Queering Abhinaya assignment 2, babli

Password: mixed up
Queering Abhinaya 2, 2 from Sandra Chatterjee on Vimeo.

Feedback questions:

1) what do you take away from the video?
2) What do you take away from the song?
3) how does the video relate to the song?
4) Does the video stand alone?
5) I was thinking of starting with a live announcement (like the ones Janet critiques)- kind like this:

"The next item is a traditional love song. It says:

I have been in love with a girl for many years.

One day, the girl will have to find out one day! Whenever I see her red red lips, with her ever happy laugh, I want to do everything to have the chance to taste them one day.

Why does she keep me waiting, why does she only smile from afar.

Like a hidden flower I grow close to her.Whenever I see her I think- let me wait some more time.
But today I will tell her for certain
The reasons are enough!"

What do you think of that idea?

6) How does it relate to "queering abhinaya"
7)Any other thoughts?

Shyamala's Creative Response # 2: Queering Abhinaya Super Ruwaxi

For this assignment I chose to work on a character in "Super Ruwaxi: Origins" a piece that Cynthia and I are expanding into a full show. Here is a little about the piece: Super Ruwaxi: Origins tells the origin story of how Wu Ruwaxi, a nerdy Chinese-American teenager, becomes Super Ruwaxi, a feminist super-heroine with magical gender-bending body odor. Ruwaxi also discovers that she has her power because she is future incarnation of the Hindu apsara, Urvashi.

Up until now I have been playing the character of Urvashi. However this assignment allowed me to explore the physicality and expression of the Super Villain: Razor Girl.

What you need to know before watching this... Super Ruwaxi is approached by a slimy guy in a dance club named Fedora Boy/aka The Fed. He makes inappropriate advances on her.  She gets mad and discovers her magical gender-bending body odor, changing him into Fedora Girl. Fedora Girl is shocked and runs away. What follows is Fedora Girl's transformation into Razor Girl, aka Lexi Luthora.

 
Fedora girl to razor girl from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.
Password: Ruwaxi

Questions: 1. What interests you emotionally and/or physically? How would you as an audience member feel about this character (like, dislike, empathize with, scared of, be amused by etc...)? How else might I push this rendition of Razor Girl into a convincing and complex Super Villain who was accidentally created by Super Ruwaxi?

2. How does the song and spoken words inform you about what is going on for the character? (I got the idea from something Cynthia wrote that happens in the gender police headquarters where men are teaching their sons that "boys don't cry.")  Could you imagine other words, or no words support this transition?  If so, what could you imagine?

 3. Costuming: is it clear that the two costumes are the same person? Right now I interpreted Cynthia's description of Razor Girl as having the razor in a french twist as best as I could with short hair. However I realized, after I made the study, that keeping the hat might help us know that this is the same person as the audience members who were wearing it as Fedora Boy and Girl.

Here is a pic of a hat I have that actually has a little slot that a normal sized razor fits into perfectly (do we need to exaggerate the size of the razor?)

And here are two full body pics of Razor Girl, one with the razor in hair and one with the razor in hat. With the hat, I look more like a jazz/cabaret dancer to me.  This could be interesting...if we went in the hat direction I wonder how that might inform the way Razor Girl moves (do I need to go take some jazz classes?)



What are your thoughts about razor placement?Anything else about her costume that interests you, that you're not sure about, or that you have ideas about?

4. Costume transition: As the music ends in the video, I tried to recreate a sequence similar to Ruwaxi's transition into her club self...walking into the closet and being afraid of being caught. Is this confusing without hands and narrative? Could you imagine hands and narrative coming in here?  On a stage, I could do it in a different space than where Fedora girl just came from, but with a still camera it was easier to do it in place. Right now I relied on a video transition to create the clothing transition, but Razor Girl could, like Super Ruwaxi did earlier, change cloths live on stage if it is a simple enough transition (or in a video sequence). Any thoughts about this transition?

