Joelle Jacinto - Goethe-Institut TanzConnexions

Bundanon Blog: Bundanon Sound Machines

nospam@example.com (Joelle Jacinto) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:08:00 +0100

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

Bundanon Blog: What comes out of Traffic

nospam@example.com (Joelle Jacinto) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:32:36 +0100

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

Bundanon Blog: Cat, the Lady of the Manor

nospam@example.com (Joelle Jacinto) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:15:15 +0100

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

The Lady of the Manor first manifested on Sunday, while Cat, Latai and Vicki were playing around in the Bundanon homestead. Cat had come from getting her portrait taken by Doris for her portraiture project, with her face painted in white, and it became fun to shoot against the fireplace in the Bundanon museum. Helen asked if the people from the Bundanon Trust know that they were were there, taking photos, and Cat said they did and were very amused.

Aside from there being photos of Cat in front of thr fireplace in the homestead, there were also photos of Cat in the studio, in front of the Arthur Boyd painting that was on display. Helen points out that the painted face makes it appear to be part of the painting, “but also it looks like there’s an ownership role.”

“There were no preconceived ideas, it was just my face was painted,” Cat shares during the regroup. “(The painted face) deconstructs the body, it’s a reference to Western theater and this character kind of emerged. The river experience today is the next step and hopefully something will come of that.”

The “river experience” involved some shots taken of Cat with her face paint on, but in a bikini and sarong, with a bowl of fruit in the river, and Latai as her manservant. You can refer to this page for pictures.

Helen comments that Cat is “Sort of bringing an artifice to the natural landscape,” and at some point, she transforms from the Lady of the Manor to the Island girl serving the man. Cat agrees, laughing “Yeah, the gender roles keep shifting.”

Other comments from the group were how into the character Latai was and how it helped transform the character of the Lady of the manor (and how dedicated: even when the chair in the river was falling backwards, Latai stayed true to her character and didn’t let go of the sweet potatoes she was holding. Doris also pointed out that the presence of the fruit bowl is like a classic still life, still tying the idea of the Lady of the Manor to painting. In some some of the shots, though it also looks like she’s also wearing too much sunscreen.

Cat says she’s still playing with the idea of the exoticized image and the flatness of it. She’ll see where it goes.

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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

Bundanon Blog: Make Like a Rhinoceros

nospam@example.com (Joelle Jacinto) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:06:05 +0100

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

Bundanon Blog: Bower Envy

nospam@example.com (Joelle Jacinto) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:51:45 +0100

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

Sunday, November 20, 2011

On the first Tuesday that we were here, after much discussion in the studio, everyone was excited to take a walk around Bundanon and make our way to the river. We went up the amphitheatre and down again, and crossed a few paddocks before deciding to leave the river to be found another day.

A few meters down from amphitheatre, we found a bower bird’s bower, and most of us were quite flabbergasted to see it because we had never actually seen a bower bird’s bower before. It was just as I read in those nature books in our grade school library – the circular reshaping of the grass, the soft bed in the center, the scattering of blue objects in the center. In this bower, there were a couple of blue feathers, some blue paper and a bottle top.

Latai had been bringing around a blue tarpaulin, basically playing around with it, creating images with the imposed object in the space. When she saw the bower bird, she decided to create her own bower with her tarp, hoping to make the bower bird envious.

On Sunday morning, Latai set up her bower beside the bower bird’s nest and included a lot of “found objects” around the house – including a chair Simon found by the river, a couple of mugs, a tea towel and a canister from the kitchen, Doris’ bathing suit and Alfira’s bikini top, which, when reported missing, Vicki responded with a straight face, “Your swimmers are missing? Since when?” Leigh also sacrificed his Prostate Cancer Awareness bangle to the bower bird, and the next day, they found that the bower bird had taken that and placed it in his own bower, as well as a washing peg and bits of paper, in effect fulfilling Latai’s intention to make the bower bird jealous. That Sunday before he left for Adelaide, they recorded Leigh doing a David Attenborough commentary on this special breed of bower bird.

