Group Show - The Hostess.

I have this character who has appeared from time to time: The Hostess.

She used to give a lot of parties, spend no more than 5 minutes talking to anyone at the Club, make some great drinks, connect people who might not have known each other, and take people apple picking once a year for 10 years.


She went camping one weekend in the wilds of northern VT with a friend of hers. The Red Tent Flamingo Bingo showed how even a little bit of style could enchant the cast of characters who turned up at a pre-Burning Man regional festival.



And of course, nothing can beat a martini and bowling at Halloween:


Finally, she took it to an extreme and was forced to emcee a vaudeville night where she channeled Julie Andrews in a most heightened, low budget, camp way. There is video. I will post at some point.

The real point is:
The Hostess can easily become an over-the-top caricature, but her roots are deeply set in my natural self. I come from a long line of Hostesses (oh golly, is that another term for whore in this country????), who handle social events with huge smiles, open hearts, and a bustling desire to make sure that the guests feel like the center of the 5 minutes of attention that you will grace them with before going off to refresh someone's drink or make sure the canapes don't burn. Even now in describing the reality of this character, I am hamming it up. It's really easy to do. And I need to be careful about treading this line for the group show. I need to draw from the genuine place, and also get clear about my purpose at this event is.

How the Hostess might fit into the Group show:
- Publicity (could head out to other schools and give them invites)
- the Welcoming committee
- the Usher
- the Social Butterfly (asking questions, maybe too personal, of guests. connecting them to each other "have you met...?"
- the Instigator of Party Games (why don't we try making mommy and daddy go on a holiday in this diorama? oo! wouldn't it be fun if you could dress these dolls up FOR REAL?)
- the Usurper of Choice (just what do you think you're doing with that paper meat? Didn't you get a paper flower in your goodie bag? No? Sorry, you'll need to move to this room over here/you need to leave.)
- the Bouncer (OK everybody go home! Don't have to go home but you can't stay here!)

Lots of opportunity. What is appropriate for this 'party'?
How much of my own plot do I bring in?

Transformation into a performer.

Contemplation this week focussed on developing my performance presence. The challenge of finding that state which is still you, but a you that has stepped into a different realm fully connected to the performance, the other performers, the audience, the space, the duration of the piece; primed to draw from all of this information and feed back into this system as a performer. Man, this is hard! And yet, this is what interests me about embodiment.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña describes it as "Presence vs. Representation" "Being as opposed to acting" How do you make a moment "real" while still being in a heightened state of reality yourself (aka 'performing')? Interesting also to hear him talk about this, since the characters that he and his cohorts create are quite extreme. Of course, his natural persona seems to be rather extreme...maybe its not too far off.

I also found it important to consider the difference in proximity to your audience when you're a performance artist. Often you are directly interacting with your audience and if you take your character/performance persona too far, you aren't actually working on the same plane as your audience and that could prove problematic, possibly not making the connection you set out to make. This reminds me of acting for film where you need to scale your performance way back since the camera is often right in your face while you're acting. I used to prefer working with non-actors for my films because of this-and the fact that the only actors at UC-Santa Cruz were trained for stage acting and I couldn't be bothered to tell them that the "back of the room" was actually right in their face.

Ruth Zaporah gives an interesting challenge/warning in her essay "Embodied Content":
"The danger of assigning a concept to a sensation is that by doing so we shift our attention from the complex embodied experience itself to an idea of a complex embodied experience." This resonates for me as I try to experience what it is like to be fully present in the performance. I often create a narrative in my head as to why I'm doing certain actions and this means that I have shifted my focus only into my mind, out of the rest of my body, the room, the connection with others in the room. From here, it's easy to drop out of "performance mode." I've been criticised of doing this and was able to see myself doing it when I put together the videos for my recent round of tutorials. The most staggering drops were the quick little glances that completely dropped the connection to the task at hand. This is going to be a big hurdle to overcome. Easier in video because you can just use the good takes and edit the goofs out! Also interesting because I know that this is at the core of what Action Theater is about and yet one of my biggest criticisms of the workshop is that I feel like we are spending too much of our time discussing our experiences instead of just experiencing them.

I was interested in Julia Bardsley's description of a 3-day piece she did last weekend which she considered a workshop for developing the moods of the 3 parts of a performance she is developing. I thought it was an interesting idea to immerse yourself in a mood/world/character that you are considering working with to find out what lies within it. Her description made it sounds like she had some idea of what the environments were going to be like and that the weekend helped her get a better sense of what the actual mood was and what the character was like that resided within it.

