One Is Enough

Sometimes limitations are the best catalysts for creativity. In “One-Shot,” an online video series curated by New York-based choreographer Sarah Maxfield, artists get free reign of a studio at Gibney Dance Center in which to create a short solo performance. Whatever they do, they have to film it in just one take. Without the luxury of editing, or even panning or zooming (the camera, always positioned at the same end of the studio, stays completely still), dance- and theater-makers wind up devising clever ways of playing with perspective and jumping between “scenes.” Some concoct elaborate schemes involving props and costumes; others design whimsical landscapes with the likes of multi-colored electrical tape; and still others keep it really simple, using nothing but their bodies, some music, and the unadorned space. No two shots are alike.

The “solo performance relay,” as Maxfield calls it, features one artist each week for a couple of months at a time. Co-produced with the Gibney Dance Center, it recently started up again with Jen Rosenblit, Aaron Mattocks, Kennis Hawkins, Emily Wexler, Jodi Bender and (soon to come) Lindsey Drury. Check out the full series http://sarahmaxfield.wordpress.com/4one-shot/. —Siobhan Burke

Photo by Sarah Maxfield. Lindsey Drury in a still from her “One-Shot” performance.