Latai took the bower down on Monday, after showing it to the students engaged in the Bundanon education program, who were scheduled to visit on Monday at 1pm. They kept bits of blue paper and disposable objects in case the bower bird would like them. When Helen checked on the bower bird the next day, she was happy to report that the bower bird had indeed taken all the othe objects from the bower and placed into his own.

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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

Bundanon Blog: The Gift of Movement

nospam@example.com (Joelle Jacinto) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:26:17 +0100

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

While a lot of the experiments have been visually driven, there is some movement happening here at the Bundanon Dance Lab. On Friday afternoon, Leigh got all the participants to pair up for a movement exercise. The idea was for each person to come up with a movement gesture or phrase and “gift” it to their partner, who then receives the movement into their body, sort of doing it over and over until they’ve completely “accepted” the “gift.” And then, once part of their body vocabulary, to transform it into something that appeal to them.

Doris, Fu Kuen and Jerome gamely joined this exercise (while I, the dancer among the facilitators, did not), and partnered up with Ly Ly, Simon and Vicki respectively. Doris and Ly Ly didn’t quite understand the exercise and were passing imaginary objects to each other, on the subject of “gifting.” It was like watching them play catch with unknown energies and it was actually really fun to watch, though Leigh had to reinform them of what the exercise was really about. Doubtful though if the others did get the real purpose of the exercise as both Fu Kuen and Simon, and Vicki and Jerome were mirroring each other and not really “gifting.” Cat and Rhiannon also seemed to be finding some sort of movement, though it was not clear where the movement began and where it became reprocessing. Fortunately, this was addressed with better explanation from Leigh the next day.

Interesting movement exchange did happen on Friday, with Latai and Fitri, to the point where Latai had danced away from Ly Ly, in her pursuit of reprocessing Fitri’s movement into her own body and coming up with something new.

On Saturday morning, Leigh gave a nice warm up that mobilized several points of the body, making sure that the body was ready for movement for that day, and asked the group to pair up with somebody new. Before I could disappear, Vicki was beside me like a kangaroo. At the end of the exchange, Leigh asked each pair to present what they came up with.

Leigh and Ly Ly started the presentation, with Leigh showing us the movement Ly Ly gifted him and then the movement it turned into. You could see the difference of styles with the juxtaposition of original movement with transformed movement, and how each were very Leigh and very Ly Ly.

Vicki and I went next. I gave a simple weaving of the arms around my crown, my eyes, my chest and waist, to which Vicki applied her whole body, incorporating rhythms and jumps. She taught me an interesting opposition exercise which was meant for Fitri, and I slowed down and speeded up the movements, and gave it different directions, though I think the original was eons better. Alfira was supposed to join us, but time had run out for us to receive her movement phrase.

Cat and Latai performed their transformed movements together, and they seemed to be doing the same movement, but with different qualities: Latai’s was softer, with an almost melting into herself effect, while Cat’s was strong and aggressive. The contrast was quite awesome.

Rhiannon and Jerome did a mirroring exercise with their hands, and it was interesting how each “understood” the movement that they shared.

Fitri and Simon were “Two turtles who fall in love.” They stood far away from each other at opposite sides of the room and slowly made their way to the floor and crawled towards each other, waiting for “What’s next?” before Fitri gave a loud laugh and scramble to standing position, signaling the end of the exercise.

The next day, after Leigh warmed us up for the last time, new pairings were formed and performed. Simon and Latai were this time gecko and turtle, respectively – Latai has been gifting the same movement to all her movement partners to see how they receive them. It is based on a gecko, which Latai has adopted as her symbol (or as far as how I understand it) with a head accent that is traditionally an improvisational gesture in Tongan dance. In return, Simon taught Latai the turtle movement and they looked sweetly like two animals making their way to dry land, and away from the rising sea levels.

Rhiannon and Ly Ly exploded in their own spaces, sharing very volatile bursts of movement with each other. Jerome and Cat played around with similar movements that grew away from each other then pulled together when you least expected it.

Fitri and Vicki both shared very similar movements as well and made a little skit of walking “same” (same arm same leg moving together) and “different” (arms and legs in opposition). Vicki had a running commentary all the while she and Fitri moved through the space with their different strides.

