In order to relate what I saw without being descriptive I will offer a short list of whats that I saw:
1. a tattoo
2. a cube
3. black tape
4. gestures
5. white tape
6. a hypodermic needle
7. blood
My feedback about the piece would be to simplify. The piece has at least three different pieces in it - Man with Cube, Man with Tape and Man with Needle. He should pick one of them and investigate it more deeply. I would suggest that he keep his manipulation of the tape to a minimum and not rearrange the tape once it is on the wall. Also I would suggest that the black tape movement section occur further downstage facing the audience. The tape is already abstract and geometric and his focal and spatial choices re-enforced that. Maybe it was his intention to replicate the impersonal nature of the tape. But what I saw was more of a coping mechanism than an artistic choice.
Black tape plus movement plus white tape plus the downstage space plus low level movement plus text plus needle plus blood. Eight dimensions in all. Is this piece, then, about the progression towards the multidimensional, the ultra dimensional he said he was seeking? I do not know. I can not say whether or not this piece worked as I do not know what he was trying to achieve. I can say whether or not I liked the piece. I did not. But whether or not I liked it is of little importance. I can say what it made me think of. The use of the cube made me think of Donald Judd. The black tape pictographs on the white wall made me think of Lawrence Wiener and Robert Motherwell. The piercing of the skin made me think of Chris Burden and Marina Abramovic.
Any of these references, though, is at best a stretch and more present in my perception of the performance than in Riccardo’s presentation of the piece. This brings up the question of what does an audience need to know about the work. Do we need to know what the artist knows? Do we need to have the same frame of reference? Do we need those references to get out of the piece what the artist put into the piece? Is it important for the viewers to get what the artist is saying? Or is the artist creating something for us the respond to with our own references?
Despite not liking it, I feel that of the pieces I saw yesterday this piece had the richest vocabulary to be investigated. And I intend on taking his Man with Tape piece and investigating it further.
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1.07.2011
Critique for SODA application
Below is a reworked critique of a dance piece I saw in 2009. This was part of my application for the SODA program here in Berlin. Here is the "original"
Accords by Thomas Hauert/Zoo, which I saw last summer during Tanz im August, consisted of sections delineated by performers entering or exiting the stage through the spaces between the back panels. The movements within these sections were governed by either the simultaneous initiating and halting of movement, flocking, or awkward partnering. Flocking is when people move in a clump changing spacing/facing with no discernible leader. Awkward partnering is skilled bodies coming in contact in an improvised manner consciously eschewing the Contact Improvisation movement paradigm.
As someone who performs and teaches the tool of improvisation, I appreciated the clarity in this improvised performance. It is very satisfying to see an improvised piece by people who have been working together for more than just a handful of rehearsals. All to often, improvised performances have three rehearsals. During the first one, half of the group doesn't show and the half who are there just talk. For the second rehearsal 80% of the cast is there and some dancing actually happens. The third rehearsal is on stage in front of the audience, i.e., the performance. In Accords, the hours sweating together in the studio came through during the performance. I saw no moments of searching or moments of awkwardness when performers are in between inspirations.
Dance improvisation is a nascent art form. Because of this, there are many assumptions about improvisation and its uses. The three main assumptions about improvisation are that it is not supposed to be rehearsed, be well produced, or have a point. Also due to the newness of it, improvisation based work is in a vicious cycle. The work is underfunded, therefore the work cannot be well rehearsed and produced. The work is not rehearsed, so the quality is not consistent. The quality is not consistent so producers and curators do not want to show the work. The work is not shown, so artists making improvised work can't get funding. They can't get funding so they can't rehearse. The cycle continues.
Thomas Hauert, it seems, has been able to break this cycle and to get beyond two of the three main assumptions about improvisation. His piece Accords is well rehearsed and has a high level of production value. The lighting was not left over from the previous performance. The costuming, consisting of black mesh body suits over primary colored pants and shirts, was not thrown together right before the performance. The set, more than just a black box, was simple — black, one meter wide panels, each the height of the stage. The panels, which covered the back wall, were wide enough apart for the performers to slip between them. At times acting as either a visual backdrop or an obstacle course for the movement, the set was well integrated into the performance.
Where Hauert failed was topic. His piece had all the production value of a choreographed piece, but not the point of a choreographed piece. An improvised piece can have just as much of a point as a choreographed one. What was Hauert trying to reveal to the audience besides the tool of improvisation? Is it the means or the end? If improvisation is what he was trying to show the audience, he succeeded. We saw people improvising. But listening skills and group awareness in and of themselves do not make a good piece. If all it takes to make a good piece using improvisation is good listening skills then any sequence of memorized movement is good choreography. This, we know, is not the case. Even if improvisation itself were the topic of the piece, nothing was developed strongly enough to become the point of the piece. The dancers did not work flocking, group timing or any of the tools I recognized for such an extended period of time to take it to a new level.
Maybe Hauert intended to provide the audience with an enjoyable visual and auditory experience for 90 minutes. As an artist using similar tools, I want to see the tools create something besides themselves.
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Accords by Thomas Hauert/Zoo, which I saw last summer during Tanz im August, consisted of sections delineated by performers entering or exiting the stage through the spaces between the back panels. The movements within these sections were governed by either the simultaneous initiating and halting of movement, flocking, or awkward partnering. Flocking is when people move in a clump changing spacing/facing with no discernible leader. Awkward partnering is skilled bodies coming in contact in an improvised manner consciously eschewing the Contact Improvisation movement paradigm.
As someone who performs and teaches the tool of improvisation, I appreciated the clarity in this improvised performance. It is very satisfying to see an improvised piece by people who have been working together for more than just a handful of rehearsals. All to often, improvised performances have three rehearsals. During the first one, half of the group doesn't show and the half who are there just talk. For the second rehearsal 80% of the cast is there and some dancing actually happens. The third rehearsal is on stage in front of the audience, i.e., the performance. In Accords, the hours sweating together in the studio came through during the performance. I saw no moments of searching or moments of awkwardness when performers are in between inspirations.
Dance improvisation is a nascent art form. Because of this, there are many assumptions about improvisation and its uses. The three main assumptions about improvisation are that it is not supposed to be rehearsed, be well produced, or have a point. Also due to the newness of it, improvisation based work is in a vicious cycle. The work is underfunded, therefore the work cannot be well rehearsed and produced. The work is not rehearsed, so the quality is not consistent. The quality is not consistent so producers and curators do not want to show the work. The work is not shown, so artists making improvised work can't get funding. They can't get funding so they can't rehearse. The cycle continues.
Thomas Hauert, it seems, has been able to break this cycle and to get beyond two of the three main assumptions about improvisation. His piece Accords is well rehearsed and has a high level of production value. The lighting was not left over from the previous performance. The costuming, consisting of black mesh body suits over primary colored pants and shirts, was not thrown together right before the performance. The set, more than just a black box, was simple — black, one meter wide panels, each the height of the stage. The panels, which covered the back wall, were wide enough apart for the performers to slip between them. At times acting as either a visual backdrop or an obstacle course for the movement, the set was well integrated into the performance.
Where Hauert failed was topic. His piece had all the production value of a choreographed piece, but not the point of a choreographed piece. An improvised piece can have just as much of a point as a choreographed one. What was Hauert trying to reveal to the audience besides the tool of improvisation? Is it the means or the end? If improvisation is what he was trying to show the audience, he succeeded. We saw people improvising. But listening skills and group awareness in and of themselves do not make a good piece. If all it takes to make a good piece using improvisation is good listening skills then any sequence of memorized movement is good choreography. This, we know, is not the case. Even if improvisation itself were the topic of the piece, nothing was developed strongly enough to become the point of the piece. The dancers did not work flocking, group timing or any of the tools I recognized for such an extended period of time to take it to a new level.
