About the work:

Radio Vision, choreographed and performed by Helen Wicks, uses expressive acrobatic dance, dramatic black and white movie makeup, acting, Hollywood stories from oral history interviews, dances from 1930s Vaudeville, sound collage, live classical music, and jello to explore technology in entertainment and performance over time.  

Radio Vision is a dance that synthesizes a decade of ancestral research on Helen’s great grandfather, Hollywood music supervisor, Joe Gershenson, and a conversation she had with his mentee/colleague, musician Quincy Jones in 2018. The work opens with a live rendition of Nadia Boulagner’s music that frames the impact Boulanger had on both Jones and 20th century music. Radio Vision, an original term for broadcast television, explores how Yiddish Theater, vaudeville, and early westerns influence pop culture. The work uses epigenetics, oral history, fantasy, and memory to contextualize performance and entertainment stage and screen over the past 100 years.