This piqued everyone’s interest so much that all started to move same and different strides, and would even attempt it randomly for the rest of the day.

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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

Bundanon Blog: Finding the River

nospam@example.com (Joelle Jacinto) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 13:57:54 +0100

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

This photo (and more on this page) are from Friday, November 18, our attempt to find the river after failing to find it last Tuesday. We almost also didn’t find the river again, but Margie’s determination saw us through.

At the river, which was more a happy respite from the confines of the Dorothy Potter dance studio, several ideas came dinging into people’s brains and the river inspired several ideas that people are working on, as we speak (they’re actually down at the river right now while I’m here blogging). Cat is working on a bunch of site specific photographs. Vicki is bringing her imposed objects to the river and trying to get a sense of how it works. Rhiannon is picking up examples of her architecture-drawing-movement relationships during the walks to and from the river and in the river itself.

Fitri has been planning to capture images/film of people standing still on the paddock, like trees, and suddenly (or slowly) dropping to the ground like falling timber, and the river inspired her to have the same kind of recording of imagery but in the river. Jerome asked everyone who would be interested to help record some percussion in the river (see images posted by Margie Medlin here).

Simon thought to push this further and discussed with Jerome if they could take some of the sand back to Bundanon artists center, in one of the visual arts studios where Jerome set up his recording gear. Last Saturday, November 19, they did their experiments with the sand, creating interesting sounds with moving sticks in the contained sand and with Ly Ly banging on a bottle of wine. Simon feels that it was also the act of taking the environment into the performance that was as important as making this music.

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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

Bundanon Blog: Getting a Move On

nospam@example.com (Joelle Jacinto) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 13:36:44 +0100

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

Sunday, November 20, 2011

“Ohmigod! I’m the person in the group who does dancey dance!” Vicki bursts out right after her turn with the movement exercise with Fitri. The rest of the participants don’t mind though, as they all start trying out Vicki and Fitri’s movement studies on “same and different.”

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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

Bundanon Blog: To reflect and come up with a confrontation

nospam@example.com (Joelle Jacinto) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 13:07:44 +0100

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

Dramaturgical Clinic - Fu Kuen

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Tang Fu Kuen arrived Wednesday afternoon, November 16. On Thursday, he holds his first session with the group, a dramaturgical clinic that is meant to be a reflexive exercise.

He introduces himself by describing how he works “in 3 ways,” primarily as a curator, but also a producer and a dramaturg. His background is in literature and speech theater, but moved into film and dance. “One primary interest I had was in the moving body.”

He has been an independent during the last decade, working on conservation, and with UNESCO, and different government bodies. Outside his conservation work, he is actively working with artists in art production, leading a “Double, triple life,” he describes with a grin.

“A mission I defined for myself in my work,” he shares, “Moving from the West back to Asia 6 years ago, to promote artists. It was a necessity I realized in Europe, feeling useless without a position to assert an identity. There is a need for more cross-cultural flow, and it’s a specific thing between Asia and Europe.

“All I do now is really helping and identifying a set of art makers whose art is interesting and push them in a certain direction and push them to Europe.” With the development of conceptual art in Paris and Berlin, Fu Kuen invited these artists to Asia and vice versa, to broaden the artistic landscape. “For the last 2 years, I’m more like a salesman, a touring, booking agent,” he laughs.

He curated for several festivals and still works as a dramaturg, in projects that are a “Cross with media and performative art.”

His dramaturgical clinic is “another level of reflection where you comment on yourself, share deeper insights… This can be a process for you to reflect and come up with your own confrontation.” Fu Kuen leaves it up to the participants as to how much they want to reveal.

The questions are:
 1. What is your biggest achievement, or the achievement you’re most proud of? 
2. What positive qualities do you have that enable this achievement? 
3. What is your biggest failure? Artistic failure?
 4. What is it that you lacked that resulted in this failure? 
5. In your work condition, what opportunities and possibilities do you see that will enable you to go on? 
6. What are the major stumbling blocks towards your next achievement?

