New Work!

Sacre Bleu! Or, Camembert 8 Euros. is an investigation into what it means to allow one’s self to be seen.  This performance-as-research project has grown out of readings by/about strippers/peep-show dancers, and well as a visit to Amsterdam’s famous Red Light District.  I am exploring the implications of putting the body on display, and subsequently the affects of viewing the human body as commodity.  Is there a difference between being looked at and being seen?  Where and how do these women (as well as the performers) grant permission to be viewed, and what is it they really show?

I currently envision the work as a series of experiments, each structured in response to the setting.  I have applied for stage performances and studio residencies (very “safe” environment)s, but ideally I would like to have a development phase situated in a window/storefront space, so that the investigations take place under the real experience of observation (“risk-taking” environment).  Also, time and duration in an installation setting are completely different than in stage performance, which adds interesting factors to the research.      

The first experiment of Sacre Bleu! had three sections and was performed for the Micro Museum’s 25^th anniversary.  First, arms and legs appear through slits in a glitzy fabric.  Next, the performers emerge (currently two women) and text based on images from French Vogue is introduced.  Finally, the third and least developed part, fondly referred to as “The Cheese Section,” is a monologue en Francais, professing love of the food.

I began working on the first two sections during a residency at Performing Arts Forum in St. Erme France in August, although the idea of putting body parts through fabric came into being during a Movement Research workshop with Barbra Dilley in June.  I am interested in the simultaneous show girl/display and disconnection for the whole that happens when a leg is seductively exposed.  I am curious what affect fragmentation of the body will have on the viewer, and think I can push further toward disconnection here than I have thus far.  There is also potential for humor, and I am not yet sure how that fits into the work.  The type of fabric used in this section also requires further experimentation in order to achieve greater isolation of limbs. 

I brought an issue of French Vogue with me to St. Erme, and began by writing in response to images I saw.  Once my poem of sorts was created, I began to source movement invention ideas from images in the magazine.  When I returned to Brooklyn I set the movement on another body (Tara Sheena) while I remained the vocal presence on stage, further exploring disconnection of the body, and bringing up questions about how power shifts between performers.  

Initially imitating the calls of a Dutch cheese monger, The Cheese Section finally clicked for me after an improvisation session with Contemplative Dance Practice NYC.  I began playing with a declaration of love to fromage (Oh, camembert! Gorgonzola-la-la! Bleu!).  While the latter worked in performance, the idea of selling and commodity disappeared.  I need to reconsider what purpose this material serves in order to rework it.

After this experiment, an audience member suggested play with the idea of antique peep-show machines, where viewfinders limit and focus the individual viewer’s gaze.  This would be perfect to play with in a store-front setting.  Also, after passing an advertisement for it near Times Square, I’ve become fascinated by Nyotaimori, or the eating sushi off of a naked woman (or man).   

The connection between food and pleasure is age-old, but it is the body display and proximity to those viewing is what intrigues me.  Examining “looking” at such a micro level, the shift from “looking” to “touching” seems a massive one.  Perhaps there is something in that ot explore as well.   

Ten Months Later...

Wow. So I sort of left things hanging with this blog. At some point the process gets too big, unwieldy and fast-moving for me to keep track of it in writing (beyond my trusty notebook). And that's when I always let blog updates lag.

We created THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES OF MATERIAL. From October to March. Good material, mostly. But we had to pare it down to TWENTY-FIVE minutes. And we did. We cut. First large sections, then more surgical incisions were made - little bits (even single gestures) were taken out. We overlapped, increasing visual juxtaposition, filling out the space. We got into a rhythm. And it was great. I've never been so proud of something I've made. I've never felt so rewarded and fulfilled by a process of creation. I was sad when it was over - but it hasn't left my mind these ten months hence.

My next project, Sacre Bleu, or Camembert 8 Euros, has been trickling into being since the summer. It began with some reading, a trip to the Redlight District in Amsterdam, and a residency at Performing Arts Forum in St. Erme France. I workshopped a duet version, with UM alum Tara Sheena, at Brooklyn's Micro Museum in October. Now that it is January 2012, I'm planning the next steps. Part of beginning something new is reflecting on what you've done last - and this next project seems a natural continuation of Secret Poets to me. And since (after a long break) I'm about to dive back into the written portion of my thesis, I should have plenty of avenues for reflection.

Here are some images from our dress rehearsal:
Secret Poets of the Crushed Shadows - Photos by Suby Raman

And here are some hastily cobbled together video excerpts I needed for a proposal:

More Titling

And some interesting text...