She also recommended a traditional acting technique by Michael Chekhov called "psychological gestures". I like the idea of exploring the gestures and physicality of a character, overdoing them, even, and then bring them inside you (embodying them). I imagine that the resulting character is not a clown, but the physical research that you have done can be tapped into when it's time to perform.

I need to work on developing my performance mode. Is she a character? I think I can use that word without it having to mean caricature. Who is this person that people will encounter when they attend my performances? In my tutorial today, Ann Marie Creamer thought it might be interesting for me to explore how I'm using my doppelganger/multiple selves in my video work at the moment. This might actually be an excellent way for me to find out what my performance mode is and how this performance mode might be dynamic without dropping back into passive me. Right! Active Me vs. passive me.

My own questions:
- Who am I interacting with in my videos when there are multiple images of myself on screen?
- Who could I be interacting with?
- Who would I like to be interacting with?
- How could the exploration of gestures linked to voices be more specific to a particular state of mind/character/persona?

next post: Group project - The Hostess

Optofonica

Bookmarking for further research, and posting to blog because these artists are working in a similar space to many of us VLPers.

http://www.optofonica.com/artists/index.htm


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I'm feeling increasingly repelled by the stark, bright white, minimalist, futuristic aesthetic that seems to be linked to anything cutting edge in design or art that has to do with technology. In this case, seems like a weird aesthetic when you're talking about immersive, multi-sensory environments which are presumably experimenting with creating more organic technology-based experiences.

The Visual Language of a sound artist.

This was a weekend of experimental music. Started on Friday with a trip to the ICA for the first night of the "Atlantic Waves" festival which was being put on as part of the Wire's 25th anniversary. Full house for 3 sets that took solo artists and put them together for live improvisations. Two of the sets had video. The last video set wasn't bad, (I got to meet the artist at a gig on Sunday, but for some reason was confused and thought he had performed on Saturday...). This photo below is of one of the artists he performed with, but I don't think the visuals are his. The image is more to illustrate the vibe at these things...



I thought the best set was the second one without any visuals. There wasn't anything inherently more gripping about the stage presence of this group. What was effective was that they chose to perform in near darkness. There was a little bit of blue light, a dull glow off the video screen, and the light from some of the laptops. This cut a beautiful silhouette of their shapes, which was nice to look at when you felt like opening your eyes, but otherwise clearly instructed the audience members to listen. Paul commented afterwards that his mind had wandered in and out of listening to the music, but when it wandered it ended up thinking the most creative thoughts. The same thing had happened to me!

On Sunday, we went to a church in Islington and heard more experimental music. Most of the musicians at this gig were playing accoustic instruments or home-made electronics (as opposed to laptop). They also seemed to have more presence as performers overall. Joao (the video artist from Friday) was playing a bell for one set and at a point, he decided it would be a good idea to wander around the church with the bell creating a nice visual and aural effect. There was also a double bass player who was incredible to watch. His body was intensely engaged in his playing and he had a manner to his movement that almost made it look like a dance duet between the double bass and himself. Particularly effective because the double bass is about the same size as a person. Musicians like this are what I think of when I hear the word "embodiment". He and his instrument were one entity and playing it was like breathing to him. I could've watched him play for hours. And he seemed like he could have played for days.

Don't have his name with me at the moment. Will update this when I do. Please kick me for not introducing myself and getting his contact info.

I'm need to briefly rant about boring visuals and lack of stage presence at these types of events. I often sense that reclusive musicians might think that video will allow them to get lost in the visuals or distract the audience from looking at them when in fact, the video is making the audience watch more intently. I've worked with alot of shy musicians and we usually end up figuring out how they could "hide" better, including putting a dancer in front of the screen so the focus will be on them. Now, of course, I'd like to work with musicians who want to find more interesting ways to deal with being on stage and work towards a sense that everything happening between performers, instruments, technology, etc is a coherent whole. Maybe it's improvised, but there's an intention to communicate a total experience to the audience. (Golly, what do I mean by that? Gonna leave it in anyway.)

Phillip Glass: Music in 12 Parts performance

Summary from Barbican website:
Music in 12 Parts, a four-hour music marathon composed for the Philip Glass Ensemble, is both a massive theoretical exercise and a deeply engrossing work of art.

The score is the culmination of Glass' explorations and theories on repetition, and is considered to be a seminal composition that defined minimalistic music in the 20th Century.

Another trip to the Barbican without a ticket. This time I ended up in the 4th row ust off the edge of Glass' keyboard. I had a prime vantage point to witness the human side of Glass' work. I've seen a bunch of his pieces performed live, but at 4 hours, I think a major component of the performance of Music in 12 parts is the durational experience of all participants.