5.  Anything else?

Assignment 2: Abhinaya as a tool for queering

This assignment focuses on utilizing techniques and compositional strategies associated with abhinaya for queering beyond a Indian/South Asian context. Therefore, I would like you to focus on an aspect of your work, which explores a context/content/form that is not Indian/South Asian. This could, for example, be a study inspired by a specific cultural context (i.e. in my case the German context of the integration debate), by a narrative set in a specific cultural context, or a formal/aesthetic exploration/deconstruction (i.e. in the German context: a deconstruction of conceptual dance).

In your studies/creative responses, please explore abhinaya as a tool for queering while following this process in PAIRS.

1)
Choose one specific aspect of a previous study (or an idea that emerged from it), or an aspect/section of another project you are working on, which you would like to develop further by re-appropriating abhinaya for the purpose of queering (s.th. non-Indian).

2)
Pair up in the following pairs, and connect with your assignment partner:
Cynthia- Meena
Shyamala-Babli

If possible, try to work with your partner via distance, rather than in person.

3)
Have ONE exchange with your partner. Schedule one hour per partner. In this one hour, the person who's study is workshopped presents their idea/what they want to work on before you two brainstorm the study/creative response.

4)
Create your own rules as a pair for the collaboration leading up to completion and upload of the study, depending on your timelines and availabilities.


5)
HAVE FUN!!!

Collected feedback from Babli for assignment 1: Cultural Queering

Dear all, blogger did not let me comment- so here the feedback as a post- if any of you want to take the trouble to post as comments from PN account, please feel free- sorry about this!

Cynthia

 (1) What visuals or movement might you imagine to this piece?

For some reason I am drawn to the contrast between walking like Radha and Walking like a feminist- so possible variations of walking- just sets of feet filmed from above.

I know this is very sketchy, but my sense is for a continuous walking, covering space, which we don’t see, but get a sense of due to the progression and continuity of the walking.

Maybe changing footwear? But then its hard to get the continuity in walking…..

(2) What parts of the text are you drawn to and why?  Conversely, are there places where your attention falls away or that you would recommend cutting?

I find the mention of the nation state jarring- and parallel to it the imperialism- I think because they are loaded and the brief mentions end there…… It jars the otherwise poetic text- maybe that’s intended- but then I would maybe play with how they relate to each other. The terms as they are used now come across more black and white than they are, I think, esp when paired with an artistic practice.

Otherwise, I maybe get lost a little in the “love section” at the end-

(3) What emotions do you experience when listening to this soundtrack?  How would you describe the emotional arc of the work?

1: discomfort about physical Non-belonging

2. conflicting femininities: domesticated vs feminist

3: bridging cultural difference?

4. how do we love?

It moves to me from personal- to more personal/political to love as expansion (love as a possibility towards political change?)

(4) What light does this study shed on the theoretical concept of cultural queerness?

I actually perceive more tension than embrace of the obliqueness (which to me resonates with the queerness)

Except at the end where the interesting proposition of love as a mode of (political) expansion connects different layers of queerness (much like rapture/rupture)

(5) Other comments? 

In general, in terms of content, I feel that its clearer how the American feminist side confronts the “classical Indian” and its nationalist entanglement- but less how the classical Indian disrupts the American feminist- the puncturing goes in one direction- towards the classical, which comes across as more “passive” in this case. I am curious what the relationship looks like if the other direction is emphasized

Shyamala

1.     what is the tone of this piece for you? does it change over time?

The tone of the piece is a fascinating mixture of light/fun and serious. Overtime, I feel that  both qualities get enhanced- ending in a tongue- and-cheek way- I really like the ending of you laughing and taking off the hat!

2.     what do you experience watching it?
The

Oh I am totally drawn in from the beginning. I think the blank/serious expression on your face contrasting the more and more adventurous identity (stereotypes) provide a good contrast- I also like how interjections in the sound track (questioning) and in the facial expression mirror each other.

3.     would you like there to be more in the sound score?  if so, what?

I am torn about this one. I kind of like the sparseness of the soundscore. Anything more, might highlight one or the other mood too more and throw off the careful balance.

