about the project :

Described as “witty…and relentless” by the LA times (march 24th, 2008) Traffic / ritz debuted at CounterPULSE (SF) in November 2007, followed by a run at Highways in Santa Monica, CA in March 2008, July 2009 as part of the 2009 T-10 Video festival at 21 Grand, and in NY in 2010 as part of the archetime video festival.

Ian Winters (video), Mary Armentrout (choreography)

Created originally as film for performance, traffic (or thoughts while eating ritz crackers), is a collaboration between filmmaker Ian Winters and choreographer Mary Armentrout that features a day’s worth of traffic passing in 7 minutes combined with the on stage musings of a ritz cracker eating Armentrout falling from a kitchen chair.

Mary Armentrout  is a choreographer who creates hybrid dance-theater fusion works that she calls performance installations. Drawing raves and somewhat puzzled acclaim from the critics: “a performance artist of tremendous range” (Dance View Times), “a quirky idiosyncratic choreographer who assembles works that appear illogical on the surface – but somehow her twisted humor, comic timing, and odd use of furniture and bodies coalesce into meaningful dance” (The East Bay Monthly), she is engaged in “inventing a new kind of dance theater right before our eyes” (Dance View Times).
Ian Winters is a San Francisco Bay Area based photographer, video-maker and performer. His recent work focuses on the intersections of photography, video and performance, often as collaborations and site-specific works with musicians, composers and choreographers. He trained in photography, film and performance at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts-Boston and Tufts University. www.ianwinters.com