It was amazing to witness Glass lose his formality and get swept deeper and deeper into the rhythms and texture. And to watch all of the performers ride the waves of intense concentration, exhaustion, elation, confusion. Mind you, every performer was an extremely accomplished musician and/or composer in their own right, so the talent was impressive to watch in their commitment and competence.

What I found most interesting is the choice to perform everything live. Glass' music is often seen as being almost inhuman in its mechanical repetition and insistent rhythms. However, there were points last night where the musicians simply couldn't go on and for the first time I saw another side to Glass' compositions - the test of just how far you can remain in a precise regimen before the human needs to break the cycle (usually for breath!) The breaks, occasionally getting lost in the score, etc. were as much a part of the performance at the end. I haven't read about Glass at all, so I don't know if this is anything he's interested in. In this age of looping and pre-recorded playback in concerts, I'd be very surprised by his choice to do this all live if he didn't want those hiccups to appear. Will research this a little bit.

I was reminded about how much I think that Glass' music is like a physical object, rather than just sound. There is so much weight and mass to parts of it.

There are tons of people who will happily sit and listen to this really "high brow" music for 4 hours. Lots of folks even brought picnics for the interval! I needed this reaffirmation because I think I'm mostly interested in the potential of the black box and want to explore abstract performance. I feel like alot of the attitude towards this kind of performance has come from not having a chance to experience it or find a point of access to it. <-- something I need to find back up for aside from personal experience Having all that time in the dark listening to the slow movements of the piece, I had loads of time to come up with some ideas that I want to try try out in performance. I'm finding that most of the ideas that pop into my head these days are more about physical composition - set elements, fabric or costume, sound. It's exciting, but also intimidating because it's going into areas that I will have to seek loads of technical advice on. And on a totally humorous and random note: There were some guys taking a photo together and blocking the aisle at the start of the main interval. I was right behind them when the photo was being snapped, so I made a face at the camera. My partner then told me that one of the guys was Leonard Cohen. I ruined someone's fan "buddy photo" with Leonard Cohen! Heh.

Catching up part 1: artist lectures

A bit of a "backblog" here. Want to get this all down before there are EVEN MORE things I want to make note of here.

1) Siobhan Davies & Shobana Jeyasingh @ Southbank Centre 7 OCT 2007
- Davies: interested in layers and the ability of the body to express internal processes like no other medium since it's all part of an integrated whole.
- Jeyasingh: interested in surfaces due to her training in classical indian dance. However, she too, broke with her tradition to find out what more she could do with it

I was struck by the difference in the way they describe their practices, coming from very different directions, but still feeling an undertanding and affinity for each others' work. I also appreciated Davies in particular, for her passion and interest in her particular mode of expression and the fact that she can thrive and be one of the country's most respected choreographers sticking to something as simple as "wanting to describe different circles in the space" (not exact quote) in her most recent work which was stages earlier this month.
I have tremendous respect for people who are committed to one particular practice and are able to succeed doing that one thing. There is increasing pressure to be multi-talented. This is a huge relief for those of us who like working across disciplines since I've felt that the emphasis for many years has been on specialists, but I hope that we don't forget to appreciate the people who have chosen a more narrow path and gone to a profound depth with it.

The other thing I noted was their discussion of the role of the choreographer. While the process of creating a dance might be a collaborative process, they both thought it was important to have that one person who would have a view of the big picture and make choices for what components go where and how the piece is organized in the space.

2) Paul Ryan at the Wellcome Trust, 19 NOV 2007
Ryan's lecture was on the semiotics of the sketchbook and the way that the sketch/sketchbook has been used more frequently in post-modern exhibitions.

I was happy that I went along to this lecture because it reminded me to think about exposing the process of my performance. My favorite exhibits these days are ones where I can see artists' process, or a performance where I can see the technicians working their magic "behind the scenes." In my artists statement, I make the claim that my performative video work helps create a connection between the audience and the performers because I create moments where the audience discovers that what they are seeing on the screen is coming from my camera.

Question: what are different ways that I can continue to integrate the process into the final performance?

