Mycelial: Street Parliament

A contemporary interactive art exhibition, designed to explore how resistance is sensed through the body and translated to social media, closed with its final performance Saturday at Hyde Park Art Center.

Mycelial: Street Parliament is the latest artwork of Erica Mott, who is in charge of the direction and choreography. The concept came from her personal experience during the Occupy Wall Street movement.

"I was pretty active in Occupy Wall Street, and I was disappointed when things fell apart, and suddenly nobody was talking about the inequality issues we brought up," said Mott in an interview. "So I want to bring the conversation back, and start a discussion about our physical and digital bodies."

Mott wanted to collaborate with people have similar experiences, so she reached out to an Egyptian dancer, Ezzat Ismail Ezzat, who later became the lead dancer of the Mycelial series.

"I was very intrigued when she came to me with the idea of this project. I was also amazed by the involvement and application of technology in it," said Ezzat after the show.

The creative team analyzed the data from social media during the 18-day Tahrir Square occupation in Cairo, especially on people's emotions and retweeting rate rhythms, and sought ways to transform them into music and dance.

They also developed an app to invite the audience to engage with the dancers and create the sound scores for the performance.

"I feel like I can actually feel the intensity of a social movement in this immersive performance," said Erin Gussis, who flew from Washington just to see this show.