Maybe Hauert intended to provide the audience with an enjoyable visual and auditory experience for 90 minutes. As an artist using similar tools, I want to see the tools create something besides themselves.
Tweet
Personal Statement for SODA
Below is my personal statement that I wrote in applying to the SODA program here in Berlin.
My interest in the S.O.D.A. program stems from a desire for a more profound connection and dialog with the dance/performance community. I am looking for thoughtful, candid feedback about my work that is more constructive than the often superficial comments traded after a performance. I am also seeking the tools -language, books, other minds - with which to understand and view my own work better. I am hungry for the same level of rigor and feedback in the studio and theater as I got when I was studying biochemistry at U.C., San Diego. Over exposure to acetone will destroy your liver no matter how you contextualize it.
What I am hoping to gain from the S.O.D.A. program is the same kind of discourse I had in the lab. Working individually or in groups, we evaluated and discussed each other's methods and findings. I hope to interact with people of similar interests(performance, dance, presence) from varying backgrounds(age, country, training) in a focused yet open environment. I hope hat they know and have experienced will open my eyes and increase what I know and will experience.
My artistic skills, capabilities and development have been driven by my proclivities. I am drawn to the tool of improvisation because it keeps my mind constantly engaged, constantly sensing and interacting with my environment. Having studied other approaches to improvisation, such as Action Theater and the Viewpoints, I am more drawn to the tool of contact improvisation. I find that it is the clearest model with which to examine performance variables in relation to improvisation. This is not to say that I am only interested in unfettered vague improvisational work. In fact, quite the opposite. My work, though improvised, can be quite restricted. In Any Fool Can Think of Words that Rhyme the three dancers are restricted to moving one joint at a time. In A2Zed/Nexus one point of contact is maintained and returned to as much as possible. Other limitations or choreographies for my work involve the lighting, body tone, or staying still and grunting.
I am also drawn to the tool of improvisation because there is an assumption that improvised work has no point to it or thought behind it. Sadly, most of the work out there professed to be improvised does not have a point other than it is improvised. The artists are so enamored of the process of real-time composing, that they forget that the tool of improvisation can be used to create something other than itself. Anvils can be used to create other things besides anvils. I, therefore, make a point of creating work that has a very definite concept outside of improvisation itself.
Just as I was drawn to study biochemistry to understand how the mechanics of life work, I am drawn to the theater to understand how it works. I am interested in the underlying structures of theater and their relationships. Currently, my specific area of interest is the function of a title. Is a title a sign to tell the audience what the performance is about? Is it a lens through which the audience should view the performance? Neither function I find satisfactory. If a title is to tell an audience what is happening, there is no room for the audience to participate, for them to create an event within themselves initiated by what is on stage. On the other hand, if the artist uses the title as a lens, the artist runs the risk of being too vague, leaving all the work of creating the performance up to the audience's imagination. If the artist is too vague then the audience could just as well stay home and imagine their own performance. Truth in Advertising, my most recent production, arose out of confusion about this function. The concert consists of seven pieces, each with two titles. One title is straight forward, the other title more obtuse. For example one piece is titled Man Grunting and Distillation - This piece is a distillation of the collective human experience of cruelty - cruelty that we experience from direct or inadvertent action of others and cruelty that we consciously or unconsciously inflict upon others. The intention of Truth in Advertising is to lead the audience to question the function of titles.
If art, as Brecht said, is a hammer with which to shape society, I would say that I aspire to be a hammer that shapes the hammer that shapes society. I say this because I make work in response to my environment. Observing the patterns and trends in the work around me inspires me. I aim to create work that leads my peers to question the tools and possibilities they are using in their work. I created Do You See What I See?, a series of performative still-lifes which bombard the audience with biographical information, as a response to all the intensely biographical work I was seeing in the San Francisco Bay Area. I created the sound score for Content with Content from descriptions in a film catalogue. By incessantly telling the audience what the piece is about, the sound score forces the viewers to question what any piece is about. I created Sentimental Pussyfooting: a study in plagiarism because I was tired of hearing "Oh, that's been done." The basic dance formula has been done again and again and no one complains about that. In Sentimental Pussyfooting I used pieces that have been done as points of departure, showing how much more there is left to investigate within ideas that "have been done". Yoko Ono's Cut piece, Paul Taylor's Duet, and John Cage's 4'33" are some of the pieces I used.
By surrounding myself with curious intelligent artists, I hope to gain new insights and avenues of inquiry into the inner workings of dance and performance. The S.O.D.A program will be the hammer that shapes the hammer that shapes the hammer that shapes society.
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My interest in the S.O.D.A. program stems from a desire for a more profound connection and dialog with the dance/performance community. I am looking for thoughtful, candid feedback about my work that is more constructive than the often superficial comments traded after a performance. I am also seeking the tools -language, books, other minds - with which to understand and view my own work better. I am hungry for the same level of rigor and feedback in the studio and theater as I got when I was studying biochemistry at U.C., San Diego. Over exposure to acetone will destroy your liver no matter how you contextualize it.
What I am hoping to gain from the S.O.D.A. program is the same kind of discourse I had in the lab. Working individually or in groups, we evaluated and discussed each other's methods and findings. I hope to interact with people of similar interests(performance, dance, presence) from varying backgrounds(age, country, training) in a focused yet open environment. I hope hat they know and have experienced will open my eyes and increase what I know and will experience.
My artistic skills, capabilities and development have been driven by my proclivities. I am drawn to the tool of improvisation because it keeps my mind constantly engaged, constantly sensing and interacting with my environment. Having studied other approaches to improvisation, such as Action Theater and the Viewpoints, I am more drawn to the tool of contact improvisation. I find that it is the clearest model with which to examine performance variables in relation to improvisation. This is not to say that I am only interested in unfettered vague improvisational work. In fact, quite the opposite. My work, though improvised, can be quite restricted. In Any Fool Can Think of Words that Rhyme the three dancers are restricted to moving one joint at a time. In A2Zed/Nexus one point of contact is maintained and returned to as much as possible. Other limitations or choreographies for my work involve the lighting, body tone, or staying still and grunting.
I am also drawn to the tool of improvisation because there is an assumption that improvised work has no point to it or thought behind it. Sadly, most of the work out there professed to be improvised does not have a point other than it is improvised. The artists are so enamored of the process of real-time composing, that they forget that the tool of improvisation can be used to create something other than itself. Anvils can be used to create other things besides anvils. I, therefore, make a point of creating work that has a very definite concept outside of improvisation itself.
Just as I was drawn to study biochemistry to understand how the mechanics of life work, I am drawn to the theater to understand how it works. I am interested in the underlying structures of theater and their relationships. Currently, my specific area of interest is the function of a title. Is a title a sign to tell the audience what the performance is about? Is it a lens through which the audience should view the performance? Neither function I find satisfactory. If a title is to tell an audience what is happening, there is no room for the audience to participate, for them to create an event within themselves initiated by what is on stage. On the other hand, if the artist uses the title as a lens, the artist runs the risk of being too vague, leaving all the work of creating the performance up to the audience's imagination. If the artist is too vague then the audience could just as well stay home and imagine their own performance. Truth in Advertising, my most recent production, arose out of confusion about this function. The concert consists of seven pieces, each with two titles. One title is straight forward, the other title more obtuse. For example one piece is titled Man Grunting and Distillation - This piece is a distillation of the collective human experience of cruelty - cruelty that we experience from direct or inadvertent action of others and cruelty that we consciously or unconsciously inflict upon others. The intention of Truth in Advertising is to lead the audience to question the function of titles.