The exercise spurred a lot of discussion and inquiry, which extended the clinic to the next day. On the first session, Latai, Simon, Vicki, Rhiannon and Ly Ly shared their reflections, and raised discussions of perceptions of indigenous Australian dance, as well as taking risks in their work, but also not taking risks, and what these risks mean to them.

Politics inevitably are brought up, and how politics are hindering them from further expressing themselves artistically, how they’ve learned to deal with these politics. In the case of Ly Ly, the other participants tell her how they see her failure as actually something she should be proud of but she is looking at it from a viewpoint with a very high standard.

Friday, November 18, 2011

On Friday, after a movement exercise facilitated by Leigh, the dramaturgical clinic continues, with Cat starting by declaring, “This exercise is hard!” Her sharing takes a while, which prompts Fu Kuen to quip how everyone is so interested in New Zealand.

Fitri shared hers afterward, and for the 5th question, “In your work condition, what opportunities and possibilities do you see that will enable you to go on?”, she discusses this concept she’s beem thinking of, of rainy clouds. She first had this concept when she was 10 years old, when she met an elderly woman, whom she asked to stay with her for 2 weeks, who would talk about the clouds, and a batik motif of the 7 layers of clouds. Fitri is about to research the philosophy of these layers in the batik motif. She asks that maybe this idea can open up any ideas here, and hopes to improve the use of the lighting design in the work she’s thinking of so far.

Doris and Jerome complete the clinic, giving the choreographers different dimensions of reflection to look into, with the practices different, yet still somewhat similar, to their own.

Fu Kuen concludes the clinic by revealing that the questions about weakness, threats and stumbling blocks should also eventually allow us to reflect on “how you would strategically turn your weakness into strengths. For every stumbling block that comes your way, how would you reposition yourself so that the stumbling block actually pushes you further.” He concedes that this takes more reflection, and it’s “Something I’d like to leave you with.”

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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

Bundanon Blog: String Theory

nospam@example.com (Joelle Jacinto) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 10:57:23 +0100

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

Thursday, November 17, 2011

The proposal: Each participant holds a roll of the same kind of red string. The first to go ties the end to an object on the landscape, then stretches the string out to an another point on the landscape and attaches it there and so on, until their string comes to its end. The next person ties their string to the end of the previous line and continues along as they see fit. As all the rolls of string is consumed, the group returns to the Dorothy Potter studio to discuss their thoughts on the activity.

Doris thanks everyone for participating and shares how very interesting it was to watch the variety of shapes and dimensions the activity provided, very informative.

Cat says she observed how the string interestingly changed function, particularly how it had changed for Latai, from the function it served all that came before her.

Latai shares that the act of observing was equally important to the person being observed, “The way they were doing it and the sites they were applying it to. There were many ways you could read it.” Initially, she says, they were just lines and boundaries between people depending where you were, then transforming into a “subtle or covert violence in where the strings were being placed.” There were “Really rich moments, and multiple readings of the action.”

Vicki says she felt violent when she wrapped the string around grass, and she wanted to let the string go where it wanted to. She couldn’t go through with that, however, as it “felt a little bit out of control. Funny how you can have an attachment to how you feel about it.”

Latai also notes that the way you applied the string depended on how the one who went before you did it.

“And interesting how we chose to be next,” Vicki adds.

Doris adds that how the knots connected also informed the exercise in both process and practice.

Simon shares that what he found interesting was the relationship of the people with the strings. “When it ran out, was it relief? Or sadness that the string was gone? And how they got rid of it (the thing that held the string when it was rolled up, what do you call that? – Joelle) or kept it in your pocket.”

Latai mentions how she appreciated Rhiannon and Leigh’s handover, how it was a “very delicate, precious thing.”

“Like an offering,” Simon agrees.

“As with the handover from Doris to, ” Vicki adds, “Like handing over a secret.”

“There was also the ownership of the string,” Simon raises, “Having this object and seeing what you’re gonna do with it, and working with another dimension. Seeing how people reacted, when it’s your turn, you’re just, ‘Take it in your hands and run!’ But also the aspect of time, Do I do this really quickly or slowly, is this gonna end or not? It really tested my patience. Then, when it ran out, shit!

