie

Freya Olafson (with James Phillips and Lise McMillan)
Associate Professor, Dance

CPA [Consistent Partial Attention] offers a paradoxical meditation on what it means to be present in our contemporary screen-obsessed world. Developed through digital collage the CPA [Consistent Partial Attention] performance is guided by a video score of pre-existing / found Internet footage of individuals improvising in their homes.  The performers sight read the choreographic score by referencing diverse sources and monitors. While the performers have familiarity with the digital dances, they can never fully know their ‘choreography’. Thereby CPA sustains as an exercise in ‘nowness’; the performers engage as interfaces in act of realtime translation of data / movement vocabulary from the video score. Through the rich confluence of sources we experience dance as a vernacular, learned language, permeating and crossing communities, provoking consideration upon the evolution of dance in the age of the internet. 

CPA – Consistent Partial Attention is available for presentation and touring in Canada and abroad. ​ The CPA project has been initiated through Collective Corps – an unincorporated group – comprised of performers / dancers Freya Björg Olafson (Winnipeg), James Phillips (Montreal) and Lise McMillan (Winnipeg).