Shyamala's Response to March 2010 Assignment

I really wanted to use the silks (aerial cloth) for this, imagining myself floating up in a little pod (sort of like inside the belly of a pregnant woman) but turned out to be sick when I did the assignment and had no strength to go up on them. It turns out I actually had a great time on the floor and realized there are many possibilities to be explored on the floor. Ideally I would have a male body inside the silks, for what I was imagining.

The music is a piece called "Essences" by my friend Loren Nerell, I've been wanting to use his music FOREVER and felt it fit the theme of "he inside her' quite well. I did layer it with my voice saying the text since the assignment was supposed to include the text somehow.

Here's an excerpt: the password is "gender"

He Inside Her from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.

Anjali's Response to March 2010 Assignment

"The he inside her is deeply in love with her, so completely mesmerized by her existence". This was the excerpt from a free writing done by a woman in the SAN group which inspired my study. I am intrigued by this notion that within all of us resides both the masculine and the feminine. It just so happens, my study took on a different meaning because I am 5 months pregnant and at the time, was about to find out the gender of the baby. The focus for me became the physical embodiment and transformation/morphing that occurs between the masculine and feminine when a woman is growing a baby in her body. I thought the video could provide some mystery and wanted to play with the zoomed in shots. I sat on a physio ball to create a sense of circularity and soft waves which I feel drives my movement these days. The last shot pans out to reveal the pregnant belly. I'd like to delve further into this study and see where it might go/how it will develop.

Anj study_3_16_2010 from Post Natyam Collective on Vimeo.

Sandra's Reponse to March 2010 Assignment

For this assignment, the act of writing seemed more relevant to me than an audible use of text. Hence I decided to make the act of writing directly the central element of my study, playing with the camera angle and hand placement in terms of how the text being written is gradually revealed.The sound of the pen on the paper added a for me important texture. The text being written is based on the text that was assigned in that I read the assigned text a few times and then proceeded to write out, from memory, the words I recalled.

The interspersed hand movements alternate a softer and a more abrupt quality- in the gestures chosen, as well as in the movements the hand draws. I was interested in exploring the (3-dimensional) space above the ground, which is the paper/writing.

Feedback guidance questions:
1) What does the hand movement read to you as?
2) How do you view the spatial relationship between the movement and the writing?
3) Is the act of writing effective or literal?
4) What do you think of the sounds of the pen on paper?

Cynthia's Response to March 2010 Assignment

This study, called s(he), draws primarily on two hastas that refer to "woman" and "man."  I was interested in bringing tactility, tension, and breath to the hastas, so that the movement could have a visceral impact.  s(he) is inspired by specific phrases in the text from the SAN group that evoke the intertwining and occasional struggle between the genders.  Its format, a video of close-ups on the hands, draws on the choreographic strategies of Anjali's ]wrist[ video from July 2009.

The password to view the video is "gender".

Feedback Questions:

1. Please watch the video with the sound and on mute.  Which do you prefer and why?

2. What images resonate the most with you?  Where do you feel your attention lag during the piece?What would you tighten or change dynamically?

3. What narrative, if any, do you see?  Are there moments where the narrative ceases to make sense to you?

4. This study makes clear connections to Anj’s wrist dance and to the end of my solo, “hidden tamarind.”  Is the piece too close to those other works, or are the similarities effective?

March 2010 Assignment: He She Me

Work with the writing below from one of the participants of the South Asian Network's survivor support group during our workshop on gender.

You can use a line or the whole thing, you can use it as a starting point for inspiration, or keep your piece tightly connected to it. Whatever you do, please find some way to use some or all of the actual text (as sound score or visual material).


"The me -male plus female, a combination of both. He is just an extension of the she. She is so complete, so fulfilled, so deep and then is still incomplete and somewhat empty. The he resides inside her, takes food for life from her. Her ambitions, her thoughts, her depth, her thoughtfulness, her care and love is what he desires and longs for. Just lives somewhere within her, impossible to separate from her. The he inside her is deeply in love with her, so completely mesmerized by her existence. He takes his inspirations from her, resents her sometimes for her own perfectly complete existence and then falls in love with her all over again. The he is 'her' - the she 'her' -It's a communion of two different universes with all the entropy there is to it. But 'he' just resides inside her, that's where his safe heaven is - within her. A dance of two beautiful abstract minds where the 'he' just wants to be absorbed and consumed by the 'she.'"