4.     how do you feel about the length and pacing?  Does it include everything you would like or do you feel it is too repetitive?

I like the length, and also the progression, in terms of pacing maybe there could be some playing with the editing- for some reason I can picture a fast forward or rewind kind of effect “summarizing” the stereotypes and also the mixed up ones.

5.     Any other feedback?

I really like how cultural/ethnic/religious and gender identity get addressed simultaneously- I think there could be some more thought/variety into what other variations might be possible---- I think there is more potential there

I also think it would be a fun model for all of us to follow and do a kind of video installation with…….

Meena

i) what stands out to you in terms of what this body doing? 

Posing, lounging, confronting (through looking)

Offers itself, owns itself

In control

Seducing and troubling by not-conforming

ii) how would you describe this body? 

Open yet confrontational, relaxed, comfortable in its non-conformity

Self-reflexive, in charge

iii) is this body doing anything subversive? 

Mostly I feel the contrast between seduction (inhabiting sexualized feminine poses) paired with a gender-non-conforming subjectivity

The looks into the camera- calm, stern

Less the body than the editing—the pulsing of the poses, the switch from flowing from pose to pose, to chopping them next to each other

 iv) how is this body constructing its own subjecthood (if this body is indeed constructing its own subjectivity)?

The careful choosing and deliberateness of the stances, poses, the juxtaposition of seduction and gender-noncoformity

The choice of telling a story away from the camera (that gets blurred) interjected with the stern gaze into the camera

v) how is the camera and/or the editing constructing (co-constructing?) this body's subjecthood?

I think I already addressed this above, regarding eth switch between flow from pose to pose as against chopped up stringing together, enhanced but the pulsating in a pose which is clearly edited,

The move from blurred to clear

The choice of camera angle (looking directly into the camera vs abhinaya into diagonal, away from camera)

The background sound during abhinaya vs the silence which staring

vi) anything else?

"how can we" - Cynthia's Response 1: Queering Cultural Memory

Here, at long last, is my queering cultural memory study.  I had a complicated vision for what visuals might go with it, but since it's a little challenging to implement given my current artistic skill-set, I thought it would be better to post something rather than nothing.

QUESTIONS:
(1) What visuals or movement might you imagine to this piece?
(2) What parts of the text are you drawn to and why?  Conversely, are there places where your attention falls away or that you would recommend cutting?
(3) What emotions do you experience when listening to this soundtrack?  How would you describe the emotional arc of the work?
(4) What light does this study shed on the theoretical concept of cultural queerness?
(5) Other comments?

Babli's Assignment 1: Queering Cultural Memory

After doing the freewrite, I got completely stuck- BECAUSE the concept that emerged for the assignment was one that I could not technically execute as a study.

So here I wrote out the scenario I start from. This round, I guess is more a request for brainstorming than feedback :)

Scenario 1

Background: Sruti box

After some time:

voice over: English translation of a PADAM- it should be obvious from the narration that it is a translation (i.e. searching for words)- I am still looking for one. Have been playing with “Don’t you know my house” for now. But its not ideal.

In the middle of the stage there is a wall of bricks (loosely) stacked on top of each other – about 4 feet wide and 5 feet tall

As the voice over can be heard, a hand, from behind the “wall” is carefully pushing at one of the bricks, until it falls down to the front, leaving a whole in the wall.

The whole thing happens very gradually.

A second brick is gently gradually pushed out in a similar way.

It falls, leaving a gap.

The hands reach through, bending up, exploring the wall where a face would be.

They gradually start including hastas in their exploration of the wall, which start coinciding with the recited Padam.

As the hands keep exploring the wall, interjected with hastas they start manipulating the bricks, until one can be lifted off the top of the wall.

The focus of the hands shifts away from exploring the wall, now trying to dismantle it. This has to be done with great care. The difficulty should be visible.

For now I see the end of this during the dismantling.

THIS IS JUST AN IMAGE that came to me.

