At the center of Under Polaris<\/em> is the quest to preserve, inside pristine shards of ice at the top of the world, a seed containing the wealth of all human history: a back-up system for our genetic imprint and the sum total of our personal memories. En route, the story\u2019s protagonist shape-shifts into many a mythic creature to survive the elements and, in the process, learns about the inextricable interdependence of humans and nature. Formed in 2004, Cloud Eye Control consists of animation and media artist Miwa Matreyek, writer, musician and performer Anna Oxygen, and director Chi-wang Yang.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nCOMPANY<\/span>

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Cloud Eye Control is a collaborative performance group based in Los Angeles, creating original works that uniquely combine interactive media with live performance.\u00a0 Cloud Eye Control was founded in 2004 by theater director Chi-wang Yang, experimental animator Miwa Matreyek, and performer and composer Anna Oxygen. The company has created three original works that have been presented both nationally and internationally: Subterranean heart<\/em>, Final space<\/em>, and Under polaris.<\/em><\/p>\n
Whether through a re-imagining of Charles Lindbergh\u2019s trans-Atlantic flight, the discovery of powerful underground crystals, or one woman\u2019s interstellar search for a new home, a common theme in their stories is that of human adaptation in a technological world.\u00a0 To realize these stories, pre-rendered animation and live camera imagery is projected onto various surfaces on the stage, functioning as both scenery and virtual actor. Both high and low tech methods are used to allow the live actor to interact with the media, ranging from custom-built interactive video software to the physical manipulation of video puppets.<\/p>\n
Recently, Cloud Eye Control has performed or presented at the New Genre Arts Festival, Headlands Center for the Arts, LACMA, the Center Stage Theater in Santa Barbara, and the Fusebox Festival.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nCREATORS<\/span>
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Miwa Matreyek<\/strong> is an internationally recognized animator, designer, and multi-media artist based in Los Angeles. She creates animated short films as well as live works that integrate animation, performance, and video installation. Her work explores how animation transforms when it is combined with body and space, and vise versa. She is interested in the meeting point of cinema and theater\/performance, the moments of convergence where fantastical illusions are created, and the moments of divergence where the two struggles against each other. Her work has been shown internationally at animation\/film festivals, theatre festivals, performance festival, as well as art galleries, science museums, tech conferences, and more, including TEDGlobal, Sundance, Anima Mundi festival (Brazil), Vimeo festival, TBA Festival, Platform Animation Festival, Radar LA, ISEA, the Exploratorium, Innotown (Norway), Forum des Images (France), City of Women (Slovenia), Chilemonos (Chile), S8 Film Festival (Spain), etc. When not working on her own shows, she often works as a video designer for outside theater companies (Rude Mechs, 605 Collective, Wolf Bowart) and freelances as a commercial designer\/animator. Matreyek received her MFA (2007) in Experimental Animation and Integrated Media at the California Institute of the Arts. She is one of the founding-member and core-collaborator of the performance media group, Cloud Eye Control.<\/p>\n
Anna Oxygen<\/strong> is a multi-media artist, composer and performer. She has extensively toured Europe and the United States under the name Anna Oxygen, performing dance pop recitals and interactive performance pieces. She has released several albums of electronic and acoustic music, most recently This is an exercise<\/em> on indie label Kill Rock Stars. Her performance and video work has been presented at PS1 MOMA Contemporary, The Seattle Art Museum, LACMA (LA), NYU, The Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena), The Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, and the Rohsska Museet in Gothenburg, Sweden among others. She is a member of Media performance group Cloud Eye Control. After an upbringing of classical voice training, and a brief stint studying opera at Cornish College of the Arts, she became a self taught electronics musician, exploring old drum machines, sound modules and loop pedals, and weaving them into her live performances in basements and punk venues. She went on to get her MFA in Music at the California Institute of the Arts where she specialized in Experimental Sound Practices and Integrated Media, and began composing more traditional and developed musical scores for film, theater, and ensembles. Her music and performances play with the blurred spaces between instruction and improvisation, often inviting musicians and audiences to stand in specific configurations, or creating visual maps for them to follow. At CalArts she co-founded media group Cloud Eye Control with director Chi-wang Yang, and animator Miwa Matreyek. The group has performed at numerous art festivals including the EXIT Festival in Paris France, Platform Animation Festival and TBA in Portland. Most recently she has created a psychedelic noise folk band Day Moon with long time friend and collaborator Tamala Poljak.<\/p>\n
Chi-wang Yang<\/strong> is a Los Angeles-based director of theater and performance. Whether in the form of plays, operas, concerts, or installation, his work is intensely physical, experimental, and collaborative. He is committed to expanding notions of identity and theatrical form and to exploring the unstable intersections of body, narrative and technology. Yang is a founding member of performance collective Cloud Eye Control, whose technology-infused productions integrate live theater, animation, and music. His work has been presented at theaters and galleries internationally, including REDCAT, LACMA, Time-Based Arts Festival, Fusebox Festival, EXIT Festival (Paris), the Platform International Animation Festival, the San Francisco International Film Festival, Havana International Film Festival and the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe. Recent projects include Under polaris<\/em> with Cloud Eye Control, and The closest farthest away\/La entra\u00f1able lejan\u00eda<\/em>, a groundbreaking international collaboration between American and Cuban artists. Yang received his MFA in Theater Directing and Integrated Media at the California Institute of the Arts, where he currently teaches, and his BA from Brown University. Other training includes the SITI Company (NYC and Skidmore). He is the recipient of the Princess Grace George C. Wolfe Theater Award for Directing, and in 2011 was an artist in residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts and the Baryshnikov Arts Center.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nPRESS<\/span>
