Cyber Chat Series Assignment, August 2011

I am interested in reflecting the part of our long distance process where we re-use or re-appropriate each other's choreographic material/ideas/products in different ways. An example of something I think has been successfully re-used and transformed over time is Anj's ]wrist[ video.

I imagine that rather then being the four square right off, that it is an additive video, staring with one idea that someone communicates in a "video call", then the next person appears in the "video call" with the first and transforms or adds into the idea, and the next and so on. So it goes from 1 to 2 squares, then adds in 3 and ends up with 4 squares.

For example: if we used ]wrist[ it could start with Cyn somehow communicating her ]wrist[ poem to us, Anjali adding the video, Shy projecting it on her back, and then Babli would be challenged to come up with a new rendition of it....or maybe there's a group moment that develops out of it.

perhaps we can figure out an additive rhythm that expands itself just as our notion of the original idea expands, or we can use something that double and triples in speed to make things build and get more exciting as more of us add in like the rhythm I use in the most recent version of "I see, but..." Or maybe it is a changing sound scape as is necessary to represent each person's stage.

As a related structure, I could also see "throwing" an imaginary choreography idea from one person to the next, like the energy ball game in the theater world. In that case perhaps it's not additive but rather something like a gesture/or a tiny bit of Abhinaya gets tossed around like an idea does as it morphs or changes. This could look something like the theater game where one person does a gesture and a sound towards another person, the receiver does back the same one, and then creates a new one that's related but different, they direct the new one to someone else....Then we could create a scrolling series of skype windows...if everyone receives from the L and throws to the r, then as they scroll of the screen a new person scrolls on to catch it...or perhaps at some point two people catch it and morph it simultaneously, etc. So, rather then each of us creating a whole individual skype call that gets stitched together, we send in tiny little responses until the "game" is complete. These responses are then stitched together.

Perhaps theater game could really take into account the geographic differences as the same or similar material gets put into different locals, interacting with the environment. Like Cyn's Bitter Salt hand walking through sand, and someone else has the hand in prairie grass and someone else in the snow, etc.


Feedback questions:

1. The above is a bunch of brainstorming on my part. Is there any part of what I said that you find particularly interesting or that even conjured up an image in your mind's eye of what it might look like? If so, please point out the part and describe what you're excited about or what you visualize it to be....

2. If we did an idea like this would you be personally be interested in using pre-existing material like ]wrist[, or starting a new chain of material specifically for the skype call to see what happens? Would you be open to trying an adapted theater game as a long distance structure?

3. would you be interested in emphasizing our plurarily, difference and distance, or in somehow creating an "end product" that we all are a part of , or both? (so rather then just different responses to the same material, building material that uses multiple people at once)?

3. Does hearing my brainstorm create any new, but related ideas for you? If so please share...
Or does hearing my brainstorm create any questions that I, and the group should address if we choose to work on this idea? or any other comments....