This is a blog entry for the Investigating Cross Borders Collaborative Works dance lab at Bundanon Artists Center in New South Wales, Australia from November 14-24, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Jerome lead a vocal exercise on the morning of November 23, which began with a vocal warm up and then contrapuntal exercises that reminded me a lot of improv exercises but using the voice instead of the body. At a certain point, they were asked to choose one sound and were arranged in a circle. Jerome proceeded to conduct the choreographers: when he pointed at each one, they had to make that sound they chose, stopping only when Jerome pointed at someone else.
Cat decided she wanted to do the conducting also, integrating dynamics and piling on the textures. This is a video of her orchestral experiment. View here.
Jerome then asked everyone to try out movement with their sound of choice, or whatever sound they fancied, just to get a feel for how the sound they make shares their physical impetus. That is captured here. And no that sound is not an angry wombat, it's just Vicki.
Soon, Jerome started to play electronic dance music, urging everyone to keep experimenting with movement and sound, and adding other sounds if they wished. As the others took their time warming up to the idea, you could see Simon and Rhiannon start to really get into it. What I found interesting was how they didn't easily take to the "dance music." They would also regularly forget to use sound with their movements as you might notice here.
Disco time. With some violent animal possession care of Vicki Van Hout. View here
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This is the last entry of the Cross Borders Collaborative Works blog. Please refer to this initial entry as a backgrounder on the lab. You can see the original blog at http://crossborderscollaborative.wordpress.com
Dienstag, Januar 24. 2012
Bundanon Blog: Bundanon Sound Machines
Bundanon Blog: What comes out of Traffic
This is a blog entry for the Investigating Cross Borders Collaborative Works dance lab at Bundanon Artists Center in New South Wales, Australia from November 14-24, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Ly Ly set up her Traffic experiment in the studio adjacent to the main living quarters in Bundanon Artists Center (for those familiar with the place, it’s the studio with the drawing of the wombat on the wall. This space is the kind of studio that’s long enough to be divided into two, a trait that turned into a qualifier over the course of the exercise. Doris spent most of Monday assembling obstacles in the room, laying out a tiny avenue within the four walls.
On the morning of Tuesday, Ly Ly laid down the ground rules: they are to go through the paths any which way they liked but if Doris put in front of them the Stop sign (a red dust shovel tied to what I think was a microphone stand), they need to go another way.
For a very long time, the choreographers stayed in only one side of the room, and followed the rules accordingly. They all walked single file around the various structures that Doris put up. Ly Ly pretty much dictated a lot of what else could be done – other movements, like sudden turns and touching the others, slapping the obstacles – were mostly initiated by her, as if signaling what was and was not acceptable.
It was Cat who eventually rebelled against the single file and dropped to the ground to lie stretched out on the floor. They would fall into that single file now and then, but very seldomly and each did their own thing, moving around, and in Vicki’s case usually, through the obstacles.
All throughout this exercise, Vicki was holding her camera, documenting the experiment on video from start to end.
Rhiannon interacted with the furniture-as-highway more than she did with other people: the choreographers often addressed whoever they pass while walking, from simple physical acknowledgements to joining in what the other was doing. In contrast to Rhiannon, Cat would try to violently move the objects out of their original assigned places, as if trying to really disrupt the space. Simon interacted with the others also, but often broke away from everyone to stand still – in the corner, on top of a chair, by the window.
At some point, Jerome ended his ambient music and seemed to signal for everyone to wrap up the exercise. But Ly Ly went to the other half of the room, prompting the others to spill out after her. And the traffic continued.
The interesting thing about the other half of the room was here, the rules were seemingly abandoned. Instead of a flow of traffic, the choreographers started to pick things up, move them around, turn them on and off, create sculpture with them, wrap themselves in them, use them to attack other inanimate objects with, and so on.
Many of us opined that it’s possible more things happened in the other room because there were more objects to manipulate there, as opposed to the seemingly immovable structures in the first room. There was only so much you could do with couches and chairs, and they were indeed done. But in Room # 2 you had rolls of tarpaulin, a vacuum cleaner you could plug into a socket, a plastic bag hanging from the ceiling, a wastebasket, a sink full of sand, just to name a few. There was so much possibility. The movements that were then created looked more like prop improvisation than the structured walking done previously and the concept of traffic had now liquefied into something else entirely.
Later on, after the exercise and the discussion, Vicki commented that it was great that they were able to do some physical movement as the whole lab was primarily visually-motivated. It was a good reminder to dance as well.
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Please refer to this initial entry as a backgrounder on the lab. You can see the original blog at http://crossborderscollaborative.wordpress.com
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Ly Ly set up her Traffic experiment in the studio adjacent to the main living quarters in Bundanon Artists Center (for those familiar with the place, it’s the studio with the drawing of the wombat on the wall. This space is the kind of studio that’s long enough to be divided into two, a trait that turned into a qualifier over the course of the exercise. Doris spent most of Monday assembling obstacles in the room, laying out a tiny avenue within the four walls.
On the morning of Tuesday, Ly Ly laid down the ground rules: they are to go through the paths any which way they liked but if Doris put in front of them the Stop sign (a red dust shovel tied to what I think was a microphone stand), they need to go another way.
