Went to an improv class last night hosted by Independent Dance @ Siobhan Davies Studios in Elephant & Castle. Wow! Gorgeous space and I found the workshop incredibly useful and productive. I'm definitely going to make this a regular activity.
The class features a different instructor each week, so I will get exposed to different dancers/movers ideas for improvisational movement. Just what I need!!!! This week the instructor was Marie-Gabrielle Rotie. Her name has popped up a bunch when I was searching for Butoh classes in London, so I was curious to experience a workshop with her.
A little recap of what we did:
The idea was to create movement "scores" from existing visual material to get ideas flowing and a sense of poetry to give us some phrases to keep in mind as we moved.
- instructor passed out postcards of painting to each of us.
- we spent some time looking at them and then performed a 12-15 minute improvisation based on our observations, however abstract that ended up being.
- our partners then performed a 5-6 min improv based on what they observed from ours.
- we then spent about 5 minutes writing down what we saw to create a sort of score
- discussed our scores
- performed a duet based on scores, observations, and the original painting
Here are the scores we wrote for each painting
#1 - surreal painting with 2 girls (one with very weedlike hair standing straight up on end) standing on a landing in a house with a very large sunflower draped on a staircase sorry I didn't mark down the titles of the paintings...
Partner's score:
Reaching, reaching up
Spiral & sway
Pulled off centre
Pieces torn off
Still the impulse to rise
My Score:
1) A plant/human awakening
2) spiraling, the fluid gravity defying plant hair
3) feeling the energy source above as it gets warmer
4) the leaves stretch & spiral out towards the energy source into the space
5) spurts of energy from outside back in
6) always aware of the warmth above and your roots growing down, 2) and 3)
7) human/plant hybrid reveling in the warm silt that you're grown out of
8) pleasing across your leaves/skin as you wallow in it
9) ALWAYS RETURN TO 6) out, 2) and 3)
The Duet
- We ended up becoming this single entity that was growing and spiraling up, out, lots of swirly arm movements! We started with our backs to each other and I really loved how we were able to start moving together because I could feel his shoulder blades on my back as he started to raise his arms and do the spiral gestures with them. Was a great way to cue without having to look at each other. We also realized before the duet that we had had similar experiences of the painting, so it was quite easy to stay cohesive with our movements. Of course, there were times when we crashed into each other unpleasantly, but I felt like those were surprisingly few considering we had never met, let alone danced together before.
Painting #2: a nativity scene from the Uffizi gallery complete with angels, shepherds and the blinding light surrounding the wee baby Jesus & Mary (oh and Joseph too, I guess, kinda...) I walked away from this painting focussing on this tumbling S shape that the angels and shepherd's bodies made down the left side of the painting towards the baby. The all had fairly strong gestures with their left hands, but odd expressions on their faces. Including the baby! All of the characters had very "real" and not terribly "awestruck at the holiness" look on their faces.
My Score:
the angel floating
What am I doing here?
the man gazing down
What am I doing here?
the baby looking up
What are they doing here?
the left hand
surprised
covetous
caressing
blessing
My partner's score:
Changing perspectives
Changes of emotions
Movement between stillness
The Duet
Ended up being a serious of poses/tableau style with mostly gentle movement in between. Not always synchronous, sometimes building on the other person's pose. Facial expressions and hand gestures were the emphasis. As we moved to poses, our relationship to each other shifted. Sometimes we were 2 disconnected characters reacting in our own way to "the baby." Sometimes one of us was the baby and there were strong moments in these phases where the other person's hand was closing in on the baby, sometimes gentle, sometimes menacing. And there were times when we were a unit outside gazing at the baby. Some of these were funny even since there was one guy front and center who had this really amused, jovial "hey guys! check this kid out! Son of a gun!" kind of look on his fave.
Other notes, impressions
I was really skeptical of being able to come up with anything out of my painting because of all the loaded symbolism of the nativity scene, but we were both really satisfied with the final result. And of course, I enjoyed shifting from one character and perspective to another. :) Also useful and interesting to experiment with conveying multiple perspectives in a piece with just my body and my gestures/expressions.