Feedback questions:

11)   What does this image suggest to you? What are your associations?

22)  Do you have suggestions on how to transform this idea into a video/performance score that actually “doable” at this experimental stage?

a.     If this were a video, do you have suggestions on approaches to shoot it/angles to pursue it?

b.     If this were live, playing with props, do you have suggestions on approaches to pursue it?

33) Any other thoughts?

Shyamala's Creative Response 1: I am (queering cultural memory)

I am (queering culture) from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.

password: queering

1. what is the tone of this piece for you? does it change over time?
2.  what do you experience watching it?
3.  would you like there to be more in the sound score?  if so, what?
4.  how do you feel about the length and pacing?  Does it include everything you would like or do you feel it is too repetitive?
5.  Any other feedback?

Assignment 1 - Queering Cultural Memory - Meena's Creative Response

Post Natyam Collective Assignment Feb 2014 Cultural Queering by Meena Murugesan from meena murugesan on Vimeo.

PW: disidentification

i) what stands out to you in terms of what this body doing? 

ii) how would you describe this body? 

iii) is this body doing anything subversive? 

iv) how is this body constructing its own subjecthood (if this body is indeed constructing its own subjectivity)?

v) how is the camera and/or the editing constructing (co-constructing?) this body's subjecthood?

vi) anything else?

Queering Abhinaya Assignment 1: Queering Cultural Memory

Queering Cultural Memory

We (Cynthia and Sandra) have been formulating a theoretical concept, “cultural queerness,” which we’d like to use as the inspiration for this assignment.  Here is a working definition (still in process):

Cultural queerness refers to the disruption of a dominant essentialized cultural norm in a way that complicates notions of cultural authenticity, cultural appropriation and identity-based representation.  It aims to undo the easy equation between nation, race, and cultural/artistic 
production without ignoring uneven power hierarchies or histories of inequality.  

Think of a personal memory of feeling uncomfortable with a dominant essentialized cultural norm.  For instance, Cynthia might address how it feels to be a non-Indian classical kathak dancer, while Sandra might reflect on a “relegation to Indianness” and the resulting exclusion from Germanness.

Explore this memory through a 10 minute free-write. Translate the memory into a subversive artistic or embodied product (such as choreography, writing, dance-for-camera, photos, etc…).   

Please post your responses with feedback questions by Feb 21, and give feedback by Feb 28.

Dramaturgical connections: Final Round

So the final step for our journey so far…

In order to start writing the final round, I started by not only watching the assignment videos repeatedly, but also to read the blog and the dramaturgical connections that have developed thus far. From there I have picked up some themes which have served as keywords for me and based on them I have come up with this current idea.

The keywords that I have gathered are – Racial politics, Gender, Cross-dressing, Body, Commerce, Hindi Cinema (Bollywood), political cabaret (If I am missing any please do add). The concepts that we developed based on our research and the assignments created are – suspense and surprise, hiding and revealing, costume and makeup. So bringing together all these ideas and collating the images that we have generated, here is my final round of dramaturgical connections.

The opening I see as a collection of stills/photographs of objects that we have appeared in the assignment videos, like matchstick, cork, bar stool, coins, necklace, saree, hat, tie, shoes, and etc. (if there are other things we can think of to add to this list, please do). All these images, which seem to be mismatched, come one after the other like a flipbook and end on an image of a pair of eyes. From here we see a series of eyes appearing on the screen, morphing one into the other. These then finally end on Shyamala’s eye and we see khol appearing on it. Then another sequence begins, which is like a stop motion video of different body parts being dressed up. This leads to the make-up sequence that was proposed in the last dramaturgical connections.

Here we however do not see any masculine clothing appear on anyone’s body. When Cynthia works on her section of dressing up, she could focus on a more on wearing a courtesan/tawaf like costume and jewellery. Everyone else could work with props and costumes which reflect more of the costumes from cabaret artistique, its bollywood version and belly dancing like costumes and improvisations of it, which got included in cabaret performances. So ostrich feathers, naqabs, ornaments for the head and hair, gloves, fish net stockings etc. could be surely used. Here we could bring in the split screen ideas that we had from dramaturgical connections from round 1 and work with lights focused on different body parts and then the formation of a singular dancing body(s) and individual dance sections.