If art, as Brecht said, is a hammer with which to shape society, I would say that I aspire to be a hammer that shapes the hammer that shapes society. I say this because I make work in response to my environment. Observing the patterns and trends in the work around me inspires me. I aim to create work that leads my peers to question the tools and possibilities they are using in their work. I created Do You See What I See?, a series of performative still-lifes which bombard the audience with biographical information, as a response to all the intensely biographical work I was seeing in the San Francisco Bay Area. I created the sound score for Content with Content from descriptions in a film catalogue. By incessantly telling the audience what the piece is about, the sound score forces the viewers to question what any piece is about. I created Sentimental Pussyfooting: a study in plagiarism because I was tired of hearing "Oh, that's been done." The basic dance formula has been done again and again and no one complains about that. In Sentimental Pussyfooting I used pieces that have been done as points of departure, showing how much more there is left to investigate within ideas that "have been done". Yoko Ono's Cut piece, Paul Taylor's Duet, and John Cage's 4'33" are some of the pieces I used.
By surrounding myself with curious intelligent artists, I hope to gain new insights and avenues of inquiry into the inner workings of dance and performance. The S.O.D.A program will be the hammer that shapes the hammer that shapes the hammer that shapes society.
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12.04.2010
Is Tango Ruining Contact?
Are Tango and other forms of social dance ruining Contact Improvisation? Ruining might be a strong word. How about changing it in a direction I do not like? Expanding maybe? No, I think that I will stick with ruining. And I will explain why. From my small exposure to the CI world, I see the form being "ruined" by social dance forms. Ruined, I say because their influences are not expanding the range of the form but changing the bulk of how it is practiced.
At the jams in Berlin (granted this is a small slice of the CI pie), I see more and more codification of CI. I see person X and know what five moves he will do with a woman. And this person is also practitioner of Tango. I see person Y and know what 5 moves she will do and end up on person Z's shoulder.
I am not saying that we shouldn't have habits. Habits are fun. They are enjoyable and give us a benchmark of how we are progressing. They show us how "good" we have become at something. But is that the goal? Is the goal to know how good we are at something? Is the goal of CI to practice moves that we know and have an enjoyable experience? Is CI a product or a process?
I would say that for more and more people it is becoming a product. This might have been what Danny Lepkoff was talking about at Freiburg this year. CI has basically become another social dance form with set moves and gender roles. People go to the jams to engage in a certain movement style and do certain moves, basically a milonga with baggy pants and a less structured frame than the tango.
And as more and more people engage in social dance forms, they bring however un/consciously the values from those other forms into CI and expanding CI. Just as someone who studies Karate or Judo will bring values from those physical practices into CI. Or Alexander techique. Or opera singing or Feldenkrais. All of which people are un/consciously bringing values from those practices into CI. And I hope those values are always brought into CI. This problem, that I see(and I might be the only one) could be a result of not knowing enough about tango. I might need to expand the side of the G.U.T. triangle between logic and tool of tango. Hmm…
Anyways, I just worry that people are reducing CI to a set of movements, basically to small snippets of choreo that they then improvise with.
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At the jams in Berlin (granted this is a small slice of the CI pie), I see more and more codification of CI. I see person X and know what five moves he will do with a woman. And this person is also practitioner of Tango. I see person Y and know what 5 moves she will do and end up on person Z's shoulder.
I am not saying that we shouldn't have habits. Habits are fun. They are enjoyable and give us a benchmark of how we are progressing. They show us how "good" we have become at something. But is that the goal? Is the goal to know how good we are at something? Is the goal of CI to practice moves that we know and have an enjoyable experience? Is CI a product or a process?
I would say that for more and more people it is becoming a product. This might have been what Danny Lepkoff was talking about at Freiburg this year. CI has basically become another social dance form with set moves and gender roles. People go to the jams to engage in a certain movement style and do certain moves, basically a milonga with baggy pants and a less structured frame than the tango.
And as more and more people engage in social dance forms, they bring however un/consciously the values from those other forms into CI and expanding CI. Just as someone who studies Karate or Judo will bring values from those physical practices into CI. Or Alexander techique. Or opera singing or Feldenkrais. All of which people are un/consciously bringing values from those practices into CI. And I hope those values are always brought into CI. This problem, that I see(and I might be the only one) could be a result of not knowing enough about tango. I might need to expand the side of the G.U.T. triangle between logic and tool of tango. Hmm…
Anyways, I just worry that people are reducing CI to a set of movements, basically to small snippets of choreo that they then improvise with.
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11.29.2010
Grammar and Global Warming
Hello again, my dear single reader. Single as in solo, not as in Han, but as in being only one reader, not in reference to your social life.
After, or rather in the midst of my second double Americano, I have decided to write about a subject I have been thinking about a long time, but do not have enough concrete examples to fully support and elucidate my hypothesis.
My hypothesis: Bad grammar, specifically subject-verb agreement, leads to weak thinking.
Take the following sentence - The well appointed man wearing many felt hats are going to the haberdashery.
It should be - The well appointed man wearing many felt hats IS going to the haberdashery.
The subject of the sentence is man and he is going to the haberdashery. Granted the hats are also going to the haberdashery as they rest upon his head. The hats, however, are the object of the preposition of and, therefore, not the subject of the sentence. The singular form of the verb "to be" is needed because the single noun and not the plural noun is the subject of the sentence.
The plural form "are" would be used if hats were the subject of the sentence.
The many felt hats on the well appointed man are going to the haberdashery.
More and more I hear and read incorrect subject-verb agreement. People are using the noun that is closest to the verb to determine which form of the verb use. This shows an inability to think complex thoughts. It shows a need for immediacy and the inability to think through more than one step.
How does this connect to global warming, you ask. Take the term global warming. Climate scientists chose this term because on average the temperature around the globe is warming. The global climate is changing and warming. This warming is causing large temperature changes over the whole globe. This is why it is now a lot colder in San Diego than normal. This is why it was a lot warmer in So Cal in November than normal.
Most people assume that because the term has the word "warming" in it, they will only experience warming. They are not able to put do the mental process of global warming- the whole globe/average temperature - temperature swings. They are looking only at the immediate relationship of "warming" to what they are experiencing right now.
This leads me to another hypothesis - Most people in the Tea Party do not use correct grammar.
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After, or rather in the midst of my second double Americano, I have decided to write about a subject I have been thinking about a long time, but do not have enough concrete examples to fully support and elucidate my hypothesis.
My hypothesis: Bad grammar, specifically subject-verb agreement, leads to weak thinking.
Take the following sentence - The well appointed man wearing many felt hats are going to the haberdashery.
It should be - The well appointed man wearing many felt hats IS going to the haberdashery.
The subject of the sentence is man and he is going to the haberdashery. Granted the hats are also going to the haberdashery as they rest upon his head. The hats, however, are the object of the preposition of and, therefore, not the subject of the sentence. The singular form of the verb "to be" is needed because the single noun and not the plural noun is the subject of the sentence.
