Monday, April 26, 2010
Anjali's Response to April 2010 Assignment: Window to a Widow
Untitled from Post Natyam Collective on Vimeo.
password: widow
This is "Window into a widow" ---the April assignment reflecting upon a woman's journey from downtrodden widowhood to being rescued and empowered by a group of courtesans. Very abstract and only a nugget of an idea....
what does the white scarf symbolize?
how do you read the shedding of this scarf and focus on her hair?
what more could happen with this hair and how the hair is shot?
Could the hair scarf initially be projected upon during a live performance?
Would a wig of long black hair be an interesting option under the veil and might it be cut on stage?
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1. what does the white scarf symbolize?
ReplyDeleteDeath, being hung, ghostly to see your face, as if ashen, through the veil. Seeing the red bindi through the scarf is powerful.
2. how do you read the shedding of this scarf and focus on her hair?
While it seems like taking off the scarf could connote freedom (as in Shy’s projection solo), I don’t read it that way because after you take off the scarf you seem equally distraught (the music also stays equally tense). In a way it continues the distraught feeling of the widow, turning in on herself, tearing her hair out. The sounds of the hands in the hair are interesting.
I wonder what it would be like if someone else was manipulating the scarf (suggesting that someone else is doing this to you), and then after the scarf is removed you do it to yourself (as if you have internalized that oppression).
3. what more could happen with this hair and how the hair is shot?
I think for this study to be fully effective, the frame could be composed more and the camera work more dynamic. Maybe play with more movements of the hands in the hair – twisting, pulling, clenching – and further develop the wild flinging of the hair at the end?
4. Could the hair scarf initially be projected upon during a live performance?
Try it! Right now the piece as choreographed for camera, so I’m not sure what the choreography of your whole body would be in a live performance. Since the amount of white is pretty small, the projector might have to be pretty close...but I see that you are wearing a white shirt, so perhaps the projection could be on your whole body.
5. Would a wig of long black hair be an interesting option under the veil and might it be cut on stage?
Perhaps if you could keep it from falling off (and if you could afford to buy multiple wigs for the choreographic process!) How crazy would it be to really cut your hair (or shave it) onstage! Your suggestion reminds me of performance artist Yoko Ono’s piece, Cut Piece. Basically she sat on the stage in a black dress with a pair of scissors in front of her, and the audience cuts the dress off her in pieces. You can see video of the performance at http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3dsvy_yoko-ono-cut-piece_shortfilms
1. what does the white scarf symbolize?
ReplyDeleteThe white scarf is pretty terrifying. When the hands are wringing the cloth, it looks like you're being lynched/hung to me. If you are interested in it reading this way - It would read more strongly if someone else's hands were the ones to wring the scarf and manipulate it. When you pull your hands down the sides of your head, it looks to me more like a widow mourning, though the first image is so powerful it overwhelms this one, so I only got the sense of mourning after several viewings. The bindi through the scarf is intensely eerie, as is the music! It reminds me a little bit of this fascinating Bengali movie dance of a ghost of a Bharata Natyam court dancer that Sangita introduced me to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUtH1hjW3mE
2. how do you read the shedding of this scarf and focus on her hair?
It seems like the removal of the oppression on her and yet it's done so systematically and without any emotional transformation that I wonder if it's more of an an unveiling or unmasking of the person. It makes her and her emotions more real, rather then the scarf over her which makes her look more like an apparition.
3. what more could happen with this hair and how the hair is shot?
Perhaps a super close up of the hair as texture and the journey of the fingers through it...almost like Cyn's hands pushing through the sand. In fact, the Cyn's sand dissolving into your hair with hands going through it could be an interesting blurring of the worlds.
4. Could the hair scarf initially be projected upon during a live performance?
It seems too small to project an image, but what if the projection was a wash of color? I'm imagining red expanding out from the bindi until the whole head was red.... or washing over it from up to down, or down to up... or going from white to blacking out and essentially disappearing (not sure if any of this is possible with our capabilitis: I saw DV8 Physical Theater's "To Be Straight With You" and they had a scrim between the performers and the audience which created amazing possibilities. At 4:04min in the following video they black the man out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_MiU6ucj60
If you don't mind the video washing onto the background, then it could provide a context, background or texture in which you are placed.
5. Would a wig of long black hair be an interesting option under the veil and might it be cut on stage?
The idea of cutting hair on stage is definitely dramatic - the veil is powerful in itself though, I would investigate the possibilities with the scarf more then the hair.
Afterthought: I am reminded that Cynthia once associated your hands projected on my back with sati (burning of the widow on her husbands funeral pyre)...specifically when they weren't clearly hands but more the fast flickering movement. This reminds me that it could be interesting to project a texture rather then an actual image in the case of your scarf because the space is not large enough for a readable image. And the sati association is also very interesting...
ReplyDelete