I feel the last performance in this section could be Sandra’s as her performance could lead to her saree getting stuck somewhere and be stretched out to form a screen. From behind the animal print screen, clothes could be thrown out to indicate the performance of a striptease. Only the shadow/silhouette of the performer should be visible from behind the sheerness of the saree. A pile of clothes could collect and the last one to come out could be the bra. This might lead to the camera being turned to the sari screen and the viewers expecting a naked female body to appear. But instead we see 3 maybe 4(depending on the number of participants) figures appearing from behind the screen wearing men’s clothes. Here we have a split screen again and we see all the performers wearing men’s suits and appear on screen. Each suit is different from the other, one is like what Cynthia was wearing, the second like the one Shyamala had – like Victor and Victoria and Sandra comes out wearing a third. Their faces however are all hidden. Either a hat or a scarf covers them. A common choreography could be worked out so that everyone can perform one movement phrase in unison and the real their faces. Here, each performer reveals something. Cynthia could reveal her have the half black face, Shyamala her moustaches and Sandra could unbutton her shirt and reveal a bra. But this has to lead somewhere, so Cythia’s section could lead into the choreography phrase she has already created, Shyamala’s could also lead to the phrase she has made in the last assignment and Sandra could create a new phrase.

I don’t have a concluding visual yet, buy like how Shyamala drops a coin at the end, so maybe each performer could drop an object that comments on the aspect of cabaret that they have dealt with. 

Babli's Cabaret Assignment 3

Here My assignment 3- I added on to 1 and 2.....

Soundtrack only a sketch!

Babli's Cabaret Assignment 3 from Sandra Chatterjee on Vimeo.

password: vamp

Feedback questions:

1. How do the three parts relate to each other, in your opinion?
a) what does each part do on its own
b) what are you drawn to in each part and what is less exciting?
c) what is/are red (a) red thread(s) that could connect them?

2) Who could the character be that is emerging from the study/three parts?

3) Do you have any sound/soundtrack and text suggestions?

4) any other observations, thoughts, feedback?

Cynthia Cabaret Assignment #3: dancing love and theft

I reworked and expanded my last study taking Aditee's and Shyamala's feedback into consideration.  Thanks to Shyamala for her direction and camerawork!


Love and Theft from Cynthia Ling Lee on Vimeo.
password: other

FEEDBACK QUESTIONS
(1) What parts of the study do you find compelling in terms of aesthetics and/or content, and which do you find less compelling or problematic? 
(2) As per Shy's suggestion, we changed the order of the make-up and costumes in the first half.  How does it read differently than the last study?  Do you prefer one order to the other, and why?
(3) Is the use of blackface implementing a political critique or simply a reiteration of a painful part of racial denigration from US history?  If you see a critique, can you describe the nature of it?  How might I deepen, complicate, and nuance that critique?  Would it be better to eliminate the blackface?
(4) Do you like the repetition of the same song twice?  If not, what kind of sound might you imagine for the first half?
(5) Other thoughts?

Cabaret Travels: Shyamala's Creative Assignment 3

Cabaret Assignment 3: Gender money version from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.
Password: money

I added money (inspired by working with Meena Murugesan on her show "we used to see this"
I added gendered costuming  (inspired by Victor Victoria, Cynthia's Cabaret assignments, and that some folks at Dance Conversations thought my Ruwaxi Character looked transgendered on film!)

Also, I changed the sound score based on Cyn's suggestions to add music instead of footstamping. I think the new one above is better but have a version of the old one below as well. If you'd like to see it, here it is. Let me know if you prefer it for some reason.
Cabaret assignment 3: Gender version from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.
Password: money

1. What is your experience like watching this?
2. What interests you most and least about it and why?
3. Any thoughts about the sound and how it relates to the video?
4. Any suggestions to improve or expand the piece?