Latai she likes how the string worked well with the architecture of the Bundanon Artist’s Centre, and Jerome liked how it worked in the open space. “In an open space, you have to ask where to connect? The environment forces you to find strategies to connect to the next, and what’s available for you.”

Cat says they should go out again and document where the string goes and where they connect to, “Kind of a mind map.”

Rhiannon finds interesting the differences between the long and short distances, “where the string went into the curvy things.”

Ly Ly says she observed that it was like drawing on paper, and wonders what could have happened if they created the idea for the string first. Vicki tells her that her bit of string “looks like it was flying, like it came from nowhere,” animating “that whole space.”

From a videographer’s perspective, Vicki shared that from a certain distance, you couldn’t see the line, describing the bearer of the string as a “this charismatic being that everyone was following you and you couldn’t see why.” Vicki was first trying to see the string, then, failing that, decided to see the people, and therefore saw, “The decision and the space, the handover, the intimacy. Later it became how to frame you.” She says it was “Satisfying as a movement premise.”

Ly Ly adds that it was as much what happened to the string as what they were doing to it. When Margie started to cover the string, the string was still there but underground, transforming somehow.”

Rhiannon agrees how external tools came into play, how the soil became the object you were working with.

Margie likes the “Visibility and non-visibility of it, the sense of focus as to whether it’s there or not there.”

Ly Ly also comments on Vicki’s movement, how she paralleled the movement of the string while taking the video.

Leigh asks the group if this provoked an idea or a tier of an idea they would like to explore, and to drive this forward, maybe something will spring from the exercise. He suggests to go beyond the string to see what might be there to explore.

Jerome discusses the relationship of the people with the string, how people follow the line, jump over it, how the line dissected the space, etc. Rhiannon adds where the people would stand, and “how they would stand in that area near the holder of the string.”

Cat talks about her own relationship to the string, of the “marginal events in that space. Now when I pass that area, I think of what happened there. It’s just a focusing of the space.”

“Of activating it,” Vicki nods.

“When the trajectory first started, it was very straight and linear, a kind of insecurity, where can we attack and occupy,” Fu Kuen comments. “When walked into the field, it became a materiality of the string. It became something else, became decoration. The whole string property changed. Intimate and very subjective because of the way the string was used to make another reality rather than be subjected to the architecture. When you started to wrap nature, it became like a ritual and really took on a different subjectivity.

“By the time you reached Margie, you began to deny it, cast it out of bounds. In a way, it was a dissolved dissolution. I didn’t expect that when we went into the fields, that it would take this character.”

Jerome asks the group if anyone wanted another roll.

Simon says he did, and wanted to go back to the tractor. “String had another impact on the area,” he observes. “We chose this space, but there was another area that you could discover.”

Jerome then poses, what if the string was not red, what if it was clear? How would this affect how it was used? Doris replies that she chose red because she wanted it to be visible. “So it’s interesting what Vicki said that it disappears.”
Margie talks of the term of “the red line,” how things are not defined and delineated. She also spent time taking different shots with different thicknesses, playing with a different sharpness, and planned to condense this sharpness, and experiment on reframing and rescaling.

Rhiannon comments on how the joining of the string was an actual frame, “the distance it captures.”

Fitri suggests that they start to do the whole process again but in the fields where there aren’t any fixed objects. What happened was they began with a place full of fixed solid objects so there were lots of choices, very different from going into the fields. It would also be interesting, she says, to attach the string to oneself and attach the string to everyone, and find slackness and tautness, and a whole different set of intimacy. They could also try to now retrace the line that’s there and just walk that path and see how it feels and see he responses to it now that everything is in place.

Vicki responds that she “would like to do that in my time, might generate some movement.” She’s thinking of imposing objects into the space and how they belong in the space, speaking of “How we have a relationship to the things that are no longer there.”

“The string is an alien force,” Vicki observes, “I didn’t differentiate the trees from the houses, they are here but just different.” Simon jokes about the difference being the spider welcoming you to the country. Vicki laughs then says, “The birds don’t differentiate between the house and the trees.”

Simon then talks about, in his country, walking into a new environment, he talks to the place and makes sure that it’s okay to move into the enviroment.

