Okeanos is a multidisciplinary portrait of the ocean as body, environment, resource, metaphor, and force. It is a performance to inspire and educate audiences about the ocean and connect them deeply to ocean conservation.
"If I was to sum up the phrase 'creativity for change' I would use one word - Okeanos"
David de Rothschild
» View Okeanos Underwater Dance Film
» Listen to Nina Kim's interview with Jodi Lomask on KQED
If you thought science class was boring, perhaps this insane spectacle of dance, acrobatics, and video will be more to your liking. In their latest performance, science-based dance troupe Okeanos takes on the ocean.
» Ariel Schwartz - Co.Exist (Fast Company)
In addition to choreographing the movement vocabulary for the four dancers and five circus artists, Lomask also designed interactive physical structures that echo the natural world. One set calls up vortexes; another is an earth-like globe with many points of entry; yet another suggests a curtain of kelp. Lead science advisors Sylvia Earle and Tierney Thys provided taped narration. While helpful for its information, it's most moving for the awe and love that is apparent in their voices. » Rita Felciano - SF Bay Guardian
We love watching dance inspired by science, but often the science is left to a few lines in the program. Capacitor never makes that mistake. The dance-circus performance group not only consults with scientists, it workshops with them.
» Michael Leaverton - SF Weekly
About Okeanos
Covering 99% of Earth’s living space, the ocean is by turns fascinating and terrifying and an integral part of our lives. Yet this essential resource is being destroyed by growing human demands. Coral extinction, plastic trash contamination, over-fishing, oil spills, climate change - our immense impact on the ocean is undeniable. What once felt vast, endless, and overwhelmingly deep is now vulnerable to our increasingly destructive ways of living.
Inspired by the Coral Triangle and California's Kelp forest, Okeanos was developed in collaboration with world-renowned marine biologists and oceanographers. This dance/cirque performance incorporates choreography, apparatus, and set design by Capacitor Artistic Director Jodi Lomask and the voices of Dr. Sylvia Earle and Dr. Tierney Thys. Okeanos includes video art by RJ Muna and Toshi Hoo, underwater cinematography by David Hannan, sound composition by EO, Kaya Project, Beats Antique, edIT, and Tipper, vocalizations by Anka Draugelates, violin by Julia Ogrydziak, and costumes by Kimie Sako & Becky Karthage. Okeanos is performed by Mayuko Hosoai, Elliott Gittelsohn, Naomi Hummel, NancyKate Seifkar, Michele Wong, Maggie Powers, Ismael Alvarez Acosta, and Micah Walters.
The creation process featured the participation of some of the world’s leading researchers in marine biology and oceanography. Through this collaboration, Capacitor created a 60-minute performance that gives audiences a sensory experience of the ocean and continues to develop its blueprint for art/science collaboration. Okeanos features the distinctive artistic and technical components that Capacitor has come to be known for – inventive and articulated dance vocabulary, abstract steel forms that mirror nature, poetic integration of audio/video/media forms, sculptural costumes, scientifically supported content, and conservation partnerships.
Target population
Few people are afforded the opportunity to explore the deep ocean. In touring Okeanos, the company aims to deliver an experience of wild nature to thousands of people who may never have the chance to commune with the ocean and its inhabitants directly. In doing so, Capacitor excites audiences with the creative possibilities of live performance and generates a greater sense of stewardship for this great body we require for survival.
Okeanos Educational Program
Capacitor works with universities, high schools, and elementary schools to deliver comprehensive learning programs that focus on science/art/ocean conservation. We do this in partnership with the Ocean Ark Alliance. We also provide science lectures and presentations from ocean experts both local and international. Through its contemporary dance-science performance, Capacitor will inspire a new demographic of children to pursue science and achieve greater physical fitness.
Pre Show Talks
Capacitor and Fort Mason Center presented Okeanos, an dance-circus ocean sensory immersion devoted to improving human-ocean relations in April 2012. Capacitor hosted TEDxSF, National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence, and the BLUMiND Summit prior to the Okeanos premiere at Fort Mason April 12-15, 2012. Speakers presented talks such as Andy Sharpless (Oceana.org), Patri Friedman (Seasteading Institute), Jenefer Palmer (OSEA), Edward T. Lu (Liquid Robotics), Casson Trenor, Amos Nachoum (Big Animal Expeditions), Chris Welsh (cofounder, Virgin Oceanic--Explorations of the deepest parts of the ocean basins), Brett Hobson (AUVs and ROVs from the globally acclaimed Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute MBARI), Erika Montague (expedition member, Deep Challenge - Jim Cameron's full ocean depth expedition to the Challenger Deep), Luke Beatman (Liquid Robotics engineer for the record-breaking PacX wave gliders), Sterling Zumbrunn (underwater photographer, Backscatter). Dr. Tierney Thys (Nat Geo Explorer), Dr. Sylvia Earle, David de Rothschild (Plastiki), Jenifer Austin (Google Ocean), and Chef Barton Seaver (Cod and Country), Dr. Wallace J Nichols (BLUEMiND), Farhana Hug (browngirlsurf.com), Dr G (greensteininstitute.com), Amir Vokshoor (I.N.I. Foundation), and Sarah Kornfeld (mindandocean.org).
Ocean Solutions Cafe
To harness the momentum Okeanos creates, the show can be followed an interactive post-show reception with booths sponsored by ocean conservation groups. By partnering with ocean conservation groups, Okeanos is a compelling vehicle for environmental communications. The café also presents an opportunity for those on the front lines of ocean conservation to collaborate and extend their networks.
Scientific Advisory Panel
- Tierney Thys PhD - Marine Biologist, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and Expedition Leader, Monterey Bay Aquarium consultant, past director of research at the Sea Studios Foundation, a team of scientists and filmmakers that makes award-winning media to raise awareness of environmental issues
- Sylvia Earle PhD - Chief scientist for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (90-92) and National Geographic Explorer-in-rRsidence.
- Bart Shepard BA MS - General Curator of the Steinhart Aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences
- Michael Arvedlund BSc MSc PhD CICS, Reef Consultants
- John Potter PhD - Principal Scientist at the NATO Undersea Research Centre
- Morton Lomask - Bathyscaphe Explorer, 1957 (10K foot dive)
- Healy Hamilton PhD – Director of the Center for Applied Biodiversity Informatics at the
- California Academy of Sciences
- Terry Gosliner PhD – Curator of Invertebrate Zoology and Geology at the California Academy of Sciences
- Rebecca Johnson PhD - Invertebrate Zoologist at the California Academy of Sciences