Ririe works focus on relationships

Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company artistic director Charlotte Boye-Christensen thinks a lot about communication and believes that technology, while it has its benefits, is taking something away from human interaction.

"It's so easy to text or e-mail someone," she said. "But we lose part of what people are saying because we don't hear the nuances and inflections of the voices."

Boye-Christensen said that detachment is, in part, why people are so aggressive these days.

"At least to me and my observations, people seem to be more violent," she said. "There is almost a desperation of reaching out, but we are losing our sense of how to do that because we can just text and e-mail. We long for that interaction with a human being and it's not there and people are missing something and feel it."

Her new work, called "Interiors," is a collaboration with local artist Trent Call, and it addresses the detachment between human beings.

"Detachment leads to desperate measures," she said. "And people try to break through the detachment but don't know how, and they feel that the only way they can reach out is through aggression."

Boye-Christensen was referred to Call through a mutual friend.

"My friend knew that I was looking for an artist to work with, whom I haven't worked with before," said Boye-Christensen. "So she got me in touch with Trent."

Boye-Christensen said she was drawn to Call's art because of how it touched her on different levels. "When someone creates something from deep within, it resonates true," she said. "That's what happened when I saw his art. If someone starts to plagiarize or copy others, the art doesn't ring true. But his did."

The two began their collaboration and used the desert as a starting point.

"The desert is pure and outside," said Boye-Christensen. "We show the desert and then throughout the work, the images and dancing starts to turn in on itself."

From the desert, the piece moves into dark and sterile landscapes and movements, she said. "It becomes closed in and suffocating. And in some cases, urban."

Call said he and Boye-Christensen met and had a couple of discussions about the project.

"Out of those discussions, the project became what it is today," Call said.

Collaborations for Call are always a challenge, he said. "I usually work alone at the easel. And it's quite an experience working with another artist, let alone an artist from another form of art."

Call said he was able to watch a lot of Boye-Christensen's choreography before he started on his part of the project.