Fragments from a Work in Progress, with Kenyon College.
VIRTUAL PARTNER:: LAURA LARS dAVID
17 / 12 / 2015
INBEDIA: An International Duet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKCXcpaCDnQ&app=desktop
'Networked electronic technologies have removed any limit to what can be done in bed.'
17 / 12 / 2015
INBEDIA: An International Duet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKCXcpaCDnQ&app=desktop
'Networked electronic technologies have removed any limit to what can be done in bed.'
Beatriz Colomina
I think there is no other phrase better describing my collaboration with Laura, than the above. Thanks to our electronically restructed cities of 21st century, two dance students, the one from Gambier, Ohio and the other from Greece, Athens, had the chance to collaborate remotely, without having ever met physically.
By means of the aforementioned synchronous and asynchronous conversations, we were giving feedback to one another. We started analysing what we like most in our partner's movement vocabulary and how we can combine them. For instance, we noticed that Laura dances basicly on the vertical axis and in a more upright way, while me on the horizontal, being heavier and 'spilled' around the floor. But most of all, we wanted to incorporate these movement elements in the narration of our project.
It seemed to me a very pleasant surprise that Laura took the initiative to propose the place of our duet: the bed. My answer was super positive, since the place of bed, literally and as a metaphor, had become previously a part of a research I had for my thesis for my degree in Architecture. Soon, we arrived to combine, our choreographic material we had from our respective solos , with a theoritical and poetical background of what it is to dance in bed. All of our attention is transferred to our bodily states when we. The oppositional states of nervousness and restlessness when we try to sleep and we can't, and the absolute state of having left the body sank, engulfed and no longer easily moving, is the main theme of our project. For this purpose, we took full advantage our time difference, while realizing that when Laura falls to bed, approximately, I' m waking up.
Meanwhile, we develop a 'cyber-dialogue', meaning that our minds are connected. Laura askes from me to watch her while she's dancing and I'm complaining because she is waking me up. Laura needs company and finally finds it to me, when I'm trying in a state between sleeping and dreaming explain and reassure her that bed is the place 'where unformulated dangers may threaten', is also a place for dreaming. So, I am throwing at her sugarlumps in order to calm her down and I invite her to a 'cyber-duet'. Finally, Laura succeeds to fall asleep and I am waking up to begin my brand new day, after having enjoyed a playful dream with my 'cyber-friend' Laura.
artistic challenges
The 'theme' of our project at first seemed quite clear, but then, starting discussing with Laura more in depth and thinking about the directional issues, we realized that many further and important issues lie behind. 'Are going to work on our literal beds?', was our first challenge to work with. I really felt the need to find an artistic -scenic- way to express what it means to me my bed what rather than dancing on my literal one (although afterwards I had one very helpful reahearsal on it). The second main challenge is how we are going show that one ocean separates us. Issues of locality and narrative issues emerged. So, we decided to find portable beds and place them outdoors (unfortunately I didn't manage to make it. I will explain later along). While it was my idea first, Laura was very keen on it and supported the idea of a place outdoors in our narration.
given more time
For me, if we had more time given, I would film one more time my part, this time outdoors, since the day I arranged the shooting, was raining. (Personal issues prevented me from having time for a second filming). So I tried to set a scene of intimate space in one's friend studio.Furthermore, I loved our collaboration with Laura, I am amazed that everything just rolled as I imagined. We had a mutual faith to our partner's work, consistence and individual style and aesthetics, so I would really love to dance with her live in our respective places, but this time with a real interaction, instead of a directed one.
Finally, I would experimenting more in what it looks like to move in our sleep and in our dreams.
new knowledge about choreographic practice
Even though sometimes I face diffuculty in collaborating with others, let alone that I am a freshman in the world of dance, Laura inspired me confidence and safety both in expressing my personal ideas- she was always listening to them and experimenting with them- as well as confidence in her choreographic qualities and her smart and fast way in inventing solutions and proposing beautiful ideas. So, concerning the choreographic practice, this collaboration learned to me to express verbally the ideas I have for body movement, as well as understanding how to transfer the ideas my partner suggested to me again verbally, in my choreography.
The double role we had to incorporate gave me a lot of interesting feedback: I was part-director of someone else's choreography, and I become the subject of someone else's direction. The procedure of rehearsing and recording choreographic material and then sharing it with someone and working further on it amazed me.
For me, the main heart of this international communication, of course is evident by means of our work- video, but lies in the procedure : how to manage and evolve a collaboration and share ideas with someone you have never met and there is no physical contact, in a project which is first of all physical. As my teacher, mrs Colberg suggested, the video was just a 'happy accident' of all this work that we happily can share it with others as a medium for describing this experience.
I feel very lucky after having collaborating with Laura!
6-12-2015
LAB TIME
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YDM18yCJz8&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NHqbpchkC0&feature=youtu.be
FIRST ENTRY 1 12 2015
BED
'THE ELEMENTARY SPACE OF THE HUMAN BODY'
'THE ONE WHICH EVEN THE MAN COMPLETELY CRIPPLED BY DEBTS HAS THE RIGHT TO KEEP'
Perec, George, Species of Spaces and Other Pieces
bed as a furniture, as an architectural space, as a container for dreams, tears, thoughts, emotions, as a metaphor.