The plural form "are" would be used if hats were the subject of the sentence.
The many felt hats on the well appointed man are going to the haberdashery.
More and more I hear and read incorrect subject-verb agreement. People are using the noun that is closest to the verb to determine which form of the verb use. This shows an inability to think complex thoughts. It shows a need for immediacy and the inability to think through more than one step.
How does this connect to global warming, you ask. Take the term global warming. Climate scientists chose this term because on average the temperature around the globe is warming. The global climate is changing and warming. This warming is causing large temperature changes over the whole globe. This is why it is now a lot colder in San Diego than normal. This is why it was a lot warmer in So Cal in November than normal.
Most people assume that because the term has the word "warming" in it, they will only experience warming. They are not able to put do the mental process of global warming- the whole globe/average temperature - temperature swings. They are looking only at the immediate relationship of "warming" to what they are experiencing right now.
This leads me to another hypothesis - Most people in the Tea Party do not use correct grammar.
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11.23.2010
The Three Points of Contact Improvisation
Where is your center?Where do you contact the floor?
Where do you contact your partner(s)?
What is the distance between the floor and your center?
What is the distance between the floor and where you contact your partner(s)?
What is the distance between your center and where you contact you partner(s)?
How do you use one point to affect the others?
What is the size of each these points?
What is the size of the triangle?
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10.20.2010
Ephemeral Art
(Written in 2005, recently found when looking for something else.)
How long do you gaze at a tangible art piece?
How long do you look at art?
Dance is not ephemeral if looked at in relation to a larger scale than it is usually viewed. When people watch a dance they spend more time watching it than they usually spend looking at a painting or sculpture in a museum. But the dance can be considered ephemeral if what is important are the details of it. Those fleeting movements/moments, but the structure of the piece will hopefully throughout the piece and that will be at least 5 minutes, much longer than most people spend looking at the Mona Lisa or a Picasso.
Those paintings are just as ephemeral unless you own it or live in the same city as the painting. But then do you measure ephemerality(?) in in terms of a work's self or in relation to the viewer. Yes, the dance comes and goes, but so do the viewers. And a painting does not go, only the viewer. But what is a sculpture if not viewed? Nothing. it is merely the possibility of something to be viewed. But any dance piece, once conceptualized and rehearsed(known) becomes the possibility of something to be viewed.
Dance is considered to be ephemeral because the reason for most dances existences, the minute details of the choreography, are ephemeral, they do not last past the duration of the viewing. But what could last for the duration of the viewing and beyond is the conceptual construct of the piece, of the performance elements. The more definite they are, the more definite the zusammenhang, the more tangible the performance.
To summarize - All arts are equally ephemeral. It depends upon how long the viewer is looking at them.
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How long do you gaze at a tangible art piece?
How long do you look at art?
Dance is not ephemeral if looked at in relation to a larger scale than it is usually viewed. When people watch a dance they spend more time watching it than they usually spend looking at a painting or sculpture in a museum. But the dance can be considered ephemeral if what is important are the details of it. Those fleeting movements/moments, but the structure of the piece will hopefully throughout the piece and that will be at least 5 minutes, much longer than most people spend looking at the Mona Lisa or a Picasso.
Those paintings are just as ephemeral unless you own it or live in the same city as the painting. But then do you measure ephemerality(?) in in terms of a work's self or in relation to the viewer. Yes, the dance comes and goes, but so do the viewers. And a painting does not go, only the viewer. But what is a sculpture if not viewed? Nothing. it is merely the possibility of something to be viewed. But any dance piece, once conceptualized and rehearsed(known) becomes the possibility of something to be viewed.
Dance is considered to be ephemeral because the reason for most dances existences, the minute details of the choreography, are ephemeral, they do not last past the duration of the viewing. But what could last for the duration of the viewing and beyond is the conceptual construct of the piece, of the performance elements. The more definite they are, the more definite the zusammenhang, the more tangible the performance.
To summarize - All arts are equally ephemeral. It depends upon how long the viewer is looking at them.
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10.19.2010
Flow and the Evolution of Contact
Have you ever watched Magnesium? It is probably on Youtube. The seminal performance that gave us contact improvisation. If you watch it and then watch a contact jam at a festival or a weekly jam somewhere in the world, you will probably not see the connection. One is a performance with an audience and one involves performing and there are people watching but not an audience in the traditional sense. The theme of where performance has devolved to in the CI community I will not touch right now.
What I want to ramble about now is flow. The early examples of CI that I have seen on video where rather flowless - bodies bumping into each other falling, flailing, hitting the ground loudly. See contemporary contact, flow, continual contact, and ease are much more apparent. Flow and ease are constant themes of discussions, classes and workshops.
But the Tool does not have to determine the Logic.
Flow has become so paramount because it is as far as you can get from the beginnings of CI. The pendulum has swung to the flow end. And many people like it there. Flow, flow, flow, flow, flow, flow, flow, flow, flow, flow, is the name of the sensual touch junkie game. Go to a jam and get your flow on. Though on Wednesdays at K77 in Berlin that is impossible and no one seems to mind. Maybe that jam is closer to the original idea of CI.
But really, who wants to stay with the original idea of anything? Cooking...certainly not. Housing...certainly not. Living in a cave cooking rabbits over open flame?!?
Ideas evolve and improve. The need for flow grew out of a need for sustainability and easy. Bashing one's self about as they did in Magnesium hurts, is tiring and grows old artistically quickly. So the other end of the kinetic spectrum has developed over the past 38 years. But in that last sentence, there is an inherent problem.
CI should not be viewed as having a kinetic spectrum - flow at one end and bashing at the other. The frantic energy of Magnesium can exist but with a softer body state. Or a slow tempo with a very held body state. Something I try to open people's eyes/minds/bodies to when I teach the 4 Winds into Contact.
What I am worried about in relation to CI is that is stuck in the flow world. That flow is the Paragon of CI. And that is why so CI is hard for so many people to watch. It is the same tempo and tension the whole time. No Sturm und Drang. That and most people training in it have no performance training. Well, they might perform at contact festivals, but (uh oh) that doesn't count.
So go out there do contact. Flow and don't flow. Find all the flavors in between and around and amongst.
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What I want to ramble about now is flow. The early examples of CI that I have seen on video where rather flowless - bodies bumping into each other falling, flailing, hitting the ground loudly. See contemporary contact, flow, continual contact, and ease are much more apparent. Flow and ease are constant themes of discussions, classes and workshops.
But the Tool does not have to determine the Logic.
Flow has become so paramount because it is as far as you can get from the beginnings of CI. The pendulum has swung to the flow end. And many people like it there. Flow, flow, flow, flow, flow, flow, flow, flow, flow, flow, is the name of the sensual touch junkie game. Go to a jam and get your flow on. Though on Wednesdays at K77 in Berlin that is impossible and no one seems to mind. Maybe that jam is closer to the original idea of CI.
But really, who wants to stay with the original idea of anything? Cooking...certainly not. Housing...certainly not. Living in a cave cooking rabbits over open flame?!?
Ideas evolve and improve. The need for flow grew out of a need for sustainability and easy. Bashing one's self about as they did in Magnesium hurts, is tiring and grows old artistically quickly. So the other end of the kinetic spectrum has developed over the past 38 years. But in that last sentence, there is an inherent problem.
CI should not be viewed as having a kinetic spectrum - flow at one end and bashing at the other. The frantic energy of Magnesium can exist but with a softer body state. Or a slow tempo with a very held body state. Something I try to open people's eyes/minds/bodies to when I teach the 4 Winds into Contact.
