Now, maybe both icons will be there...

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Maybe this one!?!

Here goes nothing...
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Hmm...that last one didn't work maybe this one will...

Fiddling

Currently fiddling with getting twitter and FB share links to be in every blog posting without having to insert the code every time. I think I have the twitter code in, but not the FB one yet. Let's see.

Also realizing that the iPad kinda sucks for content creation.

Not post anything only pre

From an email to a friend - (with some additions)

I think that we are not "post" anything, only "pre" what is coming down the pike.  I think that "post" implies that whatever we are past, what tools, logics, and aesthetics we explored in the past are over and no longer relevant. But love stories are not gone. Dances about the human condition are still being made. They are not being created with Graham technique, but with release, CI influenced deconstructed ballet choreography. So why if the logic(topic) of the piece is basically the same, but the tool used is post - or contemporary we do not call the piece modern? What criteria are we using to define work - the tools used, the logic expressed, or the aesthetic used?

Every age, -ism, and ide[a]logy that is created doesn't die out but becomes part of the available pallate(sp?) palette, incorporated in to what people have and can use, expanding the reified world.

We all get hung up in the details as opposed to viewing the relationships among the details.  Heidegger, after all, said that existence is defined by relationship to.

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The Conservative Rhetoric

Republicans have historically borrowed more than Democrats.

Who cares...Gay people shouldn't marry.

Our bridges, roads and other infrastructure are crumbling.

Who cares...Marriage is for only a man and a woman.

Our schools are crap and America is losing its competitive edge.

Who cares...Gay people are ruining marriage.

The polar ice caps are melting and the Earth is heating up.

Who cares...Gay people are brainwashing our children.

The so called "death tax" only affects people who actually have money.

Who cares...Gay people are causing the breakdown of the American family.

The politicians you keep voting for keep screwing you.

Who cares...Gay people shouldn't adopt.

We are running out of antibiotics.

Who cares...Gay people shouldn't be able to visit their partners in a hospital.

Our oceans are overfished.

Who cares...Gay people invented AIDS.

Solar, wind, and wave energy sources could be completely viable if we invested in them.

Who cares...Gay people ruined marriage.

Why are we still subsidizing the profitable oil companies?

Who cares...Gay people ruined marriage.

etc.

The fear of being Understood

"As soon as someone says to me that they understood my performance, I become instantly discouraged." —Kazuo Ohno

This quote to me exemplifies what is wrong with most dance. Once it, the dance, the art is understood, the artist fears that it is destroyed. Why does understanding something destroy it? I remember once hearing a friend say that she didn't want to know too much. How can we ever know too much? The more we learn the more we learn how much we do not know. The more we learn about astronomy, the more we learn that there is an almost number of stars, nebula, planets out there to investigate. The more words we learn, the more questions we can formulate.

Ohno's quote makes me thing of the post I wrote recently about formulaic vs. poetic. It also reminds me of a quote I heard once but can't find anywhere about philosophers. Something like the greatest fear philosophers have is that they will be understood.

I think people fear being understood because they themselves are actually hiding behind a mask, a curtain. Like the Wizard of Oz. Yes, they can do what they do and do it well. But they want a bigger more grandiose image of themselves for people to see so that others will be impressed and so that they do not have to explain themselves, because that can be arduous and (cynically) they really can not articulate what they are doing/thinking/feeling. The next time you hear someone say that something was good or bad ask him or her to articulate why. Dollars to donuts, s/he will not be able to do so.

Why should we laboriously articulate our thoughts, when we can just express them emotionally (wrapped and bundled in signs, signifiers, etc) in a shorthand that leaves room for interpretation? If expressed clearly, we might find out clearly, that there isn't as much there as we would like there to be.

The imagination after all is more powerful, than...

Formulaic vs. Poetic

The difference between the poetic and the formulaic is that you haven't figured out the formula for the poetic yet.

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Abstract Industrialism

Watching my 6 month old daughter and how busy she is when she is awake made me think of the term abstract industrialism. Similar to abstract expressionism, abstract. Is there an abstract realism? Anyways. M. is usually quite busy, moving herself, vocalizing, grabbing things, putting her limbs and other objects in her mouth. Very industrious she is as babies if her age are.

Industrious - working energetically and devotedly; hard-working; diligent: an industrious person.