Historically speaking, the bed as an instrument is conceived for the nocturnal repose( Perec, George, Species of Spaces and Other Pieces). However, as the architecture historian Beatriz Colomina suggests in her recent work 'The Century of Bed' (see link below), 'bed is now a site of action. To lie down is not to rest, but to move'. I would add, to move virtually, because 'the voluntary invalid has no need of their legs'. As she cites, the Wall Street Journal reported in 2012 that 80 percent of young New York City professionals work regularly from bed. Networked electronic technologies have removed any limit to what can be done in bed.
Needless to say, that one choreography is among the things that can be done in bed. Of course I 'm talking about a choreography with two partners; the first, let's say, is living at Ohio, U.S. and the other in Athens, Greece. However, except for verifying the aforementioned and already known- that of performing a choreography from bed and remotely, there is a further element that interests me: Staging the space of bed, I hope it will show that it's not just a space to withdraw the body, while the mind is over-working (or over-running) on the 'superhighways of information'.
Useful links
http://monoskop.org/images/b/b0/Perec_Georges_Species_of_Spaces_and_Other_Pieces.pdf
[ FROM SOLO TO DIALOGUE ]
Elements that I intend to keep from my solo : :
LOAD
bed is the place where I leave on purpose all of my weight, and let gravity take over.
[ From THIS IS ME , THIS IS MY BED ]
Starting on the first lesson with performing-exploring 'who is me that dances',
I'll try these days to find out, via recalling, 'which is the bed I'm dancing on'.
[ 'bedroom for my wife', by Adolf Loos, 1903 ][ FROM NINETIES ]
'surveillance bed', by julia scher
staging the private space
withDrawing room, by Diller+Scofidio
[ Bed as a radious ]
27 - 10 - 2015
VARIATIONS
T E M P O / I N S T R U M E N T A T I O N / E M B E L L I S H M E N T
T. / WITHOUT LOSING ANY QUALITY IN THAT MOVEMENT, I PERFORMED SOME KEY MOVEMENTS THAT I HAVE KEPT THROUGH ALL OF THIS TIME, VERY FAST, as fast as I could, AND EQUIVALENTLY VERY SLOW.
I. / Perform a sequence with another BODY PART.
E. / Except for the word itself which means to enrich a movement and 'zoom in' in order to go in detail, this term - when a movement sequence uses mostly the legs , for example- helped me to focus on the EXACT POSITION and APPEARANCE of my hands, my neck or my head. To bring to the front my 'disapperaring' body parts.
E. / Except for the word itself which means to enrich a movement and 'zoom in' in order to go in detail, this term - when a movement sequence uses mostly the legs , for example- helped me to focus on the EXACT POSITION and APPEARANCE of my hands, my neck or my head. To bring to the front my 'disapperaring' body parts.
SENTENCE
TRYING TO LIFT A ROCK WITH A BOTTLE ON YOUR HEAD
(that could be a real task!)
WHAT A LOAD TO CARRY, THEN
23 - 10 - 2015
SENTENCE' THE TABLES TURN SOMETIMES'
FROM PERSONAL ENGAGEMENT TO AN OBJECTIVE/PROFESSIONAL LOOK
I become the object of my attention.
NOTES from the lesson
I become the object of my attention.
16 - 10 - 2015
how do deal with
distinguish / CONSTANTS and VARIABLES
the PROBLEM > the TASK (Make use of my problem. In my case
. . . . . . .
MY WORDLOAD
i perceive the word load as the OVERWEIGHT that my body has to carry and manage.
It's a reverse force in every movement I 'm trying to complete and is exerted in every direction .
In the way gravity drags my body on the ground, the load, like a vacuum, does the same thing, but in multiple directions.
MY TASK 'TODAY : YOU HAVE MANY THINGS TO DO AND THAT CAUSES SOMETHING INTO YOUR BODY'
DISMANTLING /// my extremities, upper and lower limbs, are becoming objects of my obsession to manage to do every thing in one day.
Τhe thing that intrigues me to explore , is how in the end Ι devote myself and my time on the distribution rather than on the things themselves. I coerce myself, I dragoon my bodyparts to take postures which are not impulsive, but imposed. As a result, especially my limbs, are in positions
DISTORTION /// of course the above proccess distorts my body
MY INVISIBLE PARTNER ERNESTO NETO
[refreshed 02.11.2015]
ANCHOR my body anchored to the ground
sculpture-installation series of a big scale
huge tights filled up with turmeric, clove, cumin, ginger, pepper, and annatto
the spices work
we find the element of distortion, as the type of texture used, stretches
 |
| Levathian Thot |
a feeling that every little surface of my body needs to be awakened and interface with one other surface, be it the surface of the floor or the rest of my body.
a sweet blues-y sensation
this is the time of the day that I will give attention to me, what I really feel and most importantly how my body wants to express it.
