process doodles

Post-Mortem

OK we did it!
Saturday night, -25 degrees outside, and an art gallery with 800 people in it. I was relieved that the event organizers had things under as much control as they did, but it still bordered on chaos. It seemed to involve a power struggle between AGA security and the event organizers/liaison people. We often got caught in the middle. We seemed to defy the fire code- especially on the stairwell descent, and they weren't interested in turning off the security cameras for Eryn's nude part and overall had no sense of humour at all (which made them even funnier!)

Ernest's buddy who came to do video doc was a performance in himself with his bright red jacket and his overall obtrusiveness. If I knew he would be such a paparazzi I would have choreographed him in a bit better, because as it was he distracted some of the tenderest moments by being right where the audience should be looking. I sure did not foresee that one!

The tech kids were a great help- it turned out that we had a LOT of crap to load in and out. The dress alone would have been an ordeal...

And Ernest took back the dress and his legs! I am a bit sad at seeing them all leave...

One of my funnest moments was when we managed to pull Jesse, Amber and Catherine form the extended entrance line up and costume them up to dance with us!! They added to the critical mass falling down the stairs.

I am not sure what to do with this piece from this point- I think I will just let it sink in a bit. And collect feedback!
Feel free to deposit some -------------

Feedback Time...

We are gearing up for our open showing/feedback session tonight at the Studio at 8:30 in preparation for the premiere on Saturday. There are still lots of little details to iron out, but it will be good for the performers to have focus and a test audience to try things out on.

Sadly, Shawn is gone already- back to Estonia! That means there will be no audio tweaking, which is our new limitation.
The other new factor is Patrick Ares Pilon is dropping by to add some film to the "Spine" section.
And flour. (Things weren't messy enough)
And Michelle's costume- it is stunning.

here is the link to the Facebook event page

Translations

As the piece gets closer and chaos will soon envelop us all, I can only hope that I have managed to translate, either into words, movement, or meaning the impressions and expressions that I feel in response to Burtynsky's works on oil. Kat and Michelle both recently saw the exhibit, and their own reactions were strong and visceral. I don't find the work his work too negative- I see it as hopeful and an impetus for change. The characters and vignettes in Bodies in O are my feeling of a future world if nothing changes. They are sometimes mythic, sometimes symbolic, but not of the here and now. Their losses are more apparent than ours are.

Acting and Dancing

I have been thinking about the differences between acting and dancing, performing and presenting, constructing and being. I think that dancers work with their own selves a bit more readily than actors do, and then go to a symbolic level, where they can be safe in performance. In really physical dance, the 'character' ends up being a really good dancer, dancing safely first and foremost, and often the choreographer tries to lead the performer into different movement states that elicit an emotional trigger in the performer- so they don't have to construct one.

At the same time, a dancer's performance state involves self-witnessing: Where is the front? Is it safe to jump now? Am I on cue with the music? Did I just fluff that move?  Those constant self-assessments can get in the way, but as an improviser, that is part of the brain space that needs to be active and able to judge the situation accurately in order to make the next split-second decision. For me, it is part of the fun.

Musical side

Shawn has been developing incredible soundscapes that we get to try out this week. Michelle and I visited him on Monday so that she could sing "Dido's Lament" in with his shipbreaking sounds. Frightening! We should get the new version tomorrow to work with Kat and timing of the development. The piece needs more tweaking than I thought (go figure).

I am enjoying Ernest as the voyeur/archivist/reminder that we have to perform eventually. It adds a certain tension to the process, but also makes us go a bit deeper to stay in, I think. He is not obstructive, but there is a constant reminder that a photographer is in the room. At one point, Eryn and David actually adjusted their duet timing to Ernest's clicking sounds.

Plans for Development

It is funny how rehearsal sometimes differs form my intentions going in. Eryn and David are both great dancers and work hard to get things right. I asked them to start speaking while they were dancing, kind of messing up their practiced flow to see what would happen. Because the movement is so jerky and stop/start, there is a tendency to make it aggressive, and I want to see if there are other places that it could go in contrast to the first choice. This week I want to make them dance partner-less, imagining the support of the other and seeing how that changes things, and also role-switching so Eryn can do some lifting. I will see how much that plan changes tonight...