Nola lent me Jim Carroll's book of poetry Living at the Movies because of some of the ocean imagery, and I've been drawing some lines from it, and from my imagination.

The current lead is: Secret Poets of the Crushed Shadows

The first half was sprung off one of Carroll's poem titles and crushed shadows are a loss of definition in the shadows of an underexposed photograph or film.

Some other brainstorming thoughts are:

The Orchid People

Firefly People

anxious with the thoughts of bare oceans

Age of Oceans

incandescent exposure

indecent

lovely confusion

lovely confusion on a summer night

Firefly Lanterns

The Sheerlings

To the secret poets of (the dusk)

Secret poets of the dusk

(To the) secret poets of the crushed shadows

Dusk-time Poets

The age of underexposure

The Firefly Poets: Secret people of the dusk

The Firefly People: Secret poets of the dusk

Sheerlings of the Dusk

Shearlings of the Dusk

Text, some original, most Carroll quotes:

…. on the beach in a snowless winter…

… anxious with the thoughts of bare oceans

that move in the thighs of an eventual sunlight

like bathers moving closer to their season

when again gulls perch in their lovely confusion

"alone," as now, the sand sifting through

your fingers like another's darkness. it's true,

you are always too near and I am everything…

you sit to have waves rush to your open hands

and you're surprised as cities grow there

have you seen the sculptor that makes reefs out of concrete statues? who casts likenesses out of concrete? and on their (concrete) faces grow corals of every color?

do you know?

sitting on the embankment of your mind, watching the fireflies converge, i opened my heart to you on a summer night

by the bioluminescent embankment the fireflies synchronize and i open

The lines about the reefs were inspired by the artwork of Jason desCaires Taylor. He creates concrete sculptures, which he sinks in the ocean to create reefs, and all manner of sea creatures attach themselves. Pretty amazing. Here are two of my favorite images:

Big Day! Photoshoot

Today we did a photo shoot with A&D MFA Colin Mc Rae. Colin did Susie, Sean & my promo photos for our CP&D show last April, "Three Times Fast".

Our MFA show is titled En-com-pass (but with dots in between, not hyphens, like in the dictionary). It came out of the fact that we each journeyed to do our research over the summer, and we anticipate having a map as the background of our publicity materials. Encompass works because the show encompasses three very different perspective/aesthetics, but also because it includes the word "compass", and we're thinking about the different directions we have gone/are going.

Working with Colin is always a pleasure. We did some shots of me, Suz & Sean, but for my own shoot I put together two looks for the dancers - one warm and frilly, the other black and sheer.

None of the images have been retouched - for instance I'd like to photoshop out the yellow lines on the floor and crop or fix some other small things.

French Vogue + Chanson = Perfect

I'm trying to make a solo based on this image from French Vogue:

Or perhaps more specifically, I'm trying to make a dance for this DRESS.

And with the Juliette Greco version of "Sous le ciel de Paris" (as opposed to the Edith Piaf version):

Molly and I started work on this by playing with mouthing the words from the song, as if reading a letter. Letters might be a sub-theme that runs under the current of the work. We've generated material based on writing letters to our deepest darkest fears, and I found Leighton Pierce's use of a letter as an abstracted narrative in his film "37th & Lex" (which is also of interest for his use of light.) You can see it here: http://vimeo.com/8640936

I think I subconsciously stole the idea of mouthing the words from Pina Bausch's "The Man I Love", where the performer is speaking (rather than singing) along to a Gershwin(?) song, in addition to translating the words to sign language. There is something in this juxtaposition that is unsettling, and that is what I would like to achieve (and perhaps a little humor too) in this solo for Molly, whose acting skills have been quite excellent! I'm not quite sure how to achieve this exactly, but we're off to a good start!

Describing my work...

Here's what went into our press release about my work. It always feels difficult because you have to be self-aggrandizing in these situations.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Cindy Sherman

Some days you just need to throw the plan out the window because you have a better idea. That happens a lot with this piece. I often change my plan just before rehearsal, or come up with new things to try on the way there. This is unusual, for me, and it feels good to be open to this way of working. Thus far the results have been great every time I change it up.

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.

The Bare Essentials

A great article by Gia Kourlas dated February 2006

The Bare Essentials of Dance

Thinking about titles...

Looking at photography related words. Wondering if there might be sub-sections with their own titles.

Underexposed

How to fix an underexposed ___________

Underexposes

Underexposing

Insufficient exposure

Indistinguishable

Shadow detail

Exposure Settings

Crushed Shadows

Shooting to the right

Shooting to the left

Manual exposure

Automatic exposure

Emulsion

Reciprocity Failure

reciprocity refers to the inverse relationship between the intensity and duration of light that determines the reaction of light-sensitive material.