What I am worried about in relation to CI is that is stuck in the flow world. That flow is the Paragon of CI. And that is why so CI is hard for so many people to watch. It is the same tempo and tension the whole time. No Sturm und Drang. That and most people training in it have no performance training. Well, they might perform at contact festivals, but (uh oh) that doesn't count.
So go out there do contact. Flow and don't flow. Find all the flavors in between and around and amongst.
Tweet
10.11.2010
The Absence of Sequential Thought
Above is a picture of the structure of the last piece from The Absence of Sequential Thought. The piece, All Structure/No Content was constructed by arbitrarily combining one or more of the 6 performance elements - Costume, Pathway, Lighting (here listed as video), Sound, Movement (here listed as Kinesphere), and Set.
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10.06.2010
Sentimental Pussyfooting
Here is the text from the program of Sentimental Pussyfooting, Non Fiction's ground-breaking performance from 2009 -
Sentimental Pussyfooting - a study in plagiarism
How does an idea become part of the public artistic palette? Can an idea be used
without being seen as a reference?
performed by Kelly Dalrymple, Sonshereé Giles, Sean Seward, Adam Venker, Andrew Wass.
directed by Andrew Wass
Counterpulse Theater San Francisco
Feb 29th and March 1st 2008
Imagine if all of dance consisted of a performer wearing a video projector?
Or done in 4:33 of silence? Or was 5 dancers on a diagonal line?
How does an idea become part of the public artistic palette? Can an idea be used
without being seen as a reference?
performed by Kelly Dalrymple, Sonshereé Giles, Sean Seward, Adam Venker, Andrew Wass.
directed by Andrew Wass
Counterpulse Theater San Francisco
Feb 29th and March 1st 2008
Imagine if all of dance consisted of a performer wearing a video projector?
Or done in 4:33 of silence? Or was 5 dancers on a diagonal line?
The way I see it dance, or most dance, has the same structure - lights go on, music and movement start and they all end together. It's essentially the same skeleton every time. Whether it's San Francisco Ballet or Robert Moses, the skeleton is the same. Just the meat
around the bones has changed. The costumes are different, the music is different, the
performers are different etc. But still essentially the same piece.
In this show, I am using works by Trisha Brown, John Cage, Jess Curtis, Paul Taylor,
and Yoko Ono as points of departure. Some pieces will be fairly straightforward recreations
of the structures. Other pieces are using a structure or an element from a piece to examine
or express something different from the original intention. The title of the show and all but
one title of the pieces are taken from sentences in an Iris Murdoch novel.
One of the structures used in this show comes from a piece by Trisha Brown,
called Homemade. In it she performs with a reel to reel projector attached to her back.
The video projected is of someone doing the same choreography, of faces, hands and feet.
The structure of Homemade is redone pretty faithfully. A woman is dancing with a video
projector on her back, projecting the same choreography that she is doing live. It is the same
structure/skeleton but all the variables/meat are different: the performer is different, the
costume is different, the video projector and video are different etc. So is it the same piece?
If Moses' and San Francisco Ballet's pieces are different, then Brown's piece and mine
are different. The costumes are different. The people executing the movements are different.
The choreographies and videos are different. The skeleton in both cases remains the same, yet
people are more likely to say that I am repeating Brown's piece because it is a different
enough of a skeleton from the basic dance skeleton.
No one says to ODC or Paul Taylor -
"Oh lights, movement, and music...that is So and So's piece" Why not? Because that skeleton
is from time immemorial. And most dance I see is just repeating the same skeleton over and
over again. And dance is so rich because we keep investigating the same skeleton over and
over again. Where would dance be if people stopped making dances to music because that
had already been done?
By keeping certain structures identified with and tied to certain artists, we limit
our collective artistic investigation. By being sentimental, by saying "Oh, we can't do that
because that is So and So's piece", we cut ourselves off from so many possibilities.
We need to stop pussyfooting around and appropriate/steal/use/riff on/reject performance
history. Every piece in this show that I am relating to I consider a door that was opened when
the pieces were originally made, a door for us to walk through. Those artists pointed us in new directions. It is up to us to continue in those directions and continue their investigations and
create our own skeletons/structures.
10.02.2010
Truth in Advertising Titles
Below are the two sets of titles I created for our latest performance, Truth in Advertising. Please see the previous blog post for more information about why each piece had two titles.
1. 20 Discrete Events
2. Person with Object and Pop Song
3. Choreography Created by 6, Performed by 2
choreo by Shelley Senter, Nina Martin, Margaret Paek, Rebecca Bryant, Kelly Dalrymple-Wass, Andrew Wass
4. Contact Improvisation Duet
5. Man Grunting
6. Improvised Trio
7. Scored Contact Improvisation Duet with Sound Score
***************************************************
1. A Useful Fiction - Free will and self determination do exist. We all can choose to act but the circumstances may change before we are ready. Can we adapt to and survive in these new conditions?
2. Still/Life - love, absence, longing.
3. Homage to Elsewhere - What is memory? Is it located in the brain or the body? Can we use the experience and existence of another to trigger memories of my own?
4. Adept At Any Altitude - What is rehearsal? Do two people engaging in an improvised performance modality need to rehearse specifically with each other for a performance or are their years of practicing the form with other people their rehearsal process?
5. Distillation - This piece is a distillation of the collective human experience of cruelty - cruelty that we experience from the direct or inadvertent action of others and cruelty that we consciously or unconsciously inflict upon others.
6. Trigger Conditions - It is hot and bright in the theater lights on the empty stage. Three dancers move and gesticulate through space, time and existences. In this piece the performers grapple with the tension between theater and the spectacle of the contemporary world. It is an investigation: How do we live, how do we breath, how do we reach each other in this post capitalist period?
7. A2Zed/Nexus - Every word/action/idea is at the same time the end of a series and the beginning of new series. Whether or not these two progressions will be related or make sense can only be determined if and when the next word/action/idea is created.
1. 20 Discrete Events
2. Person with Object and Pop Song
3. Choreography Created by 6, Performed by 2
choreo by Shelley Senter, Nina Martin, Margaret Paek, Rebecca Bryant, Kelly Dalrymple-Wass, Andrew Wass
4. Contact Improvisation Duet
5. Man Grunting
6. Improvised Trio
7. Scored Contact Improvisation Duet with Sound Score
***************************************************
1. A Useful Fiction - Free will and self determination do exist. We all can choose to act but the circumstances may change before we are ready. Can we adapt to and survive in these new conditions?
2. Still/Life - love, absence, longing.
3. Homage to Elsewhere - What is memory? Is it located in the brain or the body? Can we use the experience and existence of another to trigger memories of my own?
4. Adept At Any Altitude - What is rehearsal? Do two people engaging in an improvised performance modality need to rehearse specifically with each other for a performance or are their years of practicing the form with other people their rehearsal process?
5. Distillation - This piece is a distillation of the collective human experience of cruelty - cruelty that we experience from the direct or inadvertent action of others and cruelty that we consciously or unconsciously inflict upon others.
6. Trigger Conditions - It is hot and bright in the theater lights on the empty stage. Three dancers move and gesticulate through space, time and existences. In this piece the performers grapple with the tension between theater and the spectacle of the contemporary world. It is an investigation: How do we live, how do we breath, how do we reach each other in this post capitalist period?