I found it extremely useful to observe the other person's movement and then experience for myself what I had seen. For example, I noticed something I hadn't really considered in my partner: he had this really strong vertical focus to his movement, even when he was moving quite dramatically from side to side. I read in his movement a consciousness of an energy source above and feet/roots growing into the earth. And a spiraling movement. Was really cool to experience what it felt like to have that vertical focus even when moving sideways.
This technique seemed to produce some very workable results quickly. I was thinking of doing something similar with songs in sketches of my own seeing how it would get more abstract and more "my own" the further away from the song I got alternating between sound and movement phases. Now I will definitely play with that.
I loved the implied plant/human hybrid of the first piece since I've been thinking so much about the blurring of borders between machine & human as I related to my video camera in new ways. To play with another hybrid, cyborg idea was great fun and relevant.
While this class was only tangentially related to Butoh, I noticed a thread with the other specifically Butoh class I took: this notion of having an image in mind as you create movement (like the plant/hybrid with crazy weed hair.) It doesn't really matter if the specificity of it comes across, but it is a great way to give some purpose to the performer's movement and stay interested in what you're doing.
I have a crazy vivid imagination that will just go and go and go when I let it. I must must must remember this always when I'm performing!
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Saturday, 12 April 2008
Eureka?! *gasp*
Could it be???
Is the elephant in the room, in fact, that this whole "dispersed, multiply identified post-modern subject," isn't the core, but merely a light support of my central argument & position?
More to come...
Is the elephant in the room, in fact, that this whole "dispersed, multiply identified post-modern subject," isn't the core, but merely a light support of my central argument & position?
More to come...
Wednesday, 9 April 2008
Daily weekly semi-regular performance sketches
After the David Gale workshop, we all realized how nice it is to just get some quick performances together and see what's going on.
Since I'm exploring interacting with myself on video and it's just so easy to post video to the web these days, I am going to endeavor to post some sketches to this blog. At the very least, it will be weekly. Hopefully, it will be much more frequent than that.
I constantly think that what I'm doing is pretty abstract, so I hope that involving some nebulous "net public" at this stage will help to open my practice up to folks and maybe take some of the mystery out of it - for me too!
I can't wait for all the really rude juvenile comments on YouTube...
These 3 videos are me interacting with different layers of video. I wanted to alternate between sound and movement, but it's all kinda static. However, I thought some neat stuff was starting to happen by the last one. Especially giving some context and purpose to what I felt was pretty random weird movement in the second one.
I also know you guys love hearing me singing like I've never had a singing lesson in my life! It's very liberating.
Since I'm exploring interacting with myself on video and it's just so easy to post video to the web these days, I am going to endeavor to post some sketches to this blog. At the very least, it will be weekly. Hopefully, it will be much more frequent than that.
I constantly think that what I'm doing is pretty abstract, so I hope that involving some nebulous "net public" at this stage will help to open my practice up to folks and maybe take some of the mystery out of it - for me too!
I can't wait for all the really rude juvenile comments on YouTube...
These 3 videos are me interacting with different layers of video. I wanted to alternate between sound and movement, but it's all kinda static. However, I thought some neat stuff was starting to happen by the last one. Especially giving some context and purpose to what I felt was pretty random weird movement in the second one.
I also know you guys love hearing me singing like I've never had a singing lesson in my life! It's very liberating.
Video half of performance workshop w/ David Gale
Digitized and posted the video portion of the performance I did a couple weeks ago as part of the workshop with David Gale. It was a quick purging performance where I got a little goofy on the video, and was overly wooden with the live component. A sort of overstating what I've been feeling about my work.
Anyway, here is the video.
Anyway, here is the video.
Monday, 7 April 2008
Something specific?
Harriet's encouraged me to post my ideas on my blog. In my current state of too many ideas in my head, and the nagging little perfectionist voice, I resisted at first, but see that it could be useful!
This is supremely rough, but getting clearer. I welcome any questions. I would also just love to hear what thoughts spring to mind when reading through this. Free association welcome! About your own practice, what you have seen in mine, other artists, other critical thinkers....
I am also still working out the right balance and hierarchy of these ideas to make sure I emphasize the pieces that are more relevant to my work at this stage and don't dwell on exciting, but less relevant ones.
