Back to the Beautiful LBC, climactic moment

I have been working for the past month with Cal State Long Beach students to craft a performance piece inspired by Post Natyam's Back to the Beautiful installation based on water, borders and memory.

We will be shooting footage of the dancers in the cemented San Gabriel river which has huge wall like sides at the end of this week.  The river was cemented to control it from flooding but we also have major droughts in Southern CA, so the water is often just a trickle.  The cementing of walls and controlling of the path of the water feels like a strong metaphor for the border wall that is being erected and the controlling of the paths of the real migration stories that some of the cast members have experienced, including deportation.

Here I share the climax of the piece based on two migration stories from the performers themselves.  This follows a windy migration section, and a militaristic wall section:


Fight the Fear, Draft from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.
password b2blbc

Note:
The bucket of water that the singer is at will be up left on a slightly raised platform - she may actually be in it.

The rest of the performers will be center stage.

The performers are still learning their lines and so you may see them reading from a paper.

Here is the script:  black is spoken, purple is sung...

Walls.

--

Ahhhh (looking in water)

--

My whole life, I’ve had walls in my face.

--

Fluid memory (elbow in?)

--

There’s just always a wall, always a fear, a layer to tear in order to be

--

ooooooo (water to face or hair dip)

--

Devuelveme mi rostro, I exist, I am not a piece of paper

--

Devuelveme mi rostro (leg moving in)

--

Undocumented?  I am here, working hard.

--

Aqui (other leg)

--

I am here. 

--

Hmmmm (continuing underneath, )

--

But there’s always that fear

I fight the fear

Always that fear…

I fight the fear.

Always that fear…

I fight the fear!

Always that fear…

I fight the fear!

Always that fear…

I fight the fear!

Always that fear…

I fight the fear! I fight the fear - I fight the fear - I fight the fear! 

sing/scream!

Questions:
1.  What are you drawn to? what do you experience/notice?

2.  Is there anything else you could imagine the singer doing with the water?  (after this she will use it to affect the other dancers in the next section and then will start the passing of bottles through the performers and into the audience)

3.  Anything you would adjust/change?

4.  Any other thoughts?

Queering Abhinaya Assignment 4: Translations of Teachings (Shyamala and All)

I chose some text from a padam called Velavare, that I had learned from Medha Yodh.  However, the English versions of the poem were not translated poetically, but rather in a literal word for word fashion that was useful for learning the dance, but somehow did not inspire me to make interesting interpretations of it.  It seemed more fruitful to translate my written dance notes of what Medha had taught me.  So it became more similar to Lionel Popkin's translations of Ruth St. Denis' instructions on how to do her dances then just a re-choreographing of the text.  Each of us did our own interpretation of the same words/descriptions as seen below. 

passwords for all are: medha

Shy translates Medha from Post Natyam Collective on Vimeo.

Meena translates Medha from Post Natyam Collective on Vimeo.

Sandra translates Medha from Post Natyam Collective on Vimeo.

Cynthia translates Medha from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.

Queering Abhinaya Assignment #4: alternative translations

Inspired by one of Lionel Popkins’ approaches to his full length trio “Ruth Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” I am interested in translating texts describing dance into alternative movement interpretations than the original intention.  In my memory of the piece, Lionel tells the audience that he is using Ruth's dance directions of her work quite loosely, in a similar manner to how she treated the dances from the multiple cultures that she represented/appropriated in her work.  
 

As we recently discussed in an in person session, abhinaya  traditionally interprets texts, and literally means to “carry across” (like the word translation).   As we are queering abhinaya, I invite us to find alternative interpretations that may open up, subvert, or even create contrary interpretations to the original text and dance that the text was written about.

So, find a text that describes or gives directions for how to do a dance.  Then create your own alternate version of the dance that relates to the text but somehow explodes the expectations of your chosen text.  For example, if the text says “turn”, there may be many ways to turn the body, or turn the perspective, or turn a body part, or to say “turn” in various languages, or to get someone else to turn etc.

Sandra's Response to the July 2009 Creative Assignment

Localized Translations

For the July creative assignments, I built on two different ideas, which were responses to previous assignments. Using the sound score that Cynthia had created as part of the Cyber-Padam assignment, Shyamala choreographed a skype call using an in-built web-cam for the June 09 assignment "Translating Each Other, Translating the Past."