Vicki talks of the juxtaposition of the unnatural and the natural in this environment, but more that she has lost a movement focus. I’m creating images but don’t know how to get it to resonate in my body, there’s no physical response. The images have some line or something I can follow, but needs to have a purpose, have a physical response. I don’t want to just respond to the line.

Leigh assures her that not knowing how is important. “You can’t know if you wish to go somewhere, if you want to discover something. Maybe it’s a process you go through, people are lending to us this particular pathway. There may be a physical response for someone else to transform. It’s not a line in space, not from the body, but maybe a process within this particular grouping of people, maybe that moment will arrive.”

“The purpose is communication that may inspire that thing you speak,” Leigh continues. “It may not be immediate, it may in time or in distant time trigger something. But for now, you collected something, and some time later it makes sense. The purpose may come much later.”

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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

Bundanon blog: Connections

nospam@example.com (Joelle Jacinto) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 10:49:28 +0100

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

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Leigh begins by asking everyone if they see any connections between the work everyone is doing, as presented in the introductions of the last two days. Vicki says she feels she has no purpose, and is just “faffing about.” She says she likes Fitri’s concept of becoming into the object, and has some intuitive images that she wants to set up, but no end.

Leigh quips, “Maybe you need a collaborator.”

Vicki also says that maybe she needs more time by herself to figure things out. When she’s with other people, she goes off, only when she’s by herself does she collect herself, and she’ll see how that will happen in the next few days.

Latai talks about the connection between Joelle’s magazine and Ly Ly’s lack of PR, not in an advertising sense, but in “the setting up of something, planting of seeds to radiate to a community larger than dance.” Latai also shares Cat’s feeling of decolonization, “Not just in physical manifeststions but spiritually and emotionally.”

Leigh shares his recent chat with Simon about commonalities among the participants. “They’re there,” he says, “It’s about giving yourself a chance to see the connections, the points of contact.”

The floor is opened to Doris’ activity, which is to stretch out a single line of string throughout the landscape. Before beginning, she comments that she feels this throwing the string to the others may have a connection to Rhiannon’s work.

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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

Bundanon - Cross Cultural Borders Collaborations Dance Lab

nospam@example.com (Joelle Jacinto) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 07:45:32 +0100

It's been a week since most of the participants arrived at Bundanon for the Investigating Cross Cultural Borders Collaborations Dance Laboratory, and collaborations, experiments and discussions are well underway by now. Arriving on November 14, 2011 were:

Margie Medlin and
Helen Martin of Critical Path

Leigh Warren as initial curator and Doris Dziersk as facilitator

Participants (in order of when I met them)
Simon Stewart (Australia)
Cat Ruka (New Zealand)
Rhiannon Newton (Australia)
Latai Taumoepeau (Australia)
Vicki Van Hout (Australia)
Jerome Kugan (Malaysia)
Fitri Setyaningsih (Indonesia) and
Ron Reeves, Fitri’s interpreter

and myself, Joelle Jacinto (Philippines), militant observer

After an induction by Richard Montgomery, site manager for the Bundanon artist’s centre, we had a lovely Welcome dinner together made up of delicious homecooked Thai dishes. Conversations immediately started to flow (in between shrieks of delight at the number of kangaroos who had come out to graze in the next meadow).

On Wednesday, November 16, we were joined by

Tang Fu Kuen (Singapore and Thailand), curator

and Tran Ly Ly (Vietnam).

On Sunday, November 20, we were briefly joined by Strut Dance's Agnes Michelet, but she had to leave early Tuesday morning. Before she left, she said she felt her stay was too short, as there was so many activities that she'll be missing, but her trip was really to see for herself what was happening, to have a good sense of it and it does indeed look like it's going in the right direction.

Today, November 22, we were briefly joined by Claudia Kuehn of Goethe Institut Sydney, who also wanted to get a feel of the work that was being done. She got to see ongoing discussions of Rhiannon Newton's new discoveries for her current project, and Fitri Setyaningsih's site specific experiment, which unfortunately caught her (and all of us) in the rain. She then had to leave to catch the 4:30 train back to Sydney.

