Triangle of the Squinches - a Collaborative Ballet

"Triangle of the Squinches" is a collaborative, full-length, contemporary ballet created by San Francisco Architect, Christopher Haas and San Francisco Choreographer, Alonzo King & LINES Ballet.

Christopher and Alonzo were the recipients of the Artist Collaboration Grant, supported by the Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Gerbode Foundation, which provided funding of $25,000 for the production of a new cross-disciplinary work.

The impetus for the collaboration came from a shared interest in exploring the built environment and space within dance. This was not to be an exercise in set design, but rather an explorative venture wherein the dancers would be partnered with interactive, transformable architectural objects and spaces. 

Working within the modest budget, the architectural objects were innovatively and meticulously crafted from ordinary, overlooked materials such as recycled industrial packing cardboard and elastic chord. Exploiting each materials' unique characteristics, and assembling them to an architectural scale, the materials took on unexpected dimensions, which played with our perceptions of their materiality, and of what is light, delicate, strong, and heavy.

The collaboration was an extraordinary success, receiving many recognitions and demonstrating the power of COLLABORATION. The honors include:  

8 sold-out performances in San Francisco

The project has earned the Architect the prestigious Isadora Duncan Award for Dance in the category of Visual Content, the first architect to ever receive the award.

The American Institute of Architects 2012 Excellence in Architecture Award

In July 2011, Germany's largest television broadcast company, 3SAT, commissioned the re-staging of the "Triangle of the Squinches" for the purposes of being filmed for European television broadcast. In February 2012, the collaborative ballet was broadcast to 85-million homes in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France."

Pani Jurek's Inventive Test Tube Chandeliers

Designer Pani Jurek has constructed these brilliant two-tiered chandeliers from test-tubes which can be individually transformed by filling them with flowers, water, or anything that fits! The artist created the frame from two different levels of plywood before shaping an organic circular form with the test-tubes. We love that users can interact with the glowing lamps to make each one entirely unique depending on what is placed within the glass tubes.

Hailing from Poland, Jurek was loosely inspired by the renowned chemist and physicist Marie Sklodowska Curie, a fellow Polish native. With the idea of using the scientific objects for a new purpose, Jurek combines science and creativity in an unusual and illuminating way. Take a look at the pieces for sale at Etsy.