I need some perspective....opinions, thoughts, that might help unclog the mass of interesting thoughts in my head!
Finally:
**What is the obvious question I haven't asked that is in plain sight after reading this entry?
What is the question?
1) multiply identified, dispersed subject - The Techno/subject in performance
- good position as a multi-media artist
- I don't feel that this notion has really hit the public consciousness even though the idea's been around for over a decade at least
2) can technology be used as a bridge between the different levels of embodiment?
2a) is technology a barrier or a bridge to live performance?
- this is where my initial proposal left off. It seems unfinished, but possibly still relevant and interesting if paired w/ #1?
3) As a performer, how do you extend your sense of embodiment to your audience?
3a) "stretching your skin" across different media; collapsing time/space/identity/reality boundaries?
3b) bringing them into the process when it's still a process instead of a final product?
- I'm going to be asking this over and over as I develop my practice regardless of whether it manifests itself this literally in the research proposal or not.
Pieces that might fit into the puzzle and flesh out the argument:
a) revisiting layers of embodiment that I explored in original proposal draft from January.
b) post-modern/techno theorists in 1990s recurring theme - boundaries between self/human body and animals/nature and technology are eroding. there's a resistance and fear of this, but also an opportunity to re-cast notions we hold of the Self or Individual
- Vivian Sobchack "technologies such as the computer have profoundly changed the temporal and spatial shape and meaning of our life-works and our own bodily and symbolic sense of ourselves."
c) virtual reality vs. reality
- Mark Poster article section "Reality problematized" - "'virtual reality' is a more dangerous term since it suggests that reality may be multiple or take many forms."
d) it's just a tool. learn it. use it well.
- Laurie Anderson, Pamela Z, Piplotti Rist, Janet Cardiff: artists who are comfortably working with high tech tools but don't overstate the importance of the technology/tools that they use to create their work.
- example: Laurie Anderson says her work has backed off from the big multimedia extravaganzas. However, her performances are still highly technology-reliant: microphone, synths, violins. Stripped down aesthetically, so that it becomes more "invisible" and doesn't overwhelm the content, but it's still very integral to the creation of her work.
e) free software movement/electronics hacking like Dorkbot
- de-mystifcation of technology through building your own tools, taking apart existing technology and seeing how it works. How you can change it to do something else
- I see a total link to the resurgence of the DIY/craft movement.
- open source de-emphasizes authorship and de-centralizes the creation and dissemination of the technology, creates a community of people who want to keep ideas free and open (like blogging about potentially 'proprietary' thoughts like I'm doing right now.)
f) Amelia Jones - why her as key critical thinker to my research
- explicitly links dispersed, multiple subject to performance and technology
- using technology explicitly to break with notions of fixed Self and extend beyond constructed boundary of the skin (ew! messy!!!)
- the contemporary subject is already technologized and therefore same rules don't apply because no longer simply "human"(ist?)
- from this point of view, the reason for an artist to place their own body/Self in their artwork shifts: - Jones "This mediated, multiply identified, particularized body/self proclaims the utter loss of the "subject" (in this case the fully intentional artist) as a stable referent (origin of the artwork's meaning)
- Body/Self - sense of Self is not lost, just redefined in connection to the layers that make you up and surround you, including the intangible, "virtual" ones
Bringing it back to my practice
- processing a live feed means I can interact with my own images moments later and an audience can witness the full creation of this (embodiment through relation of performer's physical body with the virtual body, physical form of the video technology, proximity of audience members's physical bodies, most likely projection of audience's bodies on the screens with performer's virtual body, journey together through creative process instead of audience simply witnessing a final product)
- even though there are multiple, simultaneous projections of my image, I am part of a larger
system. The video projections allow a more literal manifestation of this idea
- thinking about my practice as a performing art appeals to me because theater/performing arts have always created a space for me where I can explore modes of expression that might otherwise be suppressed in day to day life.
- primordial? expression. pre-verbal: Lisa Gerrard, Meredith Monk.
This is supremely rough, but getting clearer. I welcome any questions. I would also just love to hear what thoughts spring to mind when reading through this. Free association welcome! About your own practice, what you have seen in mine, other artists, other critical thinkers....
