The Four World Ages
Live Performance
The Four World Ages draws on Nigerian-Igbo myth to tell the history of humanity as it unfolds through four eras: the Age of Universal Oneness, the Age of Self-Awareness, the Age of Civilization, and our current Age of Chaos. This piece features four dancers adorned with body paint as they enact this sweeping saga, and it employs dynamic projections, innovative light design, and spatial augmented reality components that blend artificial intelligence, computer vision, motion capture technology, custom-built software, and real-time 3D rendering. The world premiere live performance took place on July 29, 2023, at The Yard on Martha's Vineyard, MA.
Creative Director: Marques Redd
Art Director: Mikael Owunna
Movement Director: Marquita Sams
Assistant Director: Dominique Swift
Dancers: Ashley Eleby, Billy J Hawkains III, Jordan Cowan, Rishell Maxwell
Engineers: Jiajian Zhang, Keyin Wu, Kyungseo Cho, Shuyue Wang, Yuan Suo
Production Designer: Eileen Goddard
Costume Designers: Quenette Brooks and Sophie Leininger
The creation of "The Four World Ages" was made possible with the support of the Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh Grants Program, The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University, the Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center, Office for Public Art (Pittsburgh), and The Yard.