For most photographic materials, reciprocity is valid with good accuracy over a range of values of exposure duration, but becomes increasingly inaccurate as we depart from this range: reciprocity failure, reciprocity law failure, or Schwarzschild effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocity_(photography)

Text to put in the piece somewhere?

The Schwarzschild solution, which makes use of Schwarzschild coordinates and the Schwarzschild metric, leads to the well-known Schwarzschild radius, which is the size of the event horizon of a non-rotating black hole.

Exposure Words

• Multiple exposures
• Double exposure
• Indecent exposure
• Partial exposure
• Sun exposure
• Over exposed
• Under exposed
• Dodge & burn
• Film speed
• Density
• Chemical processing: developer, fixer
• Exposé
• Exposition
• Expositor
• To reveal
• Revelation
• To lay bare

Rehearsal #3 - 11/14

This rehearsal left me in awe of what can be created cooperatively when you have a group of smart, open and engaged dancers. I think we made a stunning, quirky, moving section simply by building it one piece at a time.

To back up to the beginning though, we began by fine-tuning the Patsy Cline improvisation. Now there is a foreshadowing of movement that happens later, marker points in the music, Molly must get down to the floor (and back up again) without moving her hands from her tush, and some little jumps in the second half. I'm completely in love with this section. The dancers are creature-like.

We quickly ran through the Jillian/Nola duet and Julie's solo. We added Molly into it at the end, and due to the fact that she is so much taller than me the partnering sections was adjusted and is now much more exciting!

The bulk of rehearsal was spent working off this Tom Chapman image:

At first we tried to recreate it with bodies in place of the sticks, but it wasn't very easy or exciting. Standing on the other side of the magazine, which was open on the floor, Nola noticed how interesting the image was upside down:

So we tried to emulate this image, to much more success. Jillian is in the place of the woman, on top of Julie who supports her shoulders. Nola, seated by Julie's feet, supports Jillian's feet on her shoulders. Molly stands behind, stroking Jillian's hair, lifting it up and letting it fall.

From the tableau we created I asked how might we get into this? So we played with that, adding Nola running her fingers through her hair as she waited for Jillian & Julie to roll into her. From here, Molly uses Jillian's hair to manipulate the rest of her body, and to set the tableau into motion. We kept repeating and experimenting with what should be the next moment. What ensued captured and sustains the feeling and mood of the image above.

Rehearsal #2 - 11/7

First we worked on a duet for Nola & Jillian, and a solo for Julie that will become a duet with Molly.

Nola & Jillian started out exploring an image that came out of an improvisation at the first rehearsal: a dancer with her elbow stuck to the middle of the other dancer's back. We improvised around this until we arrived at set material. I also added a text improvisation where Jillian would state factual information and Nola would disagree by saying things like "not true", "false", "impossible". This idea was sparked by thoughts about what it means to expose a fraud. A personal fear of being thought a fraud or wrong when I know I am being truthful was also woven in. We decided that this duet, which travels the diagonal from upstage right to downstage left, will happen twice during the piece. The first time Jillian will be listing true facts about film exposure, and the second time she will be telling a personal story (personal meaning true of her character, drawn out of material generated by cast personal experiences, not necessarily the personal experiences of Jillian herself).

Nola, Jillian, Julie & I all wrote in response to the following creative writing prompt I came across:

Write a formal complaint letter to your deepest, darkest fear.

With Julie, we used her writing about fear of open water to each generate a movement phrase. We mixed the two phrases together and toward the end segued from solo to duet, adding some brief partnering material. The movement draws on the idea of the horizon, and of breath in relation to fear and to water.

Rehearsal #1 - 11/4

In this rehearsal we began working from the image below, from the August issue of French Vogue. The fashion spread had a number of dresses styled with the theme of partial bodily exposure.

We started by improvising around the model's physical position, with hands on the butt, backs arching, hips thrusting forward. The directives were awkward feet, start in your own sphere and then move into interactions with other dancers, and get into a line somewhere in the middle, which will disperse. Through this we identified effective moments to keep (like Jillian getting her head to poke through someone's elbow, ending poses and Nola spazzing out). The duration was determined by the Patsy Cline song "You're Stronger Than Me (non-orchestra version)".

We also improvised around 'exposing' or 'showcasing' a selected body part, and then selling that body part verbally. We ended up with a line across the back of the space that would be a great backdrop to a solo. As the soloist exits the back line could add their vocal 'hawking' of their body parts simultaneously.