I am also still working out the right balance and hierarchy of these ideas to make sure I emphasize the pieces that are more relevant to my work at this stage and don't dwell on exciting, but less relevant ones.
I need some perspective....opinions, thoughts, that might help unclog the mass of interesting thoughts in my head!
Finally:
**What is the obvious question I haven't asked that is in plain sight after reading this entry?
What is the question?
1) multiply identified, dispersed subject - The Techno/subject in performance
- good position as a multi-media artist
- I don't feel that this notion has really hit the public consciousness even though the idea's been around for over a decade at least
2) can technology be used as a bridge between the different levels of embodiment?
2a) is technology a barrier or a bridge to live performance?
- this is where my initial proposal left off. It seems unfinished, but possibly still relevant and interesting if paired w/ #1?
3) As a performer, how do you extend your sense of embodiment to your audience?
3a) "stretching your skin" across different media; collapsing time/space/identity/reality boundaries?
3b) bringing them into the process when it's still a process instead of a final product?
- I'm going to be asking this over and over as I develop my practice regardless of whether it manifests itself this literally in the research proposal or not.
Pieces that might fit into the puzzle and flesh out the argument:
a) revisiting layers of embodiment that I explored in original proposal draft from January.
b) post-modern/techno theorists in 1990s recurring theme - boundaries between self/human body and animals/nature and technology are eroding. there's a resistance and fear of this, but also an opportunity to re-cast notions we hold of the Self or Individual
- Vivian Sobchack "technologies such as the computer have profoundly changed the temporal and spatial shape and meaning of our life-works and our own bodily and symbolic sense of ourselves."
c) virtual reality vs. reality
- Mark Poster article section "Reality problematized" - "'virtual reality' is a more dangerous term since it suggests that reality may be multiple or take many forms."
d) it's just a tool. learn it. use it well.
- Laurie Anderson, Pamela Z, Piplotti Rist, Janet Cardiff: artists who are comfortably working with high tech tools but don't overstate the importance of the technology/tools that they use to create their work.
- example: Laurie Anderson says her work has backed off from the big multimedia extravaganzas. However, her performances are still highly technology-reliant: microphone, synths, violins. Stripped down aesthetically, so that it becomes more "invisible" and doesn't overwhelm the content, but it's still very integral to the creation of her work.
e) free software movement/electronics hacking like Dorkbot
- de-mystifcation of technology through building your own tools, taking apart existing technology and seeing how it works. How you can change it to do something else
- I see a total link to the resurgence of the DIY/craft movement.
- open source de-emphasizes authorship and de-centralizes the creation and dissemination of the technology, creates a community of people who want to keep ideas free and open (like blogging about potentially 'proprietary' thoughts like I'm doing right now.)
f) Amelia Jones - why her as key critical thinker to my research
- explicitly links dispersed, multiple subject to performance and technology
- using technology explicitly to break with notions of fixed Self and extend beyond constructed boundary of the skin (ew! messy!!!)
- the contemporary subject is already technologized and therefore same rules don't apply because no longer simply "human"(ist?)
- from this point of view, the reason for an artist to place their own body/Self in their artwork shifts: - Jones "This mediated, multiply identified, particularized body/self proclaims the utter loss of the "subject" (in this case the fully intentional artist) as a stable referent (origin of the artwork's meaning)
- Body/Self - sense of Self is not lost, just redefined in connection to the layers that make you up and surround you, including the intangible, "virtual" ones
Bringing it back to my practice
- processing a live feed means I can interact with my own images moments later and an audience can witness the full creation of this (embodiment through relation of performer's physical body with the virtual body, physical form of the video technology, proximity of audience members's physical bodies, most likely projection of audience's bodies on the screens with performer's virtual body, journey together through creative process instead of audience simply witnessing a final product)
- even though there are multiple, simultaneous projections of my image, I am part of a larger
system. The video projections allow a more literal manifestation of this idea
- thinking about my practice as a performing art appeals to me because theater/performing arts have always created a space for me where I can explore modes of expression that might otherwise be suppressed in day to day life.
- primordial? expression. pre-verbal: Lisa Gerrard, Meredith Monk.
Monday, 10 March 2008
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