“The Invention Of Minus One” aims to produce a historically-significant body of digital artwork and choreography, involving one year of motion capture research on the moving bodies of four dance artists, and culminating in an interdisciplinary live performance for stage. Through the developmental process, evaluative assessments can be made about the human body in motion, which is of great relevance to the fields of dance, live performance, stage decor, design, anatomy, kinesiology, and sports medicine. Dance and media artist Jonah Bokaer is the choreographer of the project, and the main subject of motion capture, creating 365 movement phrases over the course of one calendar year. The project will also feature former Merce Cunningham dancers Holley Farmer, Rashaun Mitchell, and Banu Ogan. By mapping body movements in the three-dimensional domain of motion capture, the anatomy of these dancers will be studied in minute detail, creating both live and digital archives of kinesthetic data. This research will lead to quantitative conclusions about the joint velocities of modern dancers, and the various degrees of rotation, flexion and extension in each joint of an athlete’s moving body. Daily movement phrases will be designed to study impact and torsion in major joints of the body that are often placed at risk in contemporary dance: the knees, ankles, shoulders, and sacro-iliac region will be placed under close kinetic and anatomical inspection. The project will also challenge the emerging field of motion capture technology to a new level of temporality, through the generous participation of Greg Worley/WorleyWorks Studio, who has agreed to subsidize the use of a Brooklyn-based, state of the art PhaseSpace™ Motion Capture System. “The Invention Of Minus One” has also engaged digital artist Michael Cole to build a decor out of the captured data, which will be designed to accompany the stage production. Cole will render and store excerpts of the 365 movement phrases into a cohesive and visually integrated design, using Maya, Motion Builder, Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects and Motion. Bokaer will then develop an evening of live choreography from the 365 phrases with the four performers. This structure will unite the pedagogical and aesthetic concerns of the project, propelling the fields dance and motion capture into new realms of innovation. “The Invention Of Minus One” also plans to catalyze an ongoing, interdisciplinary dialogue between its audiences and institutional partners, Chez Bushwick, Inc., WorleyWorks, Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, The Abrons Arts Center of Henry Street Settlement,DiverseWorks, and other arts presenting organizations to be announced.

Trainer Tim Talosi leads parents and their children in exercises together as part of the innovative Pediatric Weight Maintenance program. The ongoing clinic-based program was designed for participants who have completed two-months of weekly, two-hour sessions through PowerPlayMD-OC program. Talosi, who holds a degree in Kinesiology from California State University at Fullerton, tailors PowerPlay's physical education program specifically to manage obesity. In the past Type 2 diabetes was seen primarily in adults over age 40 and labelled adult-onset diabetes, but in recent years an increasing amount of children have been diagnosed with it. Unlike Type 1 diabetes, which is caused by genetics and requires insulin injections, Type 2 is primarily controlled by diet and physical activity. Learning to manage diabetes on a daily basis is critical to avoiding severe side effects such as organ failure, blindness, limb amputation and early death. One in every 4 children in Orange County is overweight, a near doubling over the last twenty years. Obesity affects at least 150,000 children in the county and is characterized as an epidemic across the U.S. by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Only 1% of children are meeting all of the dietary guidelines and the current youth is the most inactive generation in history. Childhood obesity contributes to asthma, menstrual irregularities, depression and low self-esteem.