Art of the Matter is requesting support for Men Think They Are Better Than Grass, a new contemporary dance, multi-disciplinary work that will premiere as the culmination of 20 years of dance-making by Deborah Slater Dance Theater (DSDT) in the San Francisco Bay Area. The large scale project will use the beauty of land, water, animals, and W.S. Merwin’s poetry to explore the reciprocal relationship between our lives and the environment. Along with movement, text, animation, set design, videography, and music, Men Think will embrace technology to create an environment that continues to expand with new information long after a particular performance ends. This new form of reciprocity between art, technology and the stage - artistically innovative, participatory and solution-oriented - will shape the creative process as the piece develops, as well as the performance experience for both the audience and the artists. While Ms. Slater has tackled projects as ambitious as Men Think before, the piece will encompass several components new to Ms. Slater. She will be mentored on the project by Berkeley Rep Artistic Director Tony Taccone, who will act as her artistic consultant through the Theater Bay Area mentorship program, lending his expertise to support her deeply personal, involving, and original approach to the production.