Snowdance is part of the ongoing series Mountainworks, which forms a sustained enquiry into complex relations between landscapes, human agency and technology. The project address the backstage of mountain industries and considers questions of maintenance and responsibility for environments in our care in the context of current climate politics. Deep in the night, eight machines draw shapes into the soft ground, patterns and designs. Illuminated only by their own lights, they move in conjunction, at times as pairs, then in long lines, forming circles, figures of eight, loops. Filmed on a drone with an array of snow machines, Snowdance produces a dynamic between observation and staged event, between scenography and chance. Based on traditional, regional alpine folkdances, the choreography presents the machines as both cumbersome and agile, creating a luminous dance inscribed in the snow. Set to an original soundtrack written by composer Christof Dienz, the confluence of image and sound here aims to dislocate the work from its original context, to liberate it from the observational ‘here and now’ into more speculative situations and spaces.
