Here is my creative response.....
I also did not feel like choreographing or creating movements.
As you give feedback, I would like you to consider that there are a few things I experimented with but could not do right this moment, because I would have needed a different video set-up. If it makes sense to re-do this or expand this/change this in the future, I might like to play with that (or not, or something different....)
1) work with more hastas
2) mark the hands - maybe mehendi?
I also did not feel like choreographing or creating movements.
Borders assignment 3 from Sandra Chatterjee on Vimeo.
Password: ImmigrationrecordsAs you give feedback, I would like you to consider that there are a few things I experimented with but could not do right this moment, because I would have needed a different video set-up. If it makes sense to re-do this or expand this/change this in the future, I might like to play with that (or not, or something different....)
1) work with more hastas
2) mark the hands - maybe mehendi?
As the video starts, I'm struck by your nose-ring, the slightly stylized way you hold the paper, the framing, which cuts off your eyes and half the paper. "Let me translate." -- how often you are put in that position! We see a mouth, but not quite a face. A partial picture?
ReplyDeleteUnpacking the naturalization document holds a lot of interesting historical detail: the Kingdom of Bavaria, the older and slightly archaic script, the shifting political boundaries of state.
I like your casual explanatory tone, and find the document itself interesting. At the same time, my attention begins to flag after a minute or two. Are there ways to bring more visual and aesthetic variety? For instance, by using it as a video backdrop and performing live in front of it, or employing more stylized hastas and abhinaya, changing up the camera frame or intercutting with other images?
The document being cut off makes me crane to follow, by not sharing the whole picture I am intrigued and a bit frustrated.
ReplyDeleteI like the casual tone and particularly find it funny when you say:
“Yes one of those long german words” and enjoyed learning what it meant.
When you start talking about the state I start loosing focus.
I am interested in your idea of more mudras and of mehendi. I wonder if switching up the shot and the amount of the document and the amount of mudras/mehendi as you go might be interesting. For example, just start with a hand and the whole document. Then another shot could also include your mouth (maybe from the other side of the document), another could include your nose as you have currently shot it. Perhaps the next one the mudras start to increase with partial mehendi, then one with more full mehendi and more mudras. Maybe one section could be only mudras and no speaking just to break up the similarity of the sound all the way through?
One shot could include your eyes, and then finally your whole face as you have already done at the end.
Another idea for engaging with the document: occasionally inter-cut other parts of your body or your full body dancing with the document (ex: balancing the document on your back, or tucked in the crook of your elbow.
Some questions it brought up for me:
1. Why did your grandmother need naturalizing? (it makes it sound like she was from somewhere else? Is this why the locations are important that I got lost about?)
2. Which was the grandmother: the wife or the daughter? Perhaps saying her name again at the end might help clarify that she’s not South Asian - which is what comes to my mind when I hear that it was a naturalization document.