Thesis Project Outline

This is a formal outline I made to share ideas with my commitee members and to prepare for the thesis proposal due on December 1st.

Description: This dance theatre work asks questions about what it means to expose or to be exposed. In relation to a person this exposure could be emotional or physical. I am interested in juxtaposing the human and the technical, thus I intend to look at aspects of film exposure. The piece has six female performers, who will perform in various states of dress and undress, against a set made of pristine white dresses lit from underneath. Integrated into the work will be projections that play with points of light against darkness, and explore video exposure, to create an immersive environment for dancers and audience. Research supporting this process began in France during June and July of 2010 and consisted of viewing performances and museums in Montpellier, Marseille and Paris. In particular I was interested by dance theatre performances that explored the use of nudity, eroticism and the moving body onstage. Images forming the base aesthetic for the work were gathered from sources like magazines, but primarily come from photographs I took. While traveling I also journaled daily, intending to bring a collage of images and words into the studio upon return to the states. I found the thread tying images and concepts together in the realization that I would find it easier to be naked on stage rather than share my summer writings. Each type of exposure – of the body of or the mind/heart, brings forth a different kind of vulnerability, which seems a rich source for exploration.

Topic:

• Exposure
• Internal – i.e. emotions, private thoughts, vulnerability, secrets
• External – the physical body, nudity, nude vs. naked
• Technical – film exposure: aperture, film speed, shutter speed

Influences:

• Important Images (gathered)
• Infinity Mirror Room – Fireflies on the Water (installation I saw in Marseille)
• White light of Parisian Ferris Wheel against black night sky
• Misc. images from France & the U.K. where bright light (white, yellow, multi-colored) is contrasted against the night sky.
• White dress lit in dark storefront (set idea)
• St. Agatha – breasts were cut off due to religious persecution (painting in Montpellier)
• Various painting from the Louvre where one breast is exposed or breasts are being manipulated.
• Fashion photos from French Vogue – dress with many holes, dress with breasts exposed.

• French Dance (Nudity & Eroticism in movement based pefromrance)
• Paquerette by Cecilia Bengolea & Francois
• Liquide by Christophe Haleb / La Zouze

Projections: To be created based on images of lighting, with the aim of creating an immersive experience for dancers & audience, via independent study with Terri Sarris. Also will play with ideas of exposure. Will have up to 4 projectors across back of space, 1-2 projectors on the floor, and possibly one mobile projector following dancer bodies.

Set: White dresses (either suspended or on dress forms) lit from the inside. Up to six.

Process:

• Word based explorations
• Physicalizing aspects of camera exposure.
• Exposure word associations as source for
• Image based explorations
• From influential images listed above
• Physicalizing a pose from Vogue
• Entering an environment
• Images from my head
• Spot light searching in dark, catching parts of dancer’s bodies
• Set made of dresses juxtaposed with unclothed dancers
• Pina Bausch – draw on her process of asking questions to performers about memories and experiences related to the theme to generate material.
• Collaborative
• Dancers will contribute experiences, movement, text ideas, etc.
• Potential collaboration with composer(s)

Structure:

• Overlapping & superimposed vignettes (solos, duets, trios)

Costume to go with the set?

I saw this photograph on the cover of Color Magazine's November Special Issue. The photographer, Tom Chambers, had multiple images in the magazine that I connected with, and his website is full of gorgeous images: .

Set Concept

Wandering Paris at night, very near my hotel, I came across a tiny shop off the Rue Dauphine, one or two blocks from the river Seine. The darkened storefront was aglow from a pristine white dress displayed at back of the shop. The image stuck with me, and as I think about my project, I become more and more certain I want to have white dresses onstage, either on some kind of dress form or suspended, that are lit from within. I'm not sure how many are necessary yet. One could be striking. Six could create a terrain. They can become projection surfaces, or be juxtaposed with bare bodies, or in contrast to bodies in tattered costume, etc. Budget, as always, will probably be a determining factor...

Infinity Mirror Room: Fireflies on the Water

I saw this installation by Yayoi Kusuma during the Festival de Marseille at la Vieille de Charite. The installation is entered one at a time and the viewer stands on a platform, which protrudes peninsula-like into water. The walls and ceiling are covered in mirror, and the water on the floor is reflective. Hundred of wires hang from the ceiling, each with a different colored light at the end. The effect - "fireflies" that go on forever, in every direction.





Here is a linke to video of the installation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KVkXxtcszc

In the projections for my thesis performance I'd like to play with points of light against a black backdrop, but perhaps something more sparse, and also play with moving light.