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I had set up a blog for the Bundanon Dance Lab at this address: http://crossborderscollaborative.wordpress.com. This has been regularly updated since November 15. I am meant to create a mirror here on Tanzconnexions, but if you can't wait for me to get more content here, do check it out on Wordpress in the meantime.

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The first real day of the Investigating Cross Cultural Borders Collaborations dance laboratory, on November 15, 2011, was for everyone to introduce themselves to each other. I say “real” because the day before was mostly dedicated to getting to Bundanon and settling in, and a nice communal dinner. On Tuesday, the collaboration/investigation into the collaboration begins with each participant introducing themselves and the work that they do. To break the ice, facilitator Margie Medlin of Critical Path opened up the question to the choreographers, Why are you here?

Simon Stewart begins by discussing how isolation (in this case, working in Bundanon) as a dance landscape makes him feel limited in terms of what he does, especially from a cultural perspective, and yet, he realizes from talking to the other participating choreographers in the lab that they all sort of experience the same. Therefore, he says, his answer to Why are you here? is basically to ask these questions.

Cat Ruka agrees with Simon, saying that she finds it interesting that you can have an artistic connection with people from other cultures.

Latai Taumoepeau feels however that isolation is necessary to ask these questions and collaborate in this manner. Coming from a “collectivist culture,” Latai relates that she feels so much pressure in her contemporary solo practice, and feels that with this kind of laboratory, where there is effort to be made in collaboration with others, this collaboration space is “still a village, we are still making something, yet working individually without pressure to go and work on something by yourself.”

Contrastingly, Vicki Van Hout very candidly admits that “I’m here because I’m a lousy collaborator.” She discusses her issues about controlling the end product of a work and having problems with trusting somebody else with her ideas, that there is too strong an ownership of an idea that she feels she is “parting with.”

Margie, Doris and Leigh all contribute to how Vicki can deal with these issues better. Margie encourages Vicki to look at the idea in terms of “what it is in a shared space,” and how collaborators trust that the other is broadening or expanding what they are contributing to.

Doris Dziersk, our resident scenographer, shares that as a designer, you must accept that you work within somebody else’s framework. Adding to the issue of trust, she posits, what’s the point in working with someone if you don’t believe in what they’re doing?

Leigh Warren opines that the dialogue must be open and honest. “Through dialogue, there’s a new geometry,” he shares. A different cultural perspective (from your own) can appear when you least expect it in that dialogue and he says, “It can be an exciting prospect.” He discusses how a collaborator can suddenly allow you to see or discover something new about yourself that you didn’t know.

Jerome Kugan compares collaborating with “falling in love.” At the very least, he says, you should keep the conversation going, and he shares a recent project he had where he felt betrayed that his collaborator was talking about other people.

Simon also shares his own experience with collaborating, wherein the collaboration didn’t work in performance, but didn’t say anything right away because he didn’t want to be seen as a spoilsport. However he did feel very uncomfortable with it and finally discussed this with his collaborator and they reached a compromise.

Leigh emphasizes the importance of compromise, and to allow both parties to come to terms with this compromise. “Just give each other time,” he assures. “The ‘letting go’ process is very hard.”

Latai offers her own opinion on the collaborative relationship, that she prefers a holistic approach, and not just an artistic one. She reiterates what Leigh said about time, that it is important and there shouldn’t be any pressure to make quick decisions in a collaboration. In this setting in Bundanon, the chitchat discussions during the breaks and dinner were as much important as the official ones in the Dance studio. It is during this time, with “little bits of information that you gather from each other,” help build the relationship between the participants, in effect build the relationship with people you might collaborate with.

“The idea is its own entity,” Latai declares. “You parent it, but after some time, you should allow it to be what it is.” And from here, she begins to introduce herself by sharing her latest project, in effect beginning the activity wherein each participant introduce themselves.

Please see introductions for each participant here:

Latai Taumeopeau

Jerome Kugan

Simon Stewart

Rhiannon Newton

Doris Dziersk

Tran Ly Ly

Fitri Setyaningsih

Vicki Van Hout

Cat Ruka