Futura Fractals: Exploring Bauhaus Design + Dance

A panel discussion with the creators of Futura and the performance workshop with the Institute of Design

Peek into the collaborative design process being employed by ID graduate students led by Jeff Mau, Jason White, and Torsten Blume to create the first movement of Hedwig Dances' Futura which receives its world premiere November 1 - 3 at the Dance Center of Columbia College.

Following a preview of Futura performed by Hedwig Dances, Dean Denis Weil of IIT Institute of Design will facilitate a panel discussion among the creative collaborators from Bauhaus Dessau, IIT Institute of Design, Leviathan, and Hedwig Dances. Tickets are available for the performances November 1 - 3 and closing night Bauhaus Bash.

Panelists

JAN BARTOSZEK (Choreographer) fosters a spirit of collaboration with other artists, merging choreography, objects, media, text, and music to create dances that resonate with complexity and depth. Her central pursuit as a dance artist is how the body expresses truths about the human experience beyond words. These concerns led her to research dance from a cultural and world dance perspective.  

Ms. Bartoszek has created more than 65 dances. These dances have been presented in national performance venues and internationally in Cuba, Mexico, Honduras, Brazil, and Canada. Her choreography credits include work for theater (Steppenwolf, Northlight, Live Bait and Court theaters as well as choreographing and assisting in work by director Ping Chong), film (Arch of Repose, the dance film she created with her CDF Lab Artist Award, received a 2016 Emmy nomination); and, opera (Dead Birds: A War Ritual with composer William Harper and director D.W. Moffet). She has garnered numerous choreography fellowships, including one from the National Endowment for the Arts and eight from the Illinois Arts Council. She was one of 12 Chicago dance artists selected by a national panel to participate in the 2016-2017 Regional Dance Development Initiative sponsored by the New England Foundation for the Arts, the National Dance Project, and the Chicago Dancemakers Forum (CDF).  In 2014, she received a National Performance Network Creation Fund Grant to develop and tour Trade Winds, a dance collaboration between Hedwig Dances and the Havana-based dance company, DanzAbierta.  She has led four dance tours to Cuba and one to Germany.

TORSTEN BLUME (First Movement Designer) studied art sciences and art at the University of Leipzig.  Since 1994, he is an academic and artistic staff member and curator at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation.  He has curated several Bauhaus exhibitions, like “Bauhaus experience Dessau” (Tokyo, 2008-2009), “Bauhaus Taste. Bauhaus Kitchen” (Tokyo, 2010, “Human Space Machine. Stage Experiments at the Bauhaus” (Dessau, Oslo, Seoul 2013-2015), and “Big plans! Modern Types, Fantasts and Inventors in Saxony-Anhalat 1919-1933” (Dessau, Magdeburg, Halle).  Since 2007, he has been especially working on the project “Play Bauhaus,” with dance and movement installations, design and performance workshops, and exhibitions (Prague Quadrennial 2011, Barbican Centre London, Taipei Arts Festival 2012). The interconnecting theme is to regard, reflect and readdress the stage as a specific media of design and playful design education based on performing arts.  The goal is to bring in playful applied research of the Bauhaus stage perspective of performative architectonics up to date as a format of experimentation and unique performative education in architecture, design and visual arts. He is establishing an international network of universities and schools regarding updating the Bauhaus stage pedagogy in today’s perspective.

JEFFERY MAU (First Movement Designer) blends business strategy and experience design to transform complex systems into easy-to-use solutions to drive business growth and customer engagement.  He has advised leading companies around the world in the mobile, public transportation, consumer packaged goods, agriculture and telecommunications industries. Clients include: Digitas, Leo Burnett, SapientRazorfish, Miami-Dade County Department of Transportation, Altria, BlackRock, Dow, Whirlpool, MillerCoors, Emerson, Lexmark, Samsung, Disney, Merrill Lynch, Target, John Deere, AT&T, Vodafone and Sprint. Jeff holds a Master of Design Methods degree from the IIT Institute of Design, widely recognized as a top program in Innovation and Strategy. He holds a BFA in Photography and Design from Kansas City Art Institute. Active in educating the next generation, Jeff teaches courses in innovation at the IIT Institute of Design. Originally founded as the New Bauhaus in Chicago, ID combines strategic design thinking with studies traditionally found in business school. Additionally, he has taught in the Graduate MFA in Design program at the California College of the Arts and the Masters of Business Innovation program at CEDIM in Mexico.

JASON WHITE (First Movement Designer) has always been passionate about creating artful experiences through design and technology; that passion is what drove him to invent Leviathan, a band of inspired minds intent upon shaping the future. This group's combined artistry illuminates souls, engages audiences in ingenious, sublimely interactive ways, and sets stylish spaces aglow.

Leviathan's projects have gained international acclaim through some of the world's most prestigious media outlets, including The Creators Project, Communication Arts, Motionographer, Stash, The Verge and Wired. The business is built upon solid leadership, respect, a tightly integrated network of individuals with diverse talents... and always, unbridled passion for technology and design. The company's patent expertise has enabled it to dream up and execute new ideas for Nike, Google, Microsoft, Disney, and The Art Institute of Chicago, among many other world-leading businesses and institutions. Leveraging these experiences, Jason proudly takes on the role of sharing his work and career advice with audiences as a keynote speaker at prominent conferences and colleges, and as an adjunct professor.

Moderator

DENIS WEIL is the dean of the Institute of Design at Illinois Tech. He is a proven design leader with a passion for advancing the practice of design to create new solutions and approaches to entrenched problems, through both practice and teaching. For more than a dozen years, he has driven design and innovation in leadership positions at organizations such as McDonald’s, Proctor & Gamble, and IDEO. Most recently, Denis has applied his design leadership to driving innovation in the social and public sectors, serving as a design advisor to a range of social and civic organizations including Bloomberg Philanthropies, Year Up, Mercy Corps, and Sanergy.

Weil was named a “master of design” by Fast Company. In the article “Making Over McDonald’s” (Fast Company, 2010), Tim Brown, president and chief executive officer of IDEO, called Weil an “experience engineer” engaged directly with large-scale experimentation. This has focused especially on his customer and community base, a “living network” where ideas emerge from global partners—owner-operators, suppliers, outside design firms, customers—and are relentlessly filtered and tested. He has led teams in comprehensive product design, resulting in significant patents such as dynamic-fit diapers, which have been patented worldwide and part of the Pampers design for more than 25 years.