Archive for the ‘artistic process’ Category

As a student in the Florida State University in NYC program, I was fortunate enough to be invited into Noémie LaFrance’s work studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to discuss her new project. Sitting in wooden chairs in the homey brick apartment, Noémie entered the room spewing information about her newest work, the White Box Project. In response to our questions, she explained that she is ever-interested in infusing dance with the everyday. The Black Box is known as a place to sit in an audience and to be spoonfed a presentation. Hence, the White Box.

Successfully, the White Box Project is the furthest thing from a proscenium, concert dance performance. As I entered the museum space, I was approached by what I thought to be a fellow observer, and naively pushed out the back door into the cement enclosed porch. The crowd chattered and looked around skeptically, until suddenly and miraculously the room fell totally silent (a brilliant tactic brought about by the performers, I realized on my second visit).  As the hour passed, it became clear that at least one of the men in the room was a performer. He, in my opinion, took on the role of the initiator; the leader. Otherwise, I was completely unsure as to who was a performer, and who was an observer. As a woman dressed in a trendy black coat and heels stood inches from my face and proceeded to lie down on the cement in front of me, I battled myself with whether I should do the same.

The feeling of uncertainty gradually melted away, as we were put into groups by a few men and women, and whispered instructions…“On the count of three, run!” By the end, I felt more like a child playing games in the schoolyard than an audience member.

Noémie invited everyone in attendance that Saturday back to another showing, free of charge, to witness the constant changes being applied to the project each day. I arrived the next week, eager to scrutinize the events I knew would happen and to identify the changes, of which there were several. This time, there was more dialogue between the dancers and the crowd; I was asked incognito to learn a succinct dance step, and teach it to another. Again, the realization that everyone was in clear groups/teams near the close of the work came with a playful sentiment. I was a participant, not a spectator. I cannot assume that this feeling fell upon every person in the ‘box’, but each individual surely brought something of their own to the experience, simply by entering the space.

The White Box is not a dance show. It is instead a mind game of sorts. Whether or not one chooses to run and turn the length of the walls at the demands of a scruffy man whose role is unknown is irrelevant. Choosing to act is participation. Choosing not to act, also, is participation. The audience ultimately, and blindly, has control of the show.

Carly Lozo is a dance major at Florida State University and an intern with Pentacle’s Movement Media this fall.

Performa 11, one of two new festivals in NYC that defy artistic boundaries post-9/11

Like many people, the 10^th Anniversary of 9/11 brought up many “What if’s” for me. What would my life be like now if 9/11 hadn’t happened? What would my art look like? What would the fields of dance and dance film look like? And then after being baffled by those questions, I started to think about what actually did happen. How did September 11th, 2001 change my views of my artistic work, and my chosen field of dance?

For me, I wonder if I would have become obsessed with dance for the camera. Without the traumas of 9/11 and the political and cultural awakening it inspired in me, I might not have felt such an urgent need to seek other outlets for artistic expression. In an uncertain world, film and new media gave me hope that my artistic work could make a difference in the world. The feelings of mortality that were triggered by 9/11 made me desperate to be able to create work that would last (ie be able to be watched repeatedly) and the rage and violence that has surrounded the event (and still does to this day) gave me an urgent need communicate with people outside of my tiny circle of acquaintances. I felt that if we were to reconcile with our enemies and restore stability to our lives, then we had to start communicating and learning about each other. Live performance was too limiting for me, I needed to tap into media, and thankfully with the rise of broadband internet that became more possible than ever before. Read the rest of this entry »

Gina Gibney/Gibney Dance Center have announced a new project series called “One-Shot”, curated by Sarah Maxfield. In “One-Shot”, each participating artist is issued six hours of rehearsal time, and the task of creating a solo performance specifically for the Internet. Each solo will premier online and remain available in a web-based catalogue.

Through this series, we are exploring our cultural relationship to the Internet, the odd yet growing trend of creating something alone and sharing it with many, many people—who are also alone.

I checked out One-Shot #1 by Megan Sprenger—and am left questioning whether or not it evidences the type of inquiries that the One-Shot project claims to investigate. A friend once asked me if I applied the same rigor to my improvisational dance films as I did to the creation of improvisation-based live dance pieces. I admitted that I didn’t, but rather “got a lot of footage” that I could cut and splice later rather than returning the next week and the next week to try different things, making different versions until I had one I was satisfied with. By allotting precious rehearsal space and setting strict parameters, Sarah Maxfield creates an interesting situation in which the creation of a dance-for-camera-for-internet is given the same kind of resources and weight that the creation of a live solo would be given. What is different about the creation of a dance for the camera and, more specifically, for display on the internet only? How does Megan Sprenger’s performance or the One-Shot project answer these questions? Feel free to comment. I am looking forward to see how the rest of these one-shots develop.

Curious about 3D dance filmmaking? Check out this 6 minute FORA.tv video by Jacob’s Pillow Dance for an introductory primer.  Award-winning filmmakers Marlene Millar and Philip Szporer of Mouvement Perpétuel share their artistic approach and production process using visual examples from their current collaboration with choreographer Crystal Pite and the National Film Board of Canada.  Millar and Szporer describe how a 3D camera works, share their 3D story boards, take us inside the green screen studio with the dancers, and discuss why they are interested in the challenge of creating a stereoscopic experimental dance film incorporating animation.

Can 3D dance film change how audiences experience and participate in dance? What do you think? Comments and links to other 3D dance film insights welcomed.