Wha she is trying to do, what her intentions are. I see that she has the book and is banging it. Is that all she is doing? Maybe that is all she is doing and I shouldn't be trying to read more into her actions. (see post about seeing vs. imagining)

Maybe what she is doing is realistic industrialism, and my confusion about her intentions makes it abstract. Hitting a book while shouting "babababababab" isn't abstract. It is hitting a book while shouting "babababababab". Nothing unclear there.

Which then makes me unsure about my original idea for this post. Which was - most improvisational performances are good examples of abstract industrialism. A lot is going on but no one really knows why. But maybe the abstraction comes from wanting to see more than there is

Hmmm must think about this more.

Emotional Improvisation

From an article on the movie "The Rise of the Planet of the Apes" in the most recent New Yorker:

"If invention, wild and free, yet tied to emotion and philosophical speculation, is given a chance, digital filmmaking could have a more brilliant future than any we can now imagine."

Replace the word invention with improvisation and digital filmmaking with performance:

If improvisation, wild and free, yet tied to emotion and philosophical speculation, is given a chance, performance could have a more brilliant future than any we can now imagine.

Taking the form of one idea and replacing some of it's parts can lead to interesting thoughts. Improvisation, as it is mostly taught and perceived, is about being wild and free. Emotion, as I read it here, is not the happy or sad generic reading of it, but the faster processing aspect of the human mind. An emotion is really a bundling of thoughts into one package. For some people, such as myself, those packages take a while to unpack. But I digress.

Ensemble Thinking is an improvisation based modality that uses the conscious mind to train the emotional mind. When on stage, a performer trained in E.T. doesn't have to think about where the hotspot is, but feels it allowing him or her to more quickly respond. E.T. allows the improvising performer to be more emotional about the performance.

Improvisation can benefit from more philosophical speculation - why are we improvising, when are we setting the number of performers, the costumes, the performance space and time, but not setting the spatial and kinespheric movements? What are we trying to convey, reveal to the audience? What do we want them to walk away with? Why should they give a damn? Is improvisation the means or an end?

The DODOcase

I got a DODOcase for our iPad2. The thing is beautiful. It holds the Pad well, covers it completely and provides more impact protection than the tighter rubber/plastic cases available at the Apple stores and kiosks in malls. I have not done a test, but that is my guess.

When we first had the iPad2, I dropped it as I had gotten used to the magnetic flip cover and was using it as a grip to hold the pad while filming my daughter in my mother's lap. A quick move later and the pad was face down on the edge of the carpet between the dining room and kitchen, the upper left corner cracked and shedding glass. Don't get that cover from the Apple store. But go there if you drop you iPad. They might replace it for free!!

So three days and $65 later, my iPad2 is in a DODOcase. I try to take a picture...no go. Have to use the camera on the front side or pop out the pad. Also to change to volume, flip the mute switch, or turn off the Pad is not so easy. The curves in the bamboo are not generous enough and I have a not easy time accessing those buttons.

I wrote to DODOcase about the camera issue and button issue: Hi Dodo,

Was I accidentally sent an iPod 1 case? There is no hole or window for the camera on the back of the case and I have a hard time changing the volume or flipping the switch on the left side. The case looks good and protects my pad well, but I am surprised that there is no camera hole and that the side buttons are hard to access. Guess I should have read the description better before purchasing.

Andrew

This is their response: Hi Andrew,
After much deliberation the DODOcase design team decided that we did not want to compromise the simple and classic design of the DODOcase by poking holes in it. The DODOcase for iPad 2 does NOT have a cut out so that you can use the rear facing camera while in the case.

We think that in general the rear camera will be best used outside the case. The DODOcase is an easy in easy out case and on the occasion that you would want to use the rear facing camera it is easy enough to remove the iPad from the case. Folio style cases (i.e. the DODOcase) do not easily lend themselves to rear camera use because the front cover is designed to flip all the way back and would still obscure the rear camera even with a camera hole in the back cover.

Thanks!

Team DODOcase

Are they serious!?! Having a hole in the backside would not compromise the design. Punch a whole in it and rivet the hole so the material doesn't fray. And it would be quite easy to take a picture holding the flap at a 90 degree angle so as not to cover the lens. The DODOcase is not an easy in easy out case. I can see in just the few times that I have taken the iPad2 out of the case how the rubber corner pieces that hold the pad in are coming up. Doing that too much, or as much as I would like to USE THE CAMERA ON MY IPAD, will loosen the rubber corner pieces.