7. A2Zed/Nexus - Every word/action/idea is at the same time the end of a series and the beginning of new series. Whether or not these two progressions will be related or make sense can only be determined if and when the next word/action/idea is created.
10.01.2010
Truth in Advertising Program notes
What is the function of a title? A sign to tell the people who read the program what the performance is about? Or a lens through which the audience should view the performance, creating an event that is something different than is what is happening on stage? Neither function we find satisfactory.
If the function of a title is to tell the audience what is happening, then it leaves no room for the audience to participate, for them to create the performance within themselves initiated by what is presented on stage. On the other hand, if the artist uses the title as a lens, then s/he runs the risk of being too vague, leaving all the work of creating the performance up to the audience's imagination and perception. And if that is the case, then the audience could just as well stay home and imagine their own performance.
"Truth in Advertising" presents 7 pieces each with two titles - one a sign and one a lens.
click here for video
If the function of a title is to tell the audience what is happening, then it leaves no room for the audience to participate, for them to create the performance within themselves initiated by what is presented on stage. On the other hand, if the artist uses the title as a lens, then s/he runs the risk of being too vague, leaving all the work of creating the performance up to the audience's imagination and perception. And if that is the case, then the audience could just as well stay home and imagine their own performance.
"Truth in Advertising" presents 7 pieces each with two titles - one a sign and one a lens.
click here for video
9.12.2010
Going to Performances
Last night I went to see Nah Dran XXII at ada. Didn't know anyone on the program, but it is a theater nearby AND I didn't know anyone on the program. Off I went at 5 past 8. Took me all of 4 minutes to bike to the theater. And found parking right away.
I enjoyed about half of the performance. Most of it, if I just viewed it as cool moves in time and space with some sounds. But after reading the program about how do people connect and trust and does this character want to leave her spot...blah blah blah de#$!@blah...
Anyways that is not what I am here to talk about. Upon reading the program, I was surprised to see a friend was performing. She had been pulled into the performance a week ago due to an injury of another dancer. I enjoyed that piece. It has a fruitful structure. While she and I chatted after the performance, she asked me why I had come to the performance. Did I know anyone in the show or had I seen any of the other performers' work. I had not, I replied. A look of what I took as surprise came over her face. Why surprise? That I would go see work of people I don't know?
Regardless of what was going on in her head...it is important for artists to see work. Yes, we all know this, but I think that we forget it. And I would venture to say that it is more important to go see work by people we don't know and aren't friends with. *** Birds of a feather flock together, so your friends probably have similar interests in performance, whether in tool, aesthetic or logic (2 out of 3 at least, another ventured guess). And seeing work by people unknown to you will broaden your horizons.
I have heard several choreographers on different continents and different sub-genres of contemporary dance say that they are tired of going to see work - they don't like what they see (so has performance been reduced to entertainment?) or they don't have time to see other work after their rehearsals/performances and seeing their friends performances (see *** above).
In summation - go see work and a lot of it!
I enjoyed about half of the performance. Most of it, if I just viewed it as cool moves in time and space with some sounds. But after reading the program about how do people connect and trust and does this character want to leave her spot...blah blah blah de#$!@blah...
Anyways that is not what I am here to talk about. Upon reading the program, I was surprised to see a friend was performing. She had been pulled into the performance a week ago due to an injury of another dancer. I enjoyed that piece. It has a fruitful structure. While she and I chatted after the performance, she asked me why I had come to the performance. Did I know anyone in the show or had I seen any of the other performers' work. I had not, I replied. A look of what I took as surprise came over her face. Why surprise? That I would go see work of people I don't know?
Regardless of what was going on in her head...it is important for artists to see work. Yes, we all know this, but I think that we forget it. And I would venture to say that it is more important to go see work by people we don't know and aren't friends with. *** Birds of a feather flock together, so your friends probably have similar interests in performance, whether in tool, aesthetic or logic (2 out of 3 at least, another ventured guess). And seeing work by people unknown to you will broaden your horizons.
I have heard several choreographers on different continents and different sub-genres of contemporary dance say that they are tired of going to see work - they don't like what they see (so has performance been reduced to entertainment?) or they don't have time to see other work after their rehearsals/performances and seeing their friends performances (see *** above).
In summation - go see work and a lot of it!
9.10.2010
Equal representation before law
States are having financial trouble in all areas. One such area is funding for public defenders. After reading this article about the trouble in Missouri, I started thinking about lawyers and equal representation before the law. Party A and Party B are in a legal dispute. Party A is very wealthy and can afford a top law firm and all the research teams, expert witnesses, and investigative teams that come along with it. Party B is poor and not so well off, think small family farm fighting a developer. I am sure John Grisham has written a book about this.
Due to the financial divide, Party A is essentially getting better representation to the law than Party B. Unfair, no?
What I propose is that both parties put the amount of money they were going to spend on legal fees into a pot and then that amount is divided in half. Each party would then have, in theory, equal representation before the law.
Due to the financial divide, Party A is essentially getting better representation to the law than Party B. Unfair, no?
What I propose is that both parties put the amount of money they were going to spend on legal fees into a pot and then that amount is divided in half. Each party would then have, in theory, equal representation before the law.
Taxes for Veterans
Some people argue that American foreign policy is largely governed by the United States insatiable thirst for oil. Please note we invaded Iraq to save them from Saddam, but haven't given as much of a concerted effort in other troubled locations - Rwanda, Somalia - to name a couple. And in our foreign policy efforts, we send many troops into harm's way. Then veterans come back home physically and mentally harmed.
What I propose is a 1¢/gallon tax increase on gasoline. The more gas you buy/use the more you pay. And these extra funds go to help veterans. I would like to see the right try to talk down the idea of increased aid for veterans.
What I propose is a 1¢/gallon tax increase on gasoline. The more gas you buy/use the more you pay. And these extra funds go to help veterans. I would like to see the right try to talk down the idea of increased aid for veterans.
9.06.2010
The Three Stages of Creation
There are three stages of conscious creation, though unconsciousness can factor into them.
They are exploration, experimentation, and execution.
I had a good description of the three written down in a notebook during a caffeine fueled frenzy after a Klein technique class at Labor Gras, but, alas, that notebook is AWOL. Here is a link to an earlier posting on the subject from '08
Their4, I will begin again.
Exploration is the first stage. It is search before the research. It is the hearsal before the rehearsal. It is the discovery of what exists around you, whether you are in the studio or sitting on the subway thinking about your project. It is discovery/invention of what tools you will be using in your project. Also exploration is the rejection of tools. A work of art is more about what it is not than what it is. Granted all types of infinities exist some are just larger than others.
Experimentation is the second stage. Once the tools have been selected/created, their relationships can be investigated. (Uh oh, passive voice) How do the tools interact? Are you using them as tools or have they become logics or aesthetics? Experimentation is also the stage in which you can begin to figure out more in what direction your project will go.
The final stage is execution - when the work is presented before an audience.
I would say that in the choreo/impro spectrum the size of the triangle is larger towards the choreo end and approaches a dot towards the impro end. But choreo could be made as something to experiment with during the execution phase, the logic of that piece then being more improvisational.
All three phases can happen at the same time or separately. In more traditional (choreo'ed) work, there is more linear progression from exploration to experimentation to execution.