AGA Refinery

Refinery info for Nov 20

Ed's TED Talk (35 min)

Ed Burtynsky's Manufactured Landscapes

Breadth and Range

Rehearsal today was interesting- things are getting deeper and it is pretty funny rehearsing with this drop-in centre type of structure, when people just kind of show up and work on their part. I have been through so many processes in which I was unaware of what the other people were doing, and I am glad that this ensemble can be there to witness each other in the periphery. Kind of like 3 year olds doing parallel play. It is also good since the material is dense and a bit of a downer sometimes. Most of the pieces have a spellbinding quality too and so it is nice to be able to share them with each other and see if it is working...

Kat and Michelle are building their connection in a frightening way- that piece really has the meat of the message. It is the anti-oil piece in a way, but it is turning out to be much more. I gave Kat the volcano and Michelle the Earth's crust as images to work through, so that when Kat erupts they get to really meet. In a once-a-millenium meeting...

Eryn and David just worked physical repetition and that is good because the piece will need lots of confidence to do it on cement with a loose audience. They are starting to look strong and intuitive together and to find new things in the choreography.

Met with Shawn tonight and went over the sound details so he can build- it is helpful that we know what we want as far as structure so clearly at this point.
I look forward to hearing his little angel voices next week! Very excited...

Also I got to meet our stage manager Tanya today which is going to be a HUGE relief in a week or two to not have to worry about!

Duet at AGA at sunrise

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These were all taken by Ernest...

Katrina in the tire dress

Heidi working with limbs

Collage Process

We continue to meet in a very layered way, and did a 'show and share' of Spine, Limbs, and Optic Nerve today. I am purposely trying to introduce performance into the process, since the different sections will not interact with one another in performance. I want the performers to be able to conceive of the whole by placing themselves outside for parts other than the ones that they are in.  I am appreciating the density of what we are creating, and anticipate editing and clarifying as we evolve, but still with the same weight of material that we now have.

We played a bit with the video images for Spine with Eryn, which is going to be more interesting and pertinent to the whole piece than I initially thought.

It is interesting to have Ernest there photographing- a luxury in some ways, and it keeps things on edge a bit in other ways. I promise to post some shots of his process.

Now that we have our overall structure, titles, time frames, we just need to get the music and the journeys mapped out a bit more.

titles and one-liners

"Spine"
    location: under the stairs on 1F
    dancer: Eryn Tempest
   Viewing the body as an intimate landscape

"Limbs"
    location: RBC gallery on 2F
    dancer: Heidi Bunting
   Remembering the body as more than a sum of parts, in relation to missing parts

"Optic Nerve"
    location: 3F gallery
    dancer: Katrina Smy (dress by Sid Neigum)
    singer: Michelle Milenkovic
    An operatic and visual ode to the end of oil

"Organs"
    location: stairwell from 3F to 1F

            dancers: Eryn Tempest, David MacInnis, Gerry Morita, Matt Brault

   Finding love through gravity; falling and halting

Sound design by Shawn Pinchbeck
Scoreography by Gerry Morita
Mile Zero Dance

Random bits of progress

Heidi began working with the mannequin legs yesterday and it was so lovely. She has some sort of serenity in her focus that is very powerful to watch as she manipulates them and places them. The piece is so much about line and order, and her Cunningham-ness really shows through even in a subtle way.  Since her task is so simple and complicated at the same time, it will differ each time, and she can improvise it easily I think.

Katrina in the big tire dress is another spell-binding piece. Frightening a bit, which is appropriate.

The duet is getting built, but will be likely pretty short since it is dense and fast. Definitely a counterpoint.

Working with Shawn's sounds is going well. Looking forward to some new stuff.

Visited the AGA again and mapped out the pieces in the space, which causes some adjustments, but makes it more definite.

press....

