The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic froze much of the world in its tracks. For the Performing Arts, the pandemic meant the closure of theatrical venues and a goodbye to live audiences for over two years. In an effort to adapt during a time where creativity and human connection was needed most, Knight Arts put forward a grant challenge to fund new works of performing arts that placed adaptation at their core. In addition to the 20 proposals that received funding from the 2020 Knight New Work program, Knight Arts worked with Kismet Creative Studio to commission three innovative digital experiments from past recipients of the fund that evolved traditional works of performance into sharable and streamable cinematic hybrids.
Danzas del Silencio is a collaboration with the Grammy nominated vocal ensemble Seraphic Fire and composer Alvaro Bermudez. With each member of the ensemble quarantined across the country, the vocals for this piece were recorded remotely. The visuals are comprised of archival traditional Colombian folkloric dance imagery, which are projected onto rural tropical landscapes reminiscent of the composer’s childhood memories from the Colombian home his family left behind when they migrated to the United States.