The designers of the DODOcase assumed too much about how the case would be used.

The DODOcase might have been great for the first iPad, but it is limiting the user experience with iPad2.

Gender in Dance

It has been said many times.

"oh, it's a man dance."

2 guys on stage, it's a man dance. Why, when the dance consists of all women (and 99% of dances made consist of all women), we do not say "Oh, it's a woman dance"?

Well, precisely because 99% of dances made consist of all women. Therefore a dance, by default, is a woman dance. So when a dance has all men or even a slight majority of men, it becomes a "man dance".

Heard this just the other day. In a group of what I thought were contemporary post whatever artists. But I guess not. They are still stuck on gender, on viewing a dance through the lens of gender. Dancers aren't bodies, creating shapes in space/time in relation to other, but men and women creating shapes in space/time. Have we not progressed beyond Martha Graham?

Or have the tools just changed but the story is still the same?


PS
Graham = Bausch = Stuart

Maybe...maybe not

Why do we say that?

If it, the situation might happen then it also might not happen. We don't need to say both "maybe" and "maybe not".

Save your breath.

Pick one.

Coffee and Orangutans

Just rolled into the Microtel Inns & Suites in Klamath Falls, OR. It is a gorgeous drive from Portland. Green, green, green, and not many other vehicles. Also the most remote wifi - 10 miles west of Oakridge, OR, on the 58.

Not sure how this popped into my mind, maybe because I was in Portland earlier today and had the best cup of ever at a Stumptown. If you don't know what a Stumptown is, think Starbucks before it went national. We bought some friends of ours some beans from the Stumptown Roasters cafe. Fair-trade they are labeled.

Oh, I remember what made me think of all this. Sitting in our gas guzzling F-150 truck in the parking lot of a Safeway. Seeing how far apart all the shops, restaurants,and homes, how large all the vehicles are, how fat everyone is, seeing how large the grocery store is, made me realize that the American way of life is unsustainable.

The great coffee my wife and I enjoyed in Portland,while fair trade, was grown in another country. How did the beans get to Portland? Were they flown there? Was It on a ship? On the backs of donkey led to the great Northwest by Juan Valdez? For all of our crunchy goodness and wanting to keep the world for our children, should we even be drinking coffee?

And then from the Safeway, my wife purchased some gluten free crackers. Very exciting to find those. As I was coming back up to the room from the truck with the crackers, I took a look at the ingredients. Palm oil is one of the ingredients. Palm oil, in case you didn't know, is, or rather the growing of trees for palm oil, is leading to the destruction of orangutan habitat.

You just can't win

The Stage is a Test Tube

Imagine, if you will, a Petrie dish or a test tube. A test tube is a glass tube, closed at one end. Usually the end is rounded and the opposite end has a slight lip around the opening.

In a lab a test tube can be used many times. Many different reagents are added to the test tube; experiments are carried out. Acids and bases, metals. Water is split into hydrogen and oxygen; nylon is created. A vast array of experiments can be carried out in a single test tube.

If the experimenters are good and follow a strict protocol, they clean the test tube out each time after their experiments. This is done so that the reagents and results from the previous experiments do not affect the following experiments.

Yes, the information learned from previous experiments informs how the experimenters view the results of their next experiments. Yes, the previous experiments will affect what experiments are later run. Yes, what experiments run in other test tubes in other labs affects through the knowledge of the experimenters what happens in said test tube. But the experiment itself is not affected by the reagents of the previous experiments.

The empty performance space is a test tube. It is a blank space that can be a place to run experiments. What has happened in the space before, in other test tubes in other labs, does not have to affect what will happen next in the space. What has come before affects what will come next only in the minds of the experimenters - the performers and audience.

As performers, creators, artists, we need to recognize that a blank slate is possible. If we can clean out a test tube, a petrie dish, wipe a chalk board clean, we can also start with a blank(referenceless) performance space.

What do you see?

This has been a question used in the past couple weeks of my MA course at the Uferstudios here in Berlin.