Below are two pictographs about this triumvirate. One has the three on a Cartesian co-ordinate system and the other as a simple triangle, which can be mapped on to the co-ordinate system. I find that the co-ordinate system can be a little misleading as it implies a "0" in relation to the three elements, which as I think about it now does make sense, so maybe it is not so confusing. A work of art that has no exploration, no experimentation and no execution would be not. What would something that has an infinite amount of each?
The first pictograph has the term "Sprecta of Deliberation". I borrowed and expanded the term "Spectrum of Deliberation" from Nina Martin. I expanded it to Spectra" as I believe that there is a greater than one dimensional difference between choreo and impro.
I appreciate any thoughts and feedback on this subject.
Tweet
They are exploration, experimentation, and execution.
I had a good description of the three written down in a notebook during a caffeine fueled frenzy after a Klein technique class at Labor Gras, but, alas, that notebook is AWOL. Here is a link to an earlier posting on the subject from '08
Their4, I will begin again.
Exploration is the first stage. It is search before the research. It is the hearsal before the rehearsal. It is the discovery of what exists around you, whether you are in the studio or sitting on the subway thinking about your project. It is discovery/invention of what tools you will be using in your project. Also exploration is the rejection of tools. A work of art is more about what it is not than what it is. Granted all types of infinities exist some are just larger than others.
Experimentation is the second stage. Once the tools have been selected/created, their relationships can be investigated. (Uh oh, passive voice) How do the tools interact? Are you using them as tools or have they become logics or aesthetics? Experimentation is also the stage in which you can begin to figure out more in what direction your project will go.
The final stage is execution - when the work is presented before an audience.
I would say that in the choreo/impro spectrum the size of the triangle is larger towards the choreo end and approaches a dot towards the impro end. But choreo could be made as something to experiment with during the execution phase, the logic of that piece then being more improvisational.
All three phases can happen at the same time or separately. In more traditional (choreo'ed) work, there is more linear progression from exploration to experimentation to execution.
Below are two pictographs about this triumvirate. One has the three on a Cartesian co-ordinate system and the other as a simple triangle, which can be mapped on to the co-ordinate system. I find that the co-ordinate system can be a little misleading as it implies a "0" in relation to the three elements, which as I think about it now does make sense, so maybe it is not so confusing. A work of art that has no exploration, no experimentation and no execution would be not. What would something that has an infinite amount of each?
The first pictograph has the term "Sprecta of Deliberation". I borrowed and expanded the term "Spectrum of Deliberation" from Nina Martin. I expanded it to Spectra" as I believe that there is a greater than one dimensional difference between choreo and impro.
I appreciate any thoughts and feedback on this subject.Tweet
9.05.2010
The Rite of Spring
Has anyone ever said, "Oh, The Rite of Spring...that's been done."? I doubt it and if they had no one would take them seriously. But seriously...how many times has the Rite of Spring been used by various choreographers.
But when we talk about drinking one's own urine in a performance...that's been done. And yes, it has been done. Someone somewhere sometime drank his or her own urine on stage. Maybe it was shocking to the audience, maybe it wasn't. Maybe the urine drinker wasn't even going for shock value. Maybe it was a metaphor for the nitrogen cycle on the earth or how everything that can be considered waste is really useful in another way or useful to someone else.
But if the original pee drinking premiere was going for shock value, s/he has not shocked me, as I have not seen the performance. Thinking about urine drinking does take the shock out of it. If in a Mark Morris Dance Company suddenly one dancer urinates in the mouth of another dancer..that would be shocking. If two performers at a venue such as CounterPulse in San Francisco performed a similar act...not as shocking. In either context, the act of drinking urine would be less shocking if the audience knew about it before hand.
Removing the idea of context based on performers, venue, or foreknowledge, the act of urophagia would still shock me. Maybe shock is not the right word...startle...surprise...But as I have never seen urophagia and never performed it myself, I would be starprised (new word, you read it here first!).
- But it's been done. We, as the collective human consciousness, don't need to go through that again - to paraphrase and misquote a friend of mine. If this were true, about the collective human consciousness, then as soon as a group of humans have experienced something, the rest of humanity doesn't need to experience that something.
At what point have enough homo sapiens sapiens experienced "x" so that the rest do not need to endure/enjoy "x"?
But when we talk about drinking one's own urine in a performance...that's been done. And yes, it has been done. Someone somewhere sometime drank his or her own urine on stage. Maybe it was shocking to the audience, maybe it wasn't. Maybe the urine drinker wasn't even going for shock value. Maybe it was a metaphor for the nitrogen cycle on the earth or how everything that can be considered waste is really useful in another way or useful to someone else.
But if the original pee drinking premiere was going for shock value, s/he has not shocked me, as I have not seen the performance. Thinking about urine drinking does take the shock out of it. If in a Mark Morris Dance Company suddenly one dancer urinates in the mouth of another dancer..that would be shocking. If two performers at a venue such as CounterPulse in San Francisco performed a similar act...not as shocking. In either context, the act of drinking urine would be less shocking if the audience knew about it before hand.
Removing the idea of context based on performers, venue, or foreknowledge, the act of urophagia would still shock me. Maybe shock is not the right word...startle...surprise...But as I have never seen urophagia and never performed it myself, I would be starprised (new word, you read it here first!).
- But it's been done. We, as the collective human consciousness, don't need to go through that again - to paraphrase and misquote a friend of mine. If this were true, about the collective human consciousness, then as soon as a group of humans have experienced something, the rest of humanity doesn't need to experience that something.
At what point have enough homo sapiens sapiens experienced "x" so that the rest do not need to endure/enjoy "x"?
9.01.2010
Names
Maybe I have written about this before, maybe not. I do know that I have thought about this a lot. A parking lot full of thoughts, a parking lot at an amusement park full of thoughts. A parking lot at an amusement park next to an outlet mall full of thoughts. Though the amount of thinking doesn't me that the transmission of these thoughts will be very clear.
Name of dance companies/collectives...More and more groups/people are using the forward slash,"/" after their name with a word or phrase to name their group. Just came across one today - Jesse Hewit/Strong Behavior. From what I have seen/heard about him Strong Behavior is an apt title.
There is also Jess Curtis/Gravity and Nir De Volff/Total Brutal. Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts also use the forward slash but in between the names of the two artists, not between the names of the artists and their company name. Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods is another example. As in her case and De Volff's the website is only the company name whereas in the case of Curtis the website is his name followed by the company name and with Hewit the website is his name without the name of the company.
Ultima Vez/ Wim Vandekeybus might be another example. On the ImpulsTanz website, the names are written with the forward slash but on the website no such relationship could be found. This leads me to believe that the use of the forward slash on the ImpulsTanz website was a result of a decision of the Austrian dance festival and not of the Belgian choreographer.
Why use the forward slash? Is the name of the company not enough? Or is the individual better known than the company? Or is this a return to the modern, i.e. glorification of the individual? First there were "royal" dance companies, then something like the Ballet Russe, not named after an individual but no longer tied to a monarch. Then came something like the Denishawn, named after the two artistic directors, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn (great uncle of Wallace Shawn...just kidding). Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Mark Morris Dance Company, Trisha Brown Dance Company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, etc..
Then came the format that added the dancers in the title - Sasha Waltz & Guests, Scott Wells and Dancers. This format somewhat puts the dancers and the choreographer on an even level, but still the dancers remain anonymous.
Then there came the random word/phrase format entering the post-modern, removing the hierarchy completely as choreographer/creator and performers are not indicated - Pilobolus, Goat Island, Lower Left.