It is always funny when you need to do press stuff before you are really ready with a piece. In this case, it was Breakfast Television with Eryn and David bright and early on Friday. We were able to use it to rehearse their duet, try some things on the stairs, approve the colour black, and to get some nice shots of the sunrise with them dancing (Ernest did, not me)
In the spoken interview part I couldn't believe that I said that we are extracting movement just like extracting oil...boy what a load!
Eryn and David both brought out their chops and delivered very nicely. I think press stuff is often more revealing and nerve wrecking than actually performing is. One minute is not much time to show what you've got and it really puts things into adrenalin mode, which is not ideal, but is a part of what we do...
It was nice to spend time in the building and yes, we do need to bring lighting to do the work justice.
The stairs are gorgeous.

Exhausted Dance

I have been reading Andre Lepecki's criticism of modern dance for making the assumption that dance= continuous flow of movement. It also reminds me of Min Tanaka, who says he doesn't care if people think what he does is not dance anymore, and prefers improvisations in the outdoors to performances in theatres.

It is interesting how movement has dictated what we think of as dance, categorizing pedestrian movements as 'non-dance', and stillness as some sort of empty time. It is challenging to break entropy, whether it is moving or halted.

David's Text

"Bodies of O"

Did they know?

Did anyone tell oh-eye-el

that their souls would flow

letting us stretch and grow

like a virus

Unchecked, unmanned man

careening at a helmless wheel

ever forward, ever on

Did they know?

Did they know that their blood

stolen from a field without battle

would fill our armor

and we'd swell

our hive built with the shadow of their bones

atop their very shoulders?

In seven-year-old sunlight we

move in clouds of their sighs

burned off, churned by the still restless wind

lost in the jungle concrete

and stolen beaches.

Where straw men fire metronome guns

full of fear

and oceans of oceanless sea stretch

further than the I

in me cares to see.

Rainstick in hand I laugh at the clouds

and swear it's dry-bone.

Would they have stayed if they had known?

Or would they have changed course

using force or whatever necessary

means to mean us no harm

but to leave no leaves

Leaving is the easiest way to say

hello

to the future-past

Like glass

cracked and stained it waits

like a bowl of fruit jellies

standing at ease

waiting for a hand

to make them useful again 

Making a Mess

Well today was exciting and full at rehearsal. Michelle arrived and we began working on her scene with "Dido' Lament", while trying to see what it looks like/feels like to hammer her skirt to a frame. Of course, she was stunning and captivating. I enjoy the long 'building/working' introduction as she builds her space before beginning her ritual of self-sacrifice. Jamie (her 4 year old) was so sweet helping her hammer...
I am quite certain that Michelle ends the whole piece.

David and Eryn met again- this time as partners. We took the so-called choreography that David and I developed last week and re-fashioned it for their 2 bodies and added new movement too. The piece is going to really get enriched by repetition, and will really suit a 3-D environment for viewing.  I am trying not to over-complexify it so that it can stay pure, although it is tempting to just choreograph a whole contact duet. The serialism of repeating events seems necessary- kind of like a Phillip Glass structure.

Ernest showed up with both the mannequin legs AND the tire dress. Both are perfect and almost hideous. The legs, all white, make quite the dance prop and I am now excited to get Heidi in there. The tire dress is heavy and formidable, but I think that Kat will work really well in it. She can play her iconic queenly dance and the lines will be so strong... I imagine Kat and Michelle will actually be dueting on different levels of the gallery concurrently. We will have to try it once we get the dress safe and less sharp to play in.

Ernest and I talked about documentation and how to actually document something like this- he seems interested in bringing in video to truly represent it.  I like photos too in how they can capture an instant and hint at the past/future of it. This seems like an ongoing conversation.

After dancing and playing in the space, we went down to the AGA to check out the Burtynsky exhibit and the space itself. Wow. The exhibit is so moving and disturbing- even more than I expected.

