Retreat Day 5: improv, crystal ball, and diss embodied

"diss embodied"
This study layers a bunch of courtesan cliches: Sandra's "commercially sexualized" video, Shy's Oriental doll, Shy's loose woman (danced by Cyn), lecherous voices from the "exotic temple dancers." Ravi picked out some fun music to go along with it, and we even found a way to integrate Shy's clear plastic half-manikin that was lying around the studio.  In performance Shy's face would need to be lit better behind the scrim so that she could be seen.
diss embodied password: cliche

diss-embodied from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.

Anj story improvisation
Anjali wrote a freewrite yesterday about the experience of feeling silenced and her dance serving as an alternative outlet for expression.  The content was exciting because it integrated her personal relationship to the dance form and the notion of abuse, thus tying together some thematic threads usefully and extending the notion of "I didn't say a word" further.  This morning she came up with a few movements based on it.  Cyn and Shy directed her in an improv to include the story and movements. Here are two versions. We're thinking that the end "dancey" section will actually be a fierce version of the rhythmic (jati) section of her study "Tell me how much you love me" from the other day.

Anj 1 password is "story"

Anj improvised story 1 from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.

Anj 2 password is "story"

Anj improvised story 2 from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.

Crystal Ball
This is actually "I didn't say a word" (English translation of a Ksettraya padam adapted and read by Cyn, abhinaya with live feed by Anj) and "My Silent Cry" (dance by Shy), but all done live.  We had previously done it with a recorded version of Cyn speaking the poem.  In this new live version, the three of us could improvise and respond to each other in much the same way theorized by Avanthi Meduri in her article, "Multiple Pleasures: Improvisation in Bharatanatyam."  Meduri speaks about three different elements - the poetic text, the singer (replaced here by a reader), and the dancer - which refract off each other through improvisation much like a crystal ball reflecting different facets of light, with only the text staying constant.  Taking into account Sandra's feedback that she would like to see more variations, we played with repeating verses in the way a padam might be done to emphasize Anj's and Cyn's ability to interpret the same line differently.

Crystal Ball Password: "padam"

Crystal Ball Padam from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.

Tell me, Sister
Cyn worked more on her new Tell me, Sister monologue, borrowing gestures from some of the other material produced this week.  Shy directed her and worked with her on integrating it into the original piece.

-no video

We spent the rest of the time reflecting back on our week and figuring out which nuggets are the most interesting to share with Hari and our collaborators on Monday!