subjectobject scores

Inspired by the following questions, here are a couple of scores I imagined. The first is for the audience and the second is for 3 performers.

Questions: 

-how are we asking the audience to participate in desire? -can we ask the audience to participate in desire?

-who is the subject and who is the object?

-does the audience have a voice?

-what can the audience take home? (pearls?)

-do the participants ever change roles? Does dancer become camera person etc.?

Score for audience

Preparation:

Tape off 3-4 play areas of different shapes and sizes, inside the taped area invitingly arrange cushions, 7 silky scarves (aka dance of the 7 veils that Salome was said to have done), and bowls of pearls (some strung and some loose).   For each play area place a video camera on a tripod at varying distances from it.  

Installation:

During 20-ish min time,  while audience is roaming freely, play music that has bits of the publicity about Maud Allan in it.  

Prompt for entering the play area:  

        An invitation to play!

Play!

Decorate!

Feel the textures!

Take Selfies!

Enjoy!  

Upon entering you are giving your permission to be video-taped.

Feel free to interact with the camera, or not, in any way you wish including blocking or revealing what you want to be seen. 

At any time you wish, you may step out of the area or take a turn at the camera or just watch from the inside or outside.

Prompt for viewing through the camera:  

An invitation for mindful viewing

As you look through the camera, notice the frame around the edges

Compare what you see through the camera and what you can see beyond

Be aware of how you position your own body to look through the camera.

Imagine being an outside viewer and notice how you are adding to the picture.

Be mindful if others are waiting a turn and you may choose to take a turn in the dance and play area or move to the outside to watch.  

Score for 3 performers

Set a circle performance area with cushions, 7 scarves, bowls of pearls

Set a dancer/viewer area outside the performance area looking in

Set a camera inside the performance area looking out and live feed projected on scarves 

Set a text reading area outside the perimeter of the performance area looking in

Round 1: Original

Perform text, movement and video as originally created in the 2014  group study

Round 2:  Text remix

Camera person chooses one item to decorate another performer.  That performer moves to the camera position and the camera person takes the other performers’ place.

reader can read part or all of the text and dancer improvises in response, using 90percent of the original movement vocabulary.  The camera person follows the dancer.  

Round 3:  Movement remix

Camera person chooses one item to decorate another performer.  That performer moves to the camera position and the camera person takes the other performers’ place.

Dancer improvises using 90percent of the original movement vocabulary, the reader follows repeating all or parts of the text, fragmenting and repeating, the camera person responds to the dancer, and occasionally moves over to the text reader.  

Round 4: Camera remix

Camera can choose who or what to film, the dancer responds to the camera using 90 percent of the original movement vocabulary but is also able to use the scarves or other means to block or modify the viewing experience.  The text is read in fragments and even the syllables are fragmented and extended.  

Premiere: Sunoh at the Miles Playhouse!

If you saw the show please leave feedback in the comments below!

New Video documentation is thanks to Carol McDowell and photos are thanks to Amish Desai


password "voice"

1. Preshow:
Sandra's shadow on back wall
bollywood clips on small scrim
Shy collecting cliches/stereotypes from audience about themselves and Cynthia putting them into live feed on big scrim.




2. Cyber Chat 1 on big scrim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSY5o4P_-vI&feature=player_embedded




3. Mixed Bag


Password: "Miles"


Mixed Bag from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.

4. Wall of cliches stay up as Cyn sadly cleans up the stage

5. Learning to Walk Like Radha



password "oh krishna"
footage from Feb Highways performance
6. cliche wall stays up on main screen with Sad courtesan on back wall

7. Cyber Chat 2 on small scrim
http://www.vimeo.com/21902064


Cyber Chat 2 from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.


8. Shy's letter

Password: "Miles"
http://www.vimeo.com/21967391


I see, but from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.


Intermission-----------------------


1. Sandra's Skype call on small scrim

password: interlude


Sunoh Interlude from Sandra Chatterjee on Vimeo.


2. The Thorn the Leaf and the Butterfly
password "Uma"

3. Anj's skype/blog response
skype on little scrim
dance video on big scrim

4. Ranri
http://vimeo.com/21967464
password: "Miles"


Ranri from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.


5. Marks
http://www.vimeo.com/21968225
password: "Miles"

Marks, Miles from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.


BOW:


Our collaborators left to right: Ravi Deo, Cynthia Ling Lee, Shyamala Moorty, Loren Nerell, and Sangita Shresthova. Not pictured: Carole Kim, Mona Heinze, Kedar Lawrence and the rest of the Post Natyam Collective -Anjali Tata and Sandra Chatterjee!

Response to Uma

I was moved by Uma's story and chose to translate Uma’s story through my own personal experience. I think of how the young boisterous me used to be so free spirited and loud, but over time, being silenced by my superiors affected my ability to speak up. Growing up, Bharata Natyam allowed me to express myself more fully than I could with my voice. Embodying bhava through dance still continues to be my fondest way to let out my feelings.
Password "tonsils"

Tonsils_02 from Anjali Tata on Vimeo.

Tonsils_01 from Anjali Tata on Vimeo.

