Creating Art in Space
In the early '80s Jeanne Robinson choreographed "Higher Ground," her dance tribute to space, and mankind's drive to reach the stars. The piece's finale included a sequence of simulated zero-g dance.
Immediately after the piece premiered she was invited to join NASA's "Civilian In Space" program - to ride the Shuttle into space and dance in Zero Gravity.
Her opportunity of a lifetime vanished when the program was scrubbed after the Challenger, carrying the first "Civilian In Space" Christa McAuliffe, exploded shortly after takeoff.
Stardance will be co-directed and co-written by Jeanne Robinson and James Sposto, with Ms. Robinson envisioning and choreographing the zero-gravity dance and Mr. Sposto producing.
Jeanne Robinson is a writer, choreographer, former dancer and teacher. She studied at the Boston Conservatory and the Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey and Erick Hawkins schools, and performed with Beverly Brown Dance Ensemble in New York. Artistic Director of Halifax’s Nova Dance Theatre for over 8 years, she choreographed thirty original works. Her Hugo and Nebula winning 1976 novella, "Stardance" co-written with her husband, writer Spider Robinson (www.spiderrobinson.com) pioneered the concept of zero gravity dance, and inspired three novels. In 2006 the Library of Congress invited her to Washington D.C. to be a guest of the First Lady at the White House for the National Book Festival. Robinson is a lay-ordained Buddhist monk in the Soto Zen lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi.
James Sposto is an entrepreneur, filmmaker and co-founder/creative executive of new-media advertising/design and communications agency Sposto Interactive (www.sposto.com). Both he and his company have won numerous awards for various national advertising campaigns, commercials, Web sites and interactive experiences.