Other notes:
- Peirce school of semiotics (do I want to read any?)
- He had a really concise, nice definition of semiotics - "how meaning is conveyed"
- Ryan, whose medium is drawing, said that he thought performance and installation work was less dogmatic than more traditional forms (painting, sculpture). The ephemeral nature of performance/installation meansyou are freer to try out different ideas whereas you've made a real commitment when you cast something in bronze. reminded me of McCluhan's "the media is the message" that Doug brought up in the VLP seminar earlier this week.
- the prevalence of these "private" works in public space has made them much less private. more self consciousness in the sketchbook knowing that you might incorporate it into a show later on. What would happen if you had some really private things that no one ever saw? How would that affect your work on it? Typing this question in a blog is interesting to me....exposing my thoughts that would normally stay stuck in the notebook. And yet there are pages and pages in the notebook that won't go here.

Prying.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Been watching clips of work by several different artists on UbuWeb today.

I've been struck by several of the pieces, but wanted to write a bit about Vito Acconci's video Prying. It's described as a video of a performance that he did with Kathy Dillon at a "New York University." My assumption was that it would be a pretty distant, impersonal documentation of the performance. From the little slice of Acconci's work that I'm familiar with, I should have known better! The camera is right in close up on Dillon's face while Acconci tries to pry her eyes open. For 21 minutes. Acconci is this faceless, mostly bodiless pair of aggressive hands. It's all about the woman's struggle against him.

I think this video is a wonderful example of an artifact from a performance that stands alone after the fact. I even question whether the intensity would be parallel if you had actually been witnessing the performance. I want to assume that it was as intense because of the dynamic that I know can carry between audience and performer even if you are not as close up as this camera. Presuming that's the case, the only was to transpose that emotion into a filmed format is to do exactly what they did: get in close.

My heart is still racing after watching this. There's also a wonderful breaking of the 4th wall about 15-17 mins in where Dillon's movement trying to escape the prying fingers knocks the couple into the cameraman and suddenly, the audience has been acknowledged - a hallmark of Acconci's work, but somehow more impactful here through that unintentional act than when he's demanding that you pay attention to him.

igneous

I found this duo on YouTube through a video clip I found years ago of a workshop they conduct called "movideolab". My favorite aspect of their work is their use of quite simple projections onto the dancers' bodies. They posted this piece about a month ago and I think it is stunning:


The other thing I appreciate about their channel is that they have lots of video clips that show their process and experiments. Thought other VLPers would also be interested in this clip of a networked performance mentorship/workshop they did:



Blurb from YouTube:

Name: IGNEOUS
Age: None

The collaborative brainchild of Belgian multi-disciplinary artist Suzon Fuks and Australian dancer James Cunningham, established in 1997, creates multimedia movement-based performances for the stage, screen and alternative spaces, documentary photography, and conducts forums, workshops and masterclasses.

Igneous' interests lie in process, interaction, diversity, and challenging values.
International residencies allow them to collaborate with other artists and across disciplines

igneous productions: Body In Question, The Hands Project, Fragmentation, Thanatonauts (a "serial" multi-site performance & later adapted to a screen-based video), Liquid Skin. New work: Mirage.

Website: http://www.igneous.org.au
(don't think the website has been updated in about a year...)

TaDA!

It's been a long day.
My brain is full and my belly is empty.

1) Complicite's A Disappearing Number at the Barbican

• interesting use of layers - set, bodies, video projections
• seamless and thoughtful use of technology held together by a talented group of performers
• some small pieces that were neat, but didn't fit in with the larger movement and themes of the piece and felt gimicky (like the table viewed from above)
• so much stylised choreography that didn't seem jarring
• a full house! at a large venue! matinee! for a very non-traditional production! does it have to do with location? reputation? amazing.
• there was something for everyone, high brow and low brow, visual or textual. there were probably points for everyone where they were really engaged and points where they were annoyed. and those points were different for everyone. as it should be.
• rehearsal style challenging. not knowing what a piece will be until it is up and running and changing even then. interesting at first, but still a technique that once mastered might mean moving past (from actor)
  

Questions it brought up related to my work:
- Video as character/performer vs. video as backdrop/set/environment
- the human form placed in both these contexts too
- How to transition from one phrase/scene to the next? Does it have to be clear?
- How much information is too much? Too little?
- What level of control do I want to have on the final piece?

2) Action Theater workshop at movingartsbase - Class One

• establishing partnership & group dynamics
• allowing us to notice what our tendencies are movement wise (to mimic) when we are playing it safe and trying to establish a new relationship with a group
• doing this without much direction
  
• the instructor pointedly asked us "What did you like about that one?" after each performance. There was no negative criticism. Also was assisting us in clarifying what it was about the performance that made us feel it was funny, dramatic, etc. Body? Face?
  
• eye contact between performers charges the space. I found each sketch compelling, even when the movement was simple or unskilled, simply from the connection between the two people on stage.