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\u201cSometimes a transcendently spectacular piece of theater can sound ridiculous and childish when you try to put it into words. Under polaris<\/em> follows the trail of a female scientist who takes a seed containing the human genome to the North Pole, where she cavorts with a polar bear, musk ox and caribou to the sounds of experimental rock. If the description is laughable, Under polaris<\/em> isn’t. This multimedia, pseudo-rock opera (which runs at REDCAT through Sunday) contains a wealth of originality in its compact one-hour running time. Not all of its risks pay off, but a lot of them do. The result is both an alien creation that is never alienating and a challenging work that rewards your intellectual investment.<\/p>\n
Created by the L.A.-based group Cloud Eye Control, the production uses video projection, shadow\u00a0play and animation to evoke a fantasy arctic world. The nameless scientist (played by Anna Oxygen, who also composed most of the show’s music) wanders around in a haze, singing rock arias as she communes with wildlife. Occasionally she interacts with the visual effects to create a fusion of the tangible and the digital.<\/p>\n
Five musicians accompany the action, providing a near continuous live soundscape. Far from being\u00a0acoustical wallpaper, the music is integral to the production. The rock score lifts the story into an\u00a0operatic dimension, creating dramatic distance but emotional intimacy. This is one of the rare\u00a0instances when an avant-garde theater production deserves its own soundtrack album release, and much of the credit goes to the fine musicians — Radio Sloan, Rachel Carns, Jessica Catron and Dan Eaton.<\/p>\n
Under polaris<\/em> grows more visually dazzling as it progresses. The video animation (created by Miwa\u00a0Matreyek) is both clever and simple in the way it creates an entire snowy ecosystem using relatively modest means. Bringing it all together, director Chi-wang Yang keeps the wow moments coming in a steady rhythmic flow. The final image is a transcendent vision of pan-species communion that is equally hallucinogenic and utopian.<\/p>\n
If the production has a weakness, it’s in the story itself. The narrative is anemic, a mere hanger on\u00a0which to string the visual effects. It’s telling that the production seems to abandon the story about\u00a0halfway through, shifting into a poetic gear in which mood and atmosphere take precedence over plot.\u00a0To the credit of the artistic team, Under polaris<\/em> maintains a wry sense of humor that dispels any hint of self-importance. This is an unclassifiable theatrical experience that stretches toward a higher consciousness while keeping its feet rooted in the snowy ground\u201d. David Ng. Los Angeles Times. October 16^{th<\/sup> 2009.<\/p>\n}
\u201cUnder polaris<\/em> tells a story of woman (performed by Anna Oxygen) who embarks on an Arctic journey to preserve humanity. Her journey is wrought with challenges — from the extreme ice elements to her own nadir of self-doubt. As the woman encounters animal spirits, she crosses the many symbolic thresholds.\u00a0Cloud Eye Control is an LA-based performance collective with a founding core group of Miwa Matreyek, Anna Oxygen and Chi-wang Yang. The group integrates animation, experimental theatre, pop music and puppetry.<\/p>\n
Under polaris<\/em> is instantly compelling on several levels. Technically, the piece is visually stunning; the projected animated screens and overall art direction combine to make an environment that is both surreal and hallucinatory. The music, from the atmospheric electronic textures to the opera and overtures, is not at all just background incidental music but an integral and evocative thread of the piece\u2019s fabric. The narrative carries mythic symbolism that suggests some of Joseph Campbell\u2019s work on the hero\u2019s journey. The woman in the story interacts with animal spirit guides and also transforms into a creature, which is an archetype seen in many myths. Under polaris<\/em> also suggests the balance of nature and man; when the lead woman crosses thresholds, the audience makes that journey into the world of dreaming and the unconsciousness.<\/p>\n
Overall, the combined production of Under polaris<\/em> is impressive and innovative. Besides being technically breathtaking at times, the piece is humorous and accessible, which only augments the magical playfulness of the performance.\u00a0Questing for a fantastic multimedia and multidimensional performance journey? Cloud Eye Control\u2019s Under polaris<\/em> will transport you there\u201d. Laist. October 15th 2009.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nCREDITS<\/span>
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Created by Cloud Eye Control: Miwa Matreyek, Anna Oxygen, and Chi-wang Yang<\/strong><\/p>\n
Video programming and sound design by Nathan Ruyle<\/strong><\/p>\n
Lighting design by Chris Kuhl<\/strong><\/p>\n
Music performed by Rachel Carns, Dan Eaton, and Matt Buscher<\/strong><\/p>\n
Overture composed by THE NEED<\/strong><\/p>\n
Under Polaris is a National Performance Network Creation Fund project co-commissioned by REDCAT, PICA and Leslie B. Durst<\/strong><\/p>\n
Created with support from the Princess Grace Foundation Special Project Award<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Length\u00a01 hour 30 minutes<\/strong><\/p>\n
Language\u00a0English with spanish subtitles<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Al centro de Under Polaris est\u00e1 la b\u00fasqueda por preservar, dentro de pr\u00edstinos pedazos de hielo en la cima del mundo, una semilla que contenga la riqueza de toda la historia de la Humanidad: un sistema de respaldo de nuestro genoma y la suma total de nuestras memorias personales.At the center of Under Polaris is the quest to preserve, inside pristine shards of ice at the top of the world, a seed containing the wealth of all human history: a back-up system for our genetic imprint and the sum total of our personal memories.