Combining those two ideas with the requirements of the July 2009 Creative Assignment, which asked to "localize" a translation, I translated Cynthia's sound score, which I repeated and layered, into movement, specifically addressing my web cam.  I filmed this in various locations, such as on the train, and in my temporary home during a creative residency.

Here is an excerpt:

Sandra's Response to the July 2009 Creative Assignment from Sandra Chatterjee on Vimeo.

Anjali's Response to July Assignment

I translated the following section entitled "wrist" of Cynthia's artbook. I was particularly drawn to how the metaphors came alive to me both on a visual and visceral level....thus followed my study of "wrist" shot close. I will be re-shooting and choreographically refining this study so we can show it at the upcoming Sea and Space performance.

]wrist[

a delicate bandage a bone a twiggy little snap. oh slim white stab of a waist unwrapped. blackened sweet. a virgin chocolate bar crinkles her glittery skirt but such a disapproving purse. disapproving she twists her bittermelon mouth splitting shut. oh. oh oh no. white hot mirchi stops dead in her tracks. cut red. a rough and ready grab, a wolf whistling fist, an iron bangle tapping her curved rear.

(by Cynthia Lee)

Cynthia's Response to July Assignment: Remembering Homes in the Moment

For my "Localized Translations" study, I first spent some time learning the movement from Anjali's June assignment off the video. Then, I did a text-movement improvisation in which I told stories about "home" while drawing on Anjali's movement material. Here is a transcription of what I said:

Remembering Homes in the Moment

The little yellow table in a Mexican restaurant called Tacos Por Favor. The paint’s a little bit, the paint’s a little bit uneven, and they use chicken breast instead of dark meat. I used to go there, I, I used to go there, I used to go there, I would bring my book, my journal, and I would...I would write. And sometimes I would drink an horchata. That’s home number one – Home number two...is the sweep of freeway, the sweep of freeway. The mighty elevated concrete and the way it twists and it turns across each other. The 5, the 10, the 60, the, the, the driving. The perpetual driving. The bluetooth. The talking and driving and working. The perpetual the – the car accidents. The, the the the stop, the stop and go. The waiting. The NPR. The still not. The rush hour. The traffic. The planning one’s life around the sweep...the sweep of time and the sweep of concrete, that’s home number two. Pfwuh! Home number three. Home number three I remember, my pores remember, they remember the...sweat and grime and coming home and sneezing black snot out of my nose. And rickshaws and BEEP! and little trucks and camels and cows and...humidity. And a pair of feet, soft, of my teacher.

Shyamala's response to July assignment

I chose to translate Anjali's contemporized Anandabhairavi Varnam longing for her lover from last month's studies:
"My Lord, please come quickly so that we can be united once again. Love in separation.

In order to make it my own (and because I didn't know the song she sang in hers) I used the Beatles Song "Don't Let Me Down" which I thought could also portray the same sense of longing but also with other emotions...rapture, loss, anger, desperation, cajoling.

Because it was supposed to be a "localized" translation, I did it on the front stairwell of my apartment, like I really was waiting for my lover to return. It turned out to be quite narrow, which was a challenge. I did enjoy using the hand rail to lean into and bounce off of.


Don't Let Me Down (study) from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.


PASSWORD TO WATCH: Stairs

July 2009 Creative Assignment: Localized Translations

Creative Assignment: Localized Translations
by Sandra Chatterjee

From the June 2009 assignments, choose one aspect of one of the studies by another collective members. Choreograph a study that translates this one aspect into the place you call home. In order words, interpret another member’s previous translation according to your specific geographic locale. Localize the interpretation by drawing on and evoking specific imagery that distinguishes your geographic locale and home.

As Cynthia mentioned in the last assignment, the root of translation is “to carry across.” In this particular assignment, please think of it as carrying a translation into your specific home and have it be colored, re-interpreted by this process.

-July 2009

June Creative Assignment: Translating Each Other, Translating the Past

by Cynthia Lee

The root of translation is “to carry across.”

Choreograph a study that translates (1) a previous study choreographed by another PN member during our online creative assignment process and/or (2) a “traditional” abhinaya song/courtesan text. The latter may be from your classical repertoire or found through research. Translate this material into your own body, aesthetic sensibility, physical training, geographic locale, contemporary situation, in a way that resonates for you.

Feel free to mistranslate, to steal unapologetically, to treat translation as transformation. You could steal movement vocabulary, poetic phrases, images; you could translate compositional structure or spatial design to a new context; you could translate across disciplines and dance styles and historical period...

-June 2009