(please note the use of the word here, as I am in Berlin. This attention to detail is similar to the uses of come and go & of take and bring that are too frequently misused. )

For the past couple weeks, we have been doing an exercise of Susan Rethorst's , who maybe got it from Simone Forti. Who knows where it really came from, but I am sure people have consciously arranged objects in space for millennia. Did an exercise once with Mary Overlie in which we arranged white beans. The focus of that exercise was spatial arrangement. The focus of the Forti/Rethorst/Durning is quick decision making. (does it ever seem like so much of dance creation training is helping dancers get over their @#$%?!?)

Anyways, the exercise progressed from objects to people to solos. Each of us worked on something for 30 minutes (the exact time length varied each round). We watched each person writing down what we saw the person do. After everyone had presented, let's not say performed because there is just too much baggage around that word, we read what we had written about each person.

Somethings I wrote - read from notebook, put notebook down, close eyes, open eyes, place downstage heel to arch of other foot...

Something I heard - a heroin addict, deliciously slipping, time expanding...

After the feedbacks, I felt confused. Were we supposed to write what we saw or what what we saw made us think of? For the next couple weeks, we did variations of this exercise with a new visiting artist. The feedback was stated to be of two different kinds - what you saw and then what it made you think of.

Good, I can roll with that. But then when the feedback happened, both kinds were mingled, eventually the what you saw losing a significant share of the airtime to what it made you think of.

Talking in the Ufer Cantine with my cohorts - (paraphrasing not quoting)
"When you see a man and a woman on stage, you don't immediately think love story"
"No, I see a man and woman on stage."

I am baffled as to why in our post-modern contemporary age we would still automatically see love story. Am I supposed to see war automatically when I see two men on stage? No matter what age we say we are in, we all still have the same expectations. Love songs are still written and will always be written. The only difference will be the instruments and the notes.

But back to seeing...It took me a while to understand, but what everybody else mean by "what do you see?" is "what do you think of when you see..." And this is very dangerous territory. Just because you think something does not mean it is there.

Of course when I see stuff, it makes me think of other things. But when I am in a studio and I see someone sitting slumped against the wall, I see someone sitting slumped against the wall. I don't see a heroin addict, or a depressed business man, or swirls of pain an agony. I might think of those situations or scenarios, but I don't see them.

Are we not trying to be clear with our language and context in this MA program?

During the feedback after my showing on Monday, I brought up this issue and not understanding how people were seeing. This lead to a discussion of poetry...hmm not remembering so well, the connection to what I am thinking of...

but here is the thought anyways -

the need for the poetic, the dissatisfaction with what is there is the same need that has given rise to religion. People want mystery, people want there to be stuff going on behind the curtain and then they want to forget about the curtain.

People want to see what they imagine

Don't get me wrong. I want people to imagine whatever they want. But when we say that we are going to write what we see, let's do that. And then when we saw, we are going to write what what we see makes us think of, let's do that.

there was something else I wanted to write but I forget what it was.

And here is quote of a quote to provide some triangulation and provide some sand to build this house on -
'Ulmer affirms that Beuy's objects are "...both what they are and stimulation for the general processes of memory and imagination."'

We should not confuse the two.

Night of Fire

How long before Xavier Le Roy puts this on stage?

Formulaic Film

Hey, it's just like 300!

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/immortals/

change the bad guy, change the good guy...isn't this Star Wars all over again? Which was The Hidden Fortress all over again which was...

formulaic, yes...but wasn't also Picasso? He just had time to develop multiple formulas


ps
I wonder how long these links will last.

pps

here is a photo of my current writing process

Another definition of choreo and impro

Choreography and improvisation are both a set of rules to follow during a performance.

One is usually a longer more detailed set; the other is shorter.

One has a wide range of acceptable outcomes; the other has fewer.

Dance is a Visual Art

Here are some links to compositional ideas for painting and photography that I think apply to dance. Especially in relation to the instant choreo composition modality of Ensemble Thinking.

The Rabatment of the Rectangle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabatment_of_the_rectangle

The Rule of Thirds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds

The Rule of Odds
http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/11475/what-is-the-rule-of-odds

Placement of Elements
http://painting.about.com/od/composition/ss/composition-painting-elements.htm

The Painting's Secret Geometry
http://www.francois-murez.com/composition%20en.htm

p.s.
if dance is a visual art, why are the people who watch it called an audience?


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