Monday, June 1, 2009

June Creative Assignment: Translating Each Other, Translating the Past

by Cynthia Lee

The root of translation is “to carry across.”

Choreograph a study that translates (1) a previous study choreographed by another PN member during our online creative assignment process and/or (2) a “traditional” abhinaya song/courtesan text. The latter may be from your classical repertoire or found through research. Translate this material into your own body, aesthetic sensibility, physical training, geographic locale, contemporary situation, in a way that resonates for you.

Feel free to mistranslate, to steal unapologetically, to treat translation as transformation. You could steal movement vocabulary, poetic phrases, images; you could translate compositional structure or spatial design to a new context; you could translate across disciplines and dance styles and historical period...

-June 2009

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