Lelavision's Mission

Use creativity to delight people.

 

Leah Mann– Choreographer and Co-Director

My work is the integration of my life’s experiences manifested in movement. As a reflection of the idea of “transformation”  my choreography is a progression from standard techniques and studies of form to a hybrid genre of movement, sound and “play”.  My focus is on the common denominators of the human experience, the formation of community and the relationships therein.  The emphasis of my movement study relates to the physics of energy, effort and sound.  Thus my work has developed from more traditional forms of modern-based dance to include the use of kinetic sculptures, trapeze, bungee, text, vocals, polyrhythmic action and music.  Inmy mind the creative process is not only a mind-body-spirit practice but an embodiment of the values of respect, discipline, commitment and responsibility.  As a teacher and performer I share these values with others and in so doing use art as a tool for empowerment and healing.

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Ela Lamblin- sculptor, musician, Co-Director

Just as an accumulation of molecules grows into an intelligent organism, a performance is an accumulation of parts into something greater than the sum, an evolution of ideas that results in something alive and growing. The molecules of my performances are both tangible – sculptures, film, dance movements – and intangible: the love of playfulness I knew as a child that evolved into a love of creating things, a love of music, and a love of performing.

In college I studied sculpture, but my pieces escaped the walls of the gallery and museum. Sculpture is something to breathe life into, to give a voice in song. I am an inventor of unique sounding-forms that lend themselves to spectacle and presentation, and I am a performer that delights in surprising the audience with my ingenuity, artistry, and grace. My building blocks are sculptural form and space, sound and music, and kinetic action. My ideas fuse these elements, with Lelavision as their vessel for expression.

From the stamenphone, a flower-inspired sculpture played with harmonics, to the Orbacles, giant steel balls that, with the help of two performers, become beetles, snails and creatures heretofore undiscovered, my inspiration has come from the natural world. I have had a life-long interest in the physics of sound, and my work has had an element of science in it from the start, both in the mechanical nature of sound generation and kinetic motion and in the thematic use of nature. Still, coming from an arts background, I have been surprised to see my work entertwine with scientific concepts and the scientific community on its current level.

I have had the good fortune to collaborate with scientists at the top of their fields - molecular chemistry and biomechanics and others - creating musical sculptures, such as the "Helix" for Dr. David Lyn's lecture on the chemical origins of life, and developing Lelavision performances, such as the "Bungee Drumming" act for Dr. Steven Vogels's lecture on the biomechanics of jumping. This work has also taken my art in the direction of film, as I create educational and artistic shorts used to bolster the scientific concepts through projection in live performance. Working with such remarkable researchers has been both an incredible learning experience and a fruitful source of themes and ideas around which I can ply my trade of creating engaging experiences for audiences of all ages and backgrounds. Through these experiences I hope to shed light on the creative nature of the world around us by playfully reflecting the processes that give rise to life itself: the spontaneous accumulation of basic parts into a greater whole.