Sunday, January 30, 2011
Big Day! Photoshoot
Friday, January 28, 2011
French Vogue + Chanson = Perfect
Or perhaps more specifically, I'm trying to make a dance for this DRESS.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Describing my work...
Jessica Bonenfant, creative director of Brooklyn based Lola Lola Dance Theatre, presents a twenty-five minute work for five female performers. Bonenfant uses the medium of dance theatre and incorporates multimedia technology to evoke images that inhabit the space between dusk and nightfall, the hour when fireflies appear on a mild summer night. The work addresses concepts of exposure: emotional vulnerability, corporeal revelation and photographic processes, all framed by the multi-sensory human experience. Working from embodiment of embedded memories, photographic imagery, and fictional narratives, Bonenfant juxtaposes, superimposes and overlaps collaboratively created vignettes to create an intimate, moving and visually stunning experience.
Much of the imagery is based on travel to Paris, Montpellier and Marseille, France, and Bonenfant herself will be designing an immersive projection environment that will be populated by the moving, speaking and even singing bodies of Jillian Hopper, Isabella Ingles, Julie Learned, Molly Ross and Nola Smith. Set pieces (by Janine Woods) and costumes will be illuminated by LED technology engineered by multi-media artist William Stanton. The sound score will collage American contemporary folk, early country, and indie rock with French chanson and pop music.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Yelle, continued
On Wednesday I had a record hour of productivity. After a long and active day, I peaked with the creation of three phrases to “Ce jeu” on repeat. Afterward, I went home starving and dozed off at my computer (and then during a phone call, and then on the couch).
The choreography to “Ce jeu” is the first movement I have generated myself and passed off to the dancers in the traditional working manner. Thus far we have improvised and cultivated, or I have directed bodies moment by moment. I wanted to push myself past my normal boundaries with the movement, but I still wanted it to appear “signature”, so to speak. I wanted something athletic, but quirky.
The dancers picked up the material very quickly on Thursday, since we had less than an hour to work on it. Most of the cast was exhausted from rehearsing for the Power Center show, but they really pulled themselves together to learn the phrase work. I was exhausted too, still fatigued from Wednesday, and thinking less than sharply. But something about the combination of uplifting music and genuinely fun movement kept us going. The dancers are voting to use the Yelle song for the ending.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Yelle!
Facebook as inspiration? The success of social networking?
My friend Donia posted a link to this video:
French Fry glasses. Dinosaurs falling over. Unitards with puff sleeves. Bolero jackets with nothing underneath. Stripes. LOTS of stripes. Amazingness. What does this have to do with my thesis? Likely, nothing. Possibly? Everything. It made me want to dance. I bought the song “Ce Jeu” off I-tunes, and on the following Sunday morning generated a phrase in the middle of my living room. A phrase where I made it a point to subvert my habits in sequencing movement organically. The phrase is quirky, and a hell of a lot of fun to perform.
In rehearsal that afternoon we tried it to the Yelle song. I like the idea of ending the entire dance with an upbeat anthem, but initially was not convinced that the French pop song was going to be just right. In a sense I felt like I might be emulating Cecilia Bengolea & Francois Chaignaud’s use of a Spice Girls song at the end of their work “Sylphide”. But my dance isn’t loaded with the severe oddness of S&M sensory depravation bags or the heavy metaphor of a life/beyond life cycle. So we tried the phrase to a number of pieces of music. The other overall winner was a song by Lee “Scratch” Perry, and it is certainly in the running for ultimate dance section.
The nice thing about the Yelle song is that in the opening there is percussive sound that would need to coincide with a head jerk – and it makes it so that the head jerk is not on the anticipated first count, but on an “and four”. I’m not sure if that makes sense the way I’ve written it, but it is clear kinesthetically & aurally to the dancers.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Jillian / Julie Duet
I’m trying to remember how this started for me. On one hand, the duet came about from the reality of having only Julie and Jillian available. I think my initial directive was to stand facing the same direction, front to back, and improvise moving their arms together. With my i-pod MIA (turns out it was there the whole time) Jillian put on music by The Innocence Mission, which fit the mood perfectly. Their folky album looped continuously as we created. Mostly I directed – asking questions and making decisions based on the dancer’s physical answers. I thought we had created a nice, succinct duet, but when we showed the rest of the cast they said “Beautiful! I want more!” Now, leaving people wanting more is a good thing, but the following week we decided to add more, which I think solidified some of the movement themes by allowing permutations of repeated movements. Hopefully we’ve not extended so much that we have lost the desire for continuation.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Cindy Sherman
Before this rehearsal I was looking at my photography books, thinking about working on translating photographic exposure into some kind of movement constraints, and was feeling stuck. I saw my book of Cindy Sherman’s untitled film stills, and as I thumbed through it realized she often captures the moods I’m going for in this work.
Initially I was very interested in (and still am, for that matter) working along the lines of Pina Bausch – asking questions that allow the performers to access personal memories or experiences and translate them into performance via improvisation. It is a very internal to external way of working. I began to wonder if it might work the opposite way – external to internal. For instance, what if we emulated one of Sherman’s film stills as a starting point?
In her Untitled Film Stills, Sherman is the subject and photographer. She is a master of disguise, and each image truly looks as if it is a moment with motion and intention before and after it. It is easy to believe they are stills from a film. In the staging of each still I imagine the combination of the visual aesthetic and the emotional landscape had to come together from a place of universality and iconography. I would be surprised if personal moments came into play in the initial stages of imagining an image.
I asked the dancers to each select a photograph that resonated with them, and to start by emulating Sherman’s physical pose. From there I asked them to create movement that led up to, followed, or encapsulated this moment. After they worked for a while I asked them to journal, from the perspective of their “character” from the photograph about what was going on. They could include back story or be in the “present” moment of the image. Then, I asked them to return to moving.
Some of the results were really moving and beautiful. Nola’s gave us an idea for a dane in a towel. Molly’s exposure of her stomach could be an interesting moment to explore, and Bella’s reach for help that isn’t coming could be a basis for a solo.
We ended by playing with how these snapshot moments could be overlaid, or used as transitions.