I'm traveling so decided to play with audio instead of trying to video anything new. So here is my last study with a different audio score to it created from Ulka's and my voices and my feet on garage band (a bit rough, but you will get the idea).
Here is the link: https://vimeo.com/72153069
Password is: Cabaret
Outside Cabaret Creative 2 from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.
By the way, all the text is from the written assignment 2 research.
Questions:
1. How do you interpret the piece with this new sound-score?
2. How might this be political in a similar or different way then my first version of the movement with the "magic to do" soundtrack? Here's the first version in case you'd like to reference it: http://www.postnatyam.blogspot.com/2013/06/cabaret-travels-creative-response-1.html
3. Does the new sound track inspire any ideas for you as to how the mirror might be used more?
4. If I were to work with a sound designer or composer, any suggestions on what to add/remove/enhance etc.
5. Any other ideas or thoughts?
Here is the link: https://vimeo.com/72153069
Password is: Cabaret
Outside Cabaret Creative 2 from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.
By the way, all the text is from the written assignment 2 research.
Questions:
1. How do you interpret the piece with this new sound-score?
2. How might this be political in a similar or different way then my first version of the movement with the "magic to do" soundtrack? Here's the first version in case you'd like to reference it: http://www.postnatyam.blogspot.com/2013/06/cabaret-travels-creative-response-1.html
3. Does the new sound track inspire any ideas for you as to how the mirror might be used more?
4. If I were to work with a sound designer or composer, any suggestions on what to add/remove/enhance etc.
5. Any other ideas or thoughts?
1. I don’t come away with a clear reading of the piece, but here are the images that stay with me: a daring, bold, sensual woman dancing to the camera, with disruptive jackhammer echoing sounds (the footwork) and multiple layers of female voices referencing the avant-garde political milieu of the German Kabarett. The sound/text is quite disjunctive, fragmented, and multivocal, while the movement is continuous, flows, and is executed by one person with no camera cuts. The clearest connection between text and visuals are the references to female passion and sensuality.
ReplyDelete2. In your first study, the music makes the American jazz/musical theater references are very clear, and I immediately recognize the movement exploration of jazz hands in relationship to alapadma. The political valence is embedded in the body’s unapologetic claiming of cultural hybridity and a strong empowered sexuality as a woman; it is also firmly situated in an American context.
In your second study, the text references many politicized aspects specific to the German Kabarett: unbridled passionate women, the downtrodden, money and consumerism. Rather than being in direct relationship, the text and movement seem to function on separate, parallel tracks.
3. In this version, so much of my energy is focused on trying to decipher the text (even after multiple viewings) that I frankly didn’t notice the mirror at all. Generally I see the details of the movement much less in this version than in your previous version.
4. I really enjoy the particular textual passages that you chose, as well as Ulka’s voice. The moments when you bring a musical treatment (such as the repetition of “money money money”) are nice. Perhaps those could be expanded further. As a random thought, I wonder what it would be like to have the original music (or an instrumental version of it) underneath this soundscape.
At the moment, the sound quality of the footwork is very jarring and makes it hard to understand the text. It creates auditory disruption that makes hearing/viewing feel like a struggle, while the earlier music creates a sense of ease and continuity in its melody. If challenging and making the audience uncomfortable is an effect you like, I would play with disruption and distortion more to make it clear that this is the aim. If you prefer more of a sense of ease/continuity, I would explore melody and/or the addition of ambient or drone-like background.
5. I would love to see this soundtrack (or a version of it) to Sandra’s 1st study.
I am moving on a completely different track with regard to the feedback here, so moving a little away from the question, but have to share with you some of my thoughts. Some I might not be able to clearly spell out and comment as they are still simmering inside my head and I am struggling to find the right words to articulate them. Some connections might feel a little random but I will keep adding to them to clarify them further.
ReplyDeleteI interpret this piece now very differently from how I saw it the first time. Reading your written assignment the class and economic divide has kind off remained stuck in my head. So watching this piece I could not stop myself from thinking about the class and caste position with reference to classical Indian dance and its codified movements. The alapadma and the eye movements have become from me yet another motif for hiding and revealing but only this time it seemed as though a very high class codified gestural language was being used to send out a message. The message however for me had a kind of air of arrogance, where the people who did not have access to this knowledge were clearly cut off from a world which seems to be meant for a select few. Thus bringing me back to the upperclass and working class divide. Even today this class division exists in the art world in India where the connoisseurs of classical arts are considered to be people with taste and class. So cabaret for me becomes a very interesting space where especially in an urban set-up a commentary on performance arts and the politics of it can take place. Knowingly or unknowingly, even in Hindi Cinema, the cabaret song sequences created throw up a lot of questions and present various points of view about our society and it's way of thinking. Be it pitting the image of the fallen woman woman against that of the ideal Indian woman or the Indian classical dancer who successfully almost always defeats the western/cabaret dancer in competitions that instead of being between two individuals actually pit class and cultures against each other. It is also interesting to see how promoting Indian-ness and during the time India was more left inclined, women with high morals from working class successfully put to shame high class, moneyed, west-inclined, educated, modern women or husband stealing cabaret dancers.
I like the repetition of the words money money as it not only connects this piece to the first assignment draft but highlights for me the class divide more.