Cabaret Travels: Creative Assignment #3

"All participants can improvise and create sections on their own pertaining to how they can best use make-up and costume in their section. However the use of these two elements should enhance and support the politics inherent in their approaches to the form of cabaret that they are working and researching on. The use of material for creating the costumes and make-up can be improvised and be as innovative and unconventional as possible. The whole idea is however that these elements enter the piece as a character and are there to add another layer to the thoughts/arguments/reflections that each participant has on the form of cabaret they are dealing with."   -Aditee Biswas
Please post your assignments by Nov 1 at the very latest.

Dramaturgical Connections: Round 2

The beginning…

What stood out for me the most and very ‘dramatically’, from this round of assignment videos, was the use of make-up and costume. These elements have compelled me to think about the female body, it being covered-hidden, uncovered-revealed and how the body can be ‘othered’ by wearing a garb and make-up like in Cynthia’s work. It was very interesting to see how the act of putting on make-up became more like that of wearing a mask and the choice of costume added another layer of meaning to a persona being created. The choice of the costume and its use, like in Sandra and Cynthia’s work helped me re-look at the saree and the conventional male attire respectively and read new meaning into them. The way Shyamala used her kohled eyes, Anjali juxtaposed the decorative feminine costume and the masculine movements, all lead me to think about these two elements very strongly.

I feel this episode could be a prequel to the episode thought of earlier, for round 1. Here we could individually shoot sections of everyone dressing up but only certain parts of the body being revealed at a time. The episode however could start with a series of images that are a collection of snapshots of symbols, objects/props that can be linked with terms like ‘exotic’, ‘feminine’, ‘masculine’ and etc. So the episode could start with the image of the matchstick being lit and the block being burnt for soot, maybe something like a white powder can or a skin tanning spray can being opened. We can think of more images that can later be intercut with the images of putting on make-up and creating a new identity.

Next we see all 4 performers with bare faces and bare shoulders, placed on a screen, two on top and two below. We see their profiles and different colours are sprayed on to that side of their face, so as to change their skin-tones. Or the images could also be of the performers doing make-up very unconventionally, like Cynthia putting soot on her face. The idea here is to compare the action to that of putting a base layer of make-up but then not to use conventional base make-up for it. However, whether spray-painting the face or using different materials to do a base, the colours being put on the skin could be ranging from white/fair and going to black/dark.

All performers should be placed in front of a white background, with their facial profiles facing the camera on which we see the colouring of the skin, taking place. So if we spray paint on their faces we see the extra colour hitting/collecting on the background wall and spreading unevenly while spraying. Then we all four performers supporting thick layers of paint on half of their faces. The colours put on their faces should be so dense that it appears as though they are wearing half-masks. So here we again go back to our idea of using a split screen and see all the performers first in profile and then facing the camera frontally, so that we see their half coloured half bare (original sink-tone) faces clearly.

It will be very interesting if the extra paint from the spraying lands on the background wall and forms a silhouette of everyone’s face, so that their facial features become prominent. This collection of their silhouettes could then come as a separate shot, rather one image could dissolve into another and this could stay on the screen for a few seconds before we moved into the next round of images. 

Then we could have each performer focus on one facial feature or body part and capture them while in the act of doing make-up or dressing up a bit more conventionally. Like we could focus on only Shyamala’s eyes and her putting kohl, Cynthia’s lips and putting on the red lipstick, Anjali’s hands and her maybe wearing a pair of net gloves or some bangles or some middle eastern jewellery on her hand and Sandra could be dressing her feet or stretch a pair of fishnet stockings over her bare legs.

The next shot could then be of pieces of costume flying around, like a men’s shirt being flung, a gloved had putting on a large ostrich feather on a waist band or a small one on a bun on the head, an animal print material being stretched across the screen, and a top hat being placed on a head. We could probably end this section with an image of Shyamala’s eye blinking once at the audience, through her fingers. From here the next section can start and we see the camera focused on Sandra’s legs.