For a very long time, the choreographers stayed in only one side of the room, and followed the rules accordingly. They all walked single file around the various structures that Doris put up. Ly Ly pretty much dictated a lot of what else could be done – other movements, like sudden turns and touching the others, slapping the obstacles – were mostly initiated by her, as if signaling what was and was not acceptable.
It was Cat who eventually rebelled against the single file and dropped to the ground to lie stretched out on the floor. They would fall into that single file now and then, but very seldomly and each did their own thing, moving around, and in Vicki’s case usually, through the obstacles.
All throughout this exercise, Vicki was holding her camera, documenting the experiment on video from start to end.
Rhiannon interacted with the furniture-as-highway more than she did with other people: the choreographers often addressed whoever they pass while walking, from simple physical acknowledgements to joining in what the other was doing. In contrast to Rhiannon, Cat would try to violently move the objects out of their original assigned places, as if trying to really disrupt the space. Simon interacted with the others also, but often broke away from everyone to stand still – in the corner, on top of a chair, by the window.
At some point, Jerome ended his ambient music and seemed to signal for everyone to wrap up the exercise. But Ly Ly went to the other half of the room, prompting the others to spill out after her. And the traffic continued.
The interesting thing about the other half of the room was here, the rules were seemingly abandoned. Instead of a flow of traffic, the choreographers started to pick things up, move them around, turn them on and off, create sculpture with them, wrap themselves in them, use them to attack other inanimate objects with, and so on.
Many of us opined that it’s possible more things happened in the other room because there were more objects to manipulate there, as opposed to the seemingly immovable structures in the first room. There was only so much you could do with couches and chairs, and they were indeed done. But in Room # 2 you had rolls of tarpaulin, a vacuum cleaner you could plug into a socket, a plastic bag hanging from the ceiling, a wastebasket, a sink full of sand, just to name a few. There was so much possibility. The movements that were then created looked more like prop improvisation than the structured walking done previously and the concept of traffic had now liquefied into something else entirely.
Later on, after the exercise and the discussion, Vicki commented that it was great that they were able to do some physical movement as the whole lab was primarily visually-motivated. It was a good reminder to dance as well.
--
Please refer to this initial entry as a backgrounder on the lab. You can see the original blog at http://crossborderscollaborative.wordpress.com
Bundanon Blog: Cat, the Lady of the Manor
Bundanon Blog: Make Like a Rhinoceros
This is a blog entry for the Investigating Cross Borders Collaborative Works dance lab at Bundanon Artists Center in New South Wales, Australia from November 14-24, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Aside from the Bower Bird discovery, another incident that impressed the Bundanon dance lab participants during the Tuesday afternoon walk was the herd of cattle that didn’t seem keen on allowing us to cross the paddock and when the bull, in all its majesty, looked straight at us suspiciously, and some of us started to panic quite audibly, Leigh Warren put his arms up in front of his head and said, “Quick, make like a rhinoceros!!” This obviously did not deter the cows and bull, nor did it make them want to charge, but it did disperse the nature nerves as we cracked up in laughter.
In honor of Leigh, Vicki rounded up the Bundanon educational exchange program schoolkids and got them to do some site specific movement with her. She brought them to a nice wooded area beside the bower bird nests (both real and Latai’s) and asked them to stand behind a tree, like hiding. At her signal, the kids should start jumping up and down (like some of our favorite animals in the paddock – not the cows) but from behind the tree. Then, when they got tired, or just felt like it, to “Make like a rhinoceros.” She asked one boy to wear the yellow gloves from her kitchen.
The kids, all visual arts students, were all quite game, but most likely not aware that they just did a “Leigh Warren choreography right there,” as Cat put it. And despite herself, Vicki finally got to orchestrate a collaboration of her initiative.
View a video of Vicki coordinating her rhinoceros here.
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Please refer to this initial entry as a backgrounder on the lab. You can see the original blog at http://crossborderscollaborative.wordpress.com
Monday, November 21, 2011
Aside from the Bower Bird discovery, another incident that impressed the Bundanon dance lab participants during the Tuesday afternoon walk was the herd of cattle that didn’t seem keen on allowing us to cross the paddock and when the bull, in all its majesty, looked straight at us suspiciously, and some of us started to panic quite audibly, Leigh Warren put his arms up in front of his head and said, “Quick, make like a rhinoceros!!” This obviously did not deter the cows and bull, nor did it make them want to charge, but it did disperse the nature nerves as we cracked up in laughter.
In honor of Leigh, Vicki rounded up the Bundanon educational exchange program schoolkids and got them to do some site specific movement with her. She brought them to a nice wooded area beside the bower bird nests (both real and Latai’s) and asked them to stand behind a tree, like hiding. At her signal, the kids should start jumping up and down (like some of our favorite animals in the paddock – not the cows) but from behind the tree. Then, when they got tired, or just felt like it, to “Make like a rhinoceros.” She asked one boy to wear the yellow gloves from her kitchen.
The kids, all visual arts students, were all quite game, but most likely not aware that they just did a “Leigh Warren choreography right there,” as Cat put it. And despite herself, Vicki finally got to orchestrate a collaboration of her initiative.
View a video of Vicki coordinating her rhinoceros here.
--
Please refer to this initial entry as a backgrounder on the lab. You can see the original blog at http://crossborderscollaborative.wordpress.com
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