Granted there is not a definite time line when one name format is used and another is no longer used. All formats exist now and companies are continually named in a varieties of formats. One company based in Seattle went from the post-modern format to the modern one - Phffft became Khambatta Dance Company. Why the change, I cannot say. Maybe the choreographer decided to go more "mainstream" with the name. Look at the names of the best funded companies in the United States.
So as asked above, is the use of the slash combining the choreographer's name and the company title a return to the modern?
How about something like - The Andrew Wass Dance Company and Dancers Project Dance Theatre/Non Fiction?
P.S.
Why is the word "dance" in so many dance company names? How many bands have the word rock or music or band or hip hop or rap in their names?
Name of dance companies/collectives...More and more groups/people are using the forward slash,"/" after their name with a word or phrase to name their group. Just came across one today - Jesse Hewit/Strong Behavior. From what I have seen/heard about him Strong Behavior is an apt title.
There is also Jess Curtis/Gravity and Nir De Volff/Total Brutal. Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts also use the forward slash but in between the names of the two artists, not between the names of the artists and their company name. Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods is another example. As in her case and De Volff's the website is only the company name whereas in the case of Curtis the website is his name followed by the company name and with Hewit the website is his name without the name of the company.
Ultima Vez/ Wim Vandekeybus might be another example. On the ImpulsTanz website, the names are written with the forward slash but on the website no such relationship could be found. This leads me to believe that the use of the forward slash on the ImpulsTanz website was a result of a decision of the Austrian dance festival and not of the Belgian choreographer.
Why use the forward slash? Is the name of the company not enough? Or is the individual better known than the company? Or is this a return to the modern, i.e. glorification of the individual? First there were "royal" dance companies, then something like the Ballet Russe, not named after an individual but no longer tied to a monarch. Then came something like the Denishawn, named after the two artistic directors, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn (great uncle of Wallace Shawn...just kidding). Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Mark Morris Dance Company, Trisha Brown Dance Company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, etc..
Then came the format that added the dancers in the title - Sasha Waltz & Guests, Scott Wells and Dancers. This format somewhat puts the dancers and the choreographer on an even level, but still the dancers remain anonymous.
Then there came the random word/phrase format entering the post-modern, removing the hierarchy completely as choreographer/creator and performers are not indicated - Pilobolus, Goat Island, Lower Left.
Granted there is not a definite time line when one name format is used and another is no longer used. All formats exist now and companies are continually named in a varieties of formats. One company based in Seattle went from the post-modern format to the modern one - Phffft became Khambatta Dance Company. Why the change, I cannot say. Maybe the choreographer decided to go more "mainstream" with the name. Look at the names of the best funded companies in the United States.
So as asked above, is the use of the slash combining the choreographer's name and the company title a return to the modern?
How about something like - The Andrew Wass Dance Company and Dancers Project Dance Theatre/Non Fiction?
P.S.
Why is the word "dance" in so many dance company names? How many bands have the word rock or music or band or hip hop or rap in their names?
8.17.2010
Styles of Dance
Jazz dance has Fosse, Simonson ( the only two I know of) and I sure many more styles
Modern has Horton, Graham, Limon.
Ballet has Vaganova, Cecchetti, Russian, Danish, English styles, to just name a few.
Yoga has Vipassana, Hatha, Jivamukti, Svaroopa, Ashtanga, Bikram and...
Say Jazz, modern, ballet, or yoga and most people will have some idea of what you are talking about. Might not be exactly what you mean, but in the ballparl
Contact Improvisation, as of know, has one name. Yes, there are regional styles - West Coast, East Coast, European. But as CI is so young compared to the other movement modalities mentioned (how old is Yoga?!?), it has not been around long enough to change and become codified.
Eventually Contact Improvisation will become codified and that is just as good as it is bad. Codification can lead to clarity, but also to ossification. Codification can then also let practitioners of the form reject was has come before and discover new ground within a form. If CI does not expand and grow (some people might see this as becoming something else and the death of the form) it will stagnate.
I look forward to how many styles and flavors of CI there will be in another 38 years.
Modern has Horton, Graham, Limon.
Ballet has Vaganova, Cecchetti, Russian, Danish, English styles, to just name a few.
Yoga has Vipassana, Hatha, Jivamukti, Svaroopa, Ashtanga, Bikram and...
Say Jazz, modern, ballet, or yoga and most people will have some idea of what you are talking about. Might not be exactly what you mean, but in the ballparl
Contact Improvisation, as of know, has one name. Yes, there are regional styles - West Coast, East Coast, European. But as CI is so young compared to the other movement modalities mentioned (how old is Yoga?!?), it has not been around long enough to change and become codified.
Eventually Contact Improvisation will become codified and that is just as good as it is bad. Codification can lead to clarity, but also to ossification. Codification can then also let practitioners of the form reject was has come before and discover new ground within a form. If CI does not expand and grow (some people might see this as becoming something else and the death of the form) it will stagnate.
I look forward to how many styles and flavors of CI there will be in another 38 years.
8.02.2010
Investing in an Improvisation
Language is a powerful tool. And as with all tools, it is empowering and limiting at the same time. After teaching at Dance Ranch Marfa BERLIN and performing as part of the performance marathon at Ponderosa, I have been thinking about the word "invest".
What does it mean to invest in an improvisation? To invest in material? Other terms for a similar idea are "t0 mine that vein" of material. Again the idea of "going in" is present. The idea of "going in" in relation to an improvisation is telling. Why do we need to go in, to invest in material to create and develop material? It shows an idea that to create and develop material we need to shut out and remove ourselves from outside stimuli. I can't think of a more limited place in terms of external stimuli than a mine. Why would we want to work/improvise/create from a place of limited awareness and options?
The idea of "investing in material" leads spatial static work. Going in...into a black hole that sucks you in. Somewhat dramatic of an image...
And if the rest of the ensemble is there to take care of the space, the composition while you and partner(s) invest in material, that leads to even further imbalance between the investors and the ensemble. The investors implode and the ensemble waits for them to resurface.
Take the word "invest". INvest. How about OUTvest? How would we outvest in material during an improvisation?
Why can't our awarenesses go outwards when we are mining material in an improvisation? Why isn't the spatial care taking of the ensemble the mother lode to be mined?
Some other nascent thoughts-
using the Four Winds in CI to explore spatial awareness.
mining the space metaphor relating to Cloud City in Star Wars
What does it mean to invest in an improvisation? To invest in material? Other terms for a similar idea are "t0 mine that vein" of material. Again the idea of "going in" is present. The idea of "going in" in relation to an improvisation is telling. Why do we need to go in, to invest in material to create and develop material? It shows an idea that to create and develop material we need to shut out and remove ourselves from outside stimuli. I can't think of a more limited place in terms of external stimuli than a mine. Why would we want to work/improvise/create from a place of limited awareness and options?
The idea of "investing in material" leads spatial static work. Going in...into a black hole that sucks you in. Somewhat dramatic of an image...
And if the rest of the ensemble is there to take care of the space, the composition while you and partner(s) invest in material, that leads to even further imbalance between the investors and the ensemble. The investors implode and the ensemble waits for them to resurface.
Take the word "invest". INvest. How about OUTvest? How would we outvest in material during an improvisation?
Why can't our awarenesses go outwards when we are mining material in an improvisation? Why isn't the spatial care taking of the ensemble the mother lode to be mined?
Some other nascent thoughts-
using the Four Winds in CI to explore spatial awareness.
mining the space metaphor relating to Cloud City in Star Wars
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