Purring Tiger Dance/Movement and Interactive Visuals Workshop

This three-hour workshop, broken into two sections, is a unique exploration of the interplay between the human form and digital expression, focusing on dance and interactive visuals. 

For the first two hours, participants will be divided into two separate groups, each delving into a separate yet complementary discipline:

• Dance/Movement Workshop: Dance participants will immerse themselves in the fluid language of improvisational movement, guided by choreographer, Kiori Kawai. They will learn to articulate emotions and narratives through their bodies, embracing the concept of impermanence as they move. 

• Interactive Visuals Workshop: Meanwhile, digital art participants will engage with Aaron Sheerwood, Touch Designer software, crafting interactive visual landscapes that respond to body movement. 

In the final hour, the two groups unite in a collaborative session where dance and digital artistry intersect. The two groups will work together to combine the interactive visuals with the dance. They will experiment and play, exploring how to create a holistic piece out of their separate ideas.

Participants will not only learn new skills but also experience the magic of co-creation. The workshop is a celebration of Purring Tiger’s ethos—bringing people together in the context of art and wonder. It’s an opportunity to explore the artistic combination of the human body with technology, as seen in performances like MICHI and MUJO.

As the workshop concludes, participants will have a deeper appreciation for the transient beauty of art, whether it’s in the form of a dancer’s pose or a fleeting digital image. It’s an invitation to embrace the momentary assembly and disassembly of creation—無常 (MUJO).

This workshop is suitable for participants 18 years and older. No prior experience is required. 

Kiori Kawai

Kiori Kawai (Japanese, b. 1978) is a dance performer/choreographer/interactive installation artist. As a dance performance artist/choreographer, she started her career in New York, she has worked with Carman Moore/Skymusic Inc., Elaine Summers Dance and Film, Lincoln Center (U.S), Serralves Contemporary Museum (Portugal), Transformation Festival (Denmark/U.S), Sharjah Biennial (U.A.E), New York University Abu Dhabi Art Gallery (U.A.E), touring internationally. Sheʼs built up her own improvisatory movement vocabulary based on the techniques of meditation, Kinetic Awareness, Contact Improv, yoga, and various dance/movement training. This led her to designing interactive installations that include human body movement within kinetic sculptures. https://www.kiorikawai.com/

Aaron Sherwood

Aaron Sherwood (American, b. 1977) is an interactive media artist/musician creating large-scale multi-sensory installations and performances. Exploring consciousness, cosmopoiesis, embodiment, entropy, and semiotics, he plays with patterns of emergence in seemingly chaotic systems. His pieces usually find their genesis in small building blocks, which, when scaled up in number, combine to create complex systems of interdependent ebbs and flows. People are often placed in the center of these systems, positioned in-between micro and macro worlds. People are not mere spectators, but directly influence the complex systems Sherwood creates, enabling the systems to come alive. This mutual "making/forming" allows participants to experience their relationship to Environment in new ways. Sherwood has been commissioned to perform and/or exhibit across the US as well as in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Japan, Portugal, Spain, and The United Arab Emirates. Sherwood is an Associate Arts Professor at New York University in Abu Dhabi. He holds a masters in Interactive Telecommunications from New York University and a B.F.A. in Jazz and Contemporary Music from the New School University in New York. https://www.purringt.com/