Space-wise, we looked at the 3-F to begin with, working the piece downwards over time. We need to decide what happens with sound so that we are selective about the DJ's a the Refinery event, although it sounds like we can still do mostly what we want. I will try to get them something quite concrete ahead of time.

The stairs are appealing and David might need 2 other people to fall down with him over the span of an hour or so, with David dueting on the landings with Eryn.  Also Michelle might need 'help' with her frame (which doesn't exist yet).

It was pretty obvious by the end of rehearsal today that the mess has begun, the props have arrived, and I am in process...

legs...

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Spatial Pull- falling down the stairs...

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Rehearsal

I met David today and after a long exploration, we began some duet choreography. I am building 'loops' of motion that return to a starting point and can be repeated several times- I think I want 5 loops.  This duet would occur either at the top or the bottom of the staircase. It uses some contact and some cause/effect style of movements. (I am thinking of Eryn for the part I am doing)

We also have been working on building "ma". This is a zen term to describe the sense of nothingness and space that proceeds any movement, and causes us to be more subtle and clear in our choices, instead of flowing indefinitely. David's personal vocabulary is very interesting with his combination of line, strength, and martial arts training that allows him to do some very extreme lunges and hand gestures. He should be a fine candidate for falling slow motion down the stairs.

We discussed the falling down the stairs in terms of a man coming undone, perhaps going insane, or even committing suicide. I like the 'suit' as a uniform that reflects internal dishevelment as it gets messed up. David wondered if the duet somehow continues down the stairs.

We also worked with Shawn's soundtrack to last week's performance, "Tuurv", and it is revealing to work with. Shawn's sounds and imagery are very dark and mechanical, but overall, it really breathes and allows for dancing. He will create something new for this, but it good to enter his head space now in studio. I do not know exactly how Shawn and Michelle will work together, but I trust them both to find something new and rich.

Ernest dropped in just to check our process out and he will be photographing next week.
I am also planning to get the legs and tire dress into the space soon...

Links and Background to this project

AGA Refinery

I will be performing this work at the Refinery Party related to this exhibition. It is an interesting setup- basically an art party with a crowd of interested art lovers and shmoozers- not necessarily my typical audience. Many of them will have no expectations of the night's performance, and may find it all 'weird', or may find it to be a diversion (welcome or not) from socializing. My goal is to interest this new potential audience, and to present them with something slightly radical and indicative of how I really feel about oil (which is that it does not need artistic glamourizing). So without ruining the party, I do want to subvert it somewhat and I would love to be able to do so in a way that the 'audience' is actually joining me in that subversion, since I think most people feel that Big Oil needs subverting and would secretly like to be in on it.

Ed Burtynsky did not return my email, but he is a very famous artist at the moment, and his work manages to tread delicately between the horrible images he presents of landscapes and workplaces ravaged by the size of the human project on earth, and images of aesthetic beauty that simply record the way things are.
Burtynsky's website

His position is not neutral, as his Ted talk demonstrates, but he does still manage to get large corporations to cooperate with him, which is in itself a work of art.

What does this have to do with dance?
I am attracted to the body as a landscape. I see parallels between how we as a society treat our natural landscape and how we treat our own personal, emotional and physical landscapes. The disconnection runs through us all,  and dance is a great medium for displaying these more internal states and showing people what is inside us. Well, some of us...

My starting point:
4 x 20 minute installations in different locations of the gallery
Heidi Bunting (55 year old dancer with great legs)
http://www.heidibuntingdance.com/
Michelle Milenkovic (mezzo soprano)
David MacInnis (actor/dancer)
Eryn Tempest (dancer)
Shawn Pinchbeck (audio artist)
http://www.spinchbeck.com/

I am also involved with Ernest the photographer, a micro projector, Sid's tire dress, and various images and starting points for dances and performances. some are new and some are old.
A red ribbon that can be followed like a trail
A dress that gets hammered to a frame mid aria
A man falling down the stairs in slow motion talking nonsense to himself
Sound sources from various locations
A pile of prosthetic legs
A possible love duet (why not)

and myself.