The Thorn, the Leaf, and the Butterfly (Bootleg)

Footage from The Thorn, the Leaf, and the Butterfly as performed at Bootleg Dance Festival on Mar 5, 2011.

password "Uma"

October 2010 Creative Assignment: Adda with the Ancestors, Revisited

This multi-part creative assignment adapts improvisational structures used during the development of Carol McDowell’s score, Adda with the Ancestors, as a springboard to investigate our personal relationship to the figure of the courtesan and survivors of violence.  

Ideally these tasks would be performed in pairs over Skype so that the figure of the “witness” can be involved.  However, you may do the tasks either solo with an imagined witness or in pairs (self-organize if you’d like to pursue this option).  Please post “traces” of your investigations along with feedback questions by Oct 29, 2010.

TASK 1: AUTHENTIC MOVEMENT MEMORIES

Free-write on the three following prompts.  Take a moment to let the memory/image settle into your embodied imagination before putting pen to page.  Write continuously without correcting grammar or otherwise self-censoring for four minutes per prompt.

·      1. What is your most vivid abhinaya memory?  Where in your body do you feel it?  Can you do the dance now?  Can you do a finger dance to it?  Does it have a name?  Who is the ancestor of this dance? 

·      2. What is your most sensual/erotic dancing memory? Where in your body do you feel it?  Can you do the dance now?  Can you do a finger dance to it?  Does it have a name?  Who is the ancestor of this dance?

·      3. What is a dance you imagine a courtesan would have done?  (Be specific about what kind of courtesan.) Where in your body do you feel it?  Can you do the dance now?  Can you do a finger dance to it?  Does it have a name?  Who is the ancestor of this dance?


4. What is your most visceral physical memory of abuse?  Where in your body do you feel it?  Can you do a dance of this memory?  Does this dance have a name?  Who is the ancestor of this dance?

Choose a writing and take it into the space (or towards the webcam).  If working solo, imagine who the ideal witness/spirit guardian/rasika for this dance might be.  Setting the timer for five minutes, close your eyes and remember the dance in your body.  If you are the witness, watch with loving attentiveness and without judgment.  You may choose to videotape your movement if working solo.

If working with a live partner, the witness now physically “plays back” what she remembers of the dance. 

Now, add to your existing writing by writing about your physical memory of the dance.  Do you remember specific movement, phrasing, choreography, structure, detail, vocabulary, text, imagery, or emotions? 

If working with a live partner, write on her version of your dance as well.  If working solo, you may now wish to watch the video, then write on the video version of the dance.

Write a question for your rasika and/or for your dance’s ancestor.

Repeat the process for the remaining writings.  Be sure to switch roles if working with a partner.

TASK 2: ANCESTOR SOLO OR MAKE-YOUR-OWN

After completing TASK #1, you can choose to do (1) an ancestor solo (see directions below) and/or (2) to extend the material in whatever way you wish (whether it be through choreographing a movement study, working further on a writing, creating another improvisation score, pursuing historical research, creating a dance video using your rehearsal footage, etc.)

Score for Ancestor Solo (Trio for One):

Pick one of your writings.

(1)  1. Do a “small dance” of your memory.  (A small dance is a very brief movement citation -- perhaps just in your fingers or face – that is small in size.)

(2) 2.  Take a step back, name your ancestor, and respond to the first dance as the ancestor.

(3)  3. Take a step back, name the protector, and respond as the protector.  

(4)  4. Now you can move between the characters, putting them in physical and verbal conversation.

If working with a partner, she can ask questions throughout.  As a variation, she can also step into one of the roles, but should call the name (“Ancestor,” “Protector,” or “Protagonist”) first.  You may want to videotape as a record.

Repeat for the other two writings.

Adda with the Ancestors: an improvisational score

Interdisciplinary artist and contemporary dancer Carol McDowell has been creating an improvisational score on Shyamala and myself for our upcoming performance and installation, "Trace," at Sea and Space Explorations.  We've been working with our personal dance memories, which are quite varied and hybrid for both of us, though differently so.  Having a conversation -- a dialogue -- about our dance memories is central to the score.  It is a gift to discover so many new things about Shyamala (she once did a Hungarian bottle dance?) when I thought I knew her so well as a mover and person.

What is your first dance memory?  What is your most vivid dance memory?  What is your favorite dance right now?  Where in your body do you remember the dance?  Can you do you a finger dance of it?  Does this dance have a name?

Among other sources, we've been drawing on the somatic practice of Authentic Movement, with a witness or spirit guardian who protects the body-who-moves-in-remembering.  I had never heard of the witness referred to as a spirit guardian before (though I have posited the witness as the rasika in past explorations of mine).  Since my family is Taiwanese, and ours is largely a culture of ancestral worship, a spirit guardian made me think of an ancestral spirit.  And in our rehearsal last Monday, Carol introduced the idea of an ancestor to our score.  We went through our memories and wrote down whom we thought would be the ancestor of each particular dance memory.  They included: the wind, Medha Yodh, Mama Kariamu, mud, Eiko Otake, a Taiwanese aborigine.  

What would it be like to have an honest conversation with the ancestors of your dance memories?  How might this structure enable imagined dialogues with our teachers and historical predecessors that might be impossible in real life?  

The score was as follows: (1) do a small dance of your memory (2) take a step back, name your  ancestor, and respond to the first dance as the ancestor (3) take a step back, respond as the protector.  The audience can ask questions throughout.

The results were sometimes poetic, sometimes argumentative, at times downright hilarious.