The Dancing Body + comment 2

A notion that has been discussed amongst a few of us is that the "traditionalists" who find fault in forging new ground in a highly regimented form forget that the form was founded by those who adventured into the unknown, who improvised.

To reconfigure.. the role of the artist! of the adventurer! For this I work so hard to help realise this reconfiguration that is needfire!

Thoughts on 'twists and threads' reflected in the aesthetic.. the woven tartan..

continueing this discussion will lead us to the question that we leave the audience with at the end of the performance...

Is it a question of transformation?

My feeling is yes, and how will be the ongoing discussion until we find an answer.

keep investigating.

Dancing body + 1 comment

Yes it is truely the art of improvisation in any art form the diving into the unknown and only knowing the outcome when it is in front of an audience - this is the beauty and the danger of creating work. Once these traditional dancers were created from nothing from a gesture or from an image that was seen by one of the warriors and now they are danced competitively to rigid guidelines.. I find this fascinating.

The dancing body

I guess what interested me about this project, and what excites me about dance in general, is the new kinds relationships between movement, perception, sensation and space that dance as a practice can engender.

I've always been interested in Arakawa and Gins' project - architecture against death/ reversible destiny/ we have decided not to die - which examines the way in which 'procedual architecture can help people achieve a reversible destiny' examining the 're-linking of the body and the world to one another' (Araakawa and Gins, 2002: xiii). Here architecture, rather than viewed as a passive stracture, 'actively participates in life and death matters' because it can affect the way the body moves through and come to know space (Arakawa and Gins, 2002: xi). But what is key about this is that it recognises that the body is in movement, the body can move in different ways, and different sorts of movement gives rise to different perceptual, sensing, even I guess you could say, philosphical kinds of affects.

I was also recently reading about the sense lab the other day: http://thesenselab.com/aboutthesenselab.htm which focuses on sensing bodies in movement, exploring the relationship between the sensing body and philosophy. The statement on their website reads:

'Because this relation between sensing and knowing takes place chiefly in our bodies, and because to “know” via the senses involves a movement toward that knowledge (we move to touch the object we see, for example), theorizations of the body in movement are required. Through a rigorous engagement with the moving body (the dancing body, the body in art, the body in relation to technology), The Sense Lab proposes to re-think the inter-relation of movement, sense and the senses in art practice and philosophy.'

I find dance an interesting discipline because it has such a strong relationship with movement, sensation, affect etc. This is exciting because it could be argued that moving (and thus perceiving and sensing) differently allows us to know and conceive of knowledge in new ways.

I feel like I need to go back to that excitement that I initially felt toward the concept of movement, because I think that this could not only create new kinds of potential for the dance and the film/ media to communicate, but it might also create some interesting kinds of potential that the conceptual focus of the work can explore.

Cheryl and I talked for a while about the notion of reconfiguring. I think the term twisting has also been used.

reconfigure: verb, to change the shape or formation of, remodel, restructure.

twist to combine, as two or more strands or threads, by winding together; intertwine.

Twist is a bit of a difficult one to pin down, because it feels so arbitrary, and can be conceived in a whole range of ways.

There are other words I'm thinking of too: a kind of notion of dance/ movement/ film/ culture that somehow (or is somehow) dissolved/ decayed or - perishes, but that is then reconfigured, or actualised, or moved in a new way. So twisting is almost the wrong kind of vocabulary (well in the defition above anyway, but of course there are other definitions that I didn't include) because it implies that you have some kind of pre-defined materiality - ie the thread, that can be pulled together, but there is nothing outside of the thread that you start with. But I do like the idea of being open to the unknown quantity, the potential that is created through the movement/ dance, or dialogue between that process and the other aspects of the work (film, sound, etc) that is uncertain until you find it So perhaps reconfiguring isn't quite right either - Arakawa and Gins make a differentiation between reconfiguring and constructing, and perhaps what I'm trying to say here is that the reconfiguration turns into a kind new sort of construction at some point in the process (a little difficult sometimes in the context of this project! - but a way of working, that when it can be realised can open a pathway for critical and I think experimental work).

But going back to the things I was talking about early on in this post, I think what is interesting about the notion of dance and movment is not just how this type of traditional dance might be affected by the... perhaps force, or new connections offered by its engagement with processes that have historically been foreign to it (ie contemporary music, film, different sorts of costuming or even a different way of dancing) but how the result of that affect actually might have an impact on concept - ie what are we actually learning from the way in which the dance is changed by this kind of engagement (and even how the other mediums are changed by their connection with the dance) and is there something in the new kinds of movements and connections that arise, that can allow us to make a different kind of statement about ideas of culture, diaspora etc (can the movements enacted in the actual work allow new kinds of theoretical engagments allow us to know in new ways)

Links to information about trees of the Ogham

In searching for information to include in the first scene with the nine sacred trees, I came across these resources, which explore the celtic mythology associated with particular trees (including their places in the Ogham alphabet). I am placing the links here as I thought they may be useful for future research needed to compile the text for this first scene, and perhaps other scenes in the work.

Mythology and folklore of the birch:
http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/forest/mythfolk/birch.html

Mythology and folklore of the rowan: http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/forest/mythfolk/rowan.html

Mythology and folklore of the oak:
http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/forest/mythfolk/oak.html

Mythology and folklore of the elm:
http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/forest/mythfolk/elm.html

Mythology and folklore of the holly:
http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/forest/mythfolk/holly.html

Mythology and folklore of the willow:
http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/forest/mythfolk/willow.html

Mythology and folklore of the scots pine:
http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/forest/mythfolk/pine.html

Mythology and folklore of hazel:
http://www.treesforlife.org.uk/forest/mythfolk/hazel.html

Workshop in Sydney with Mark Coniglio and Troika Ranch on Isadora software

Just wanted to give you a heads up that Electrofringe are running a
workshop in Sydney in the first week of December with Mark Coniglio and
Dawn Stopiellio from Troika Ranch Dance Theatre, New York.

The workshop will be on the Isadora software (created by Mark Coniglio)
working with movement tracking and realtime processing.

It will take place over two days in the first week of December (exact
dates, times and venue tbc in next day or so)

If you are interested in attending please contact me at
catmjones@gmail.com (with Troika Ranch Workshop in the subject)

Places will be limited!

For more info on Troika Ranch and Isadora go to
www.troikaranch.org and
www.troikatronix.com

fyi Troika Ranch will also be doing an artist talk at Performance Space
on the 4th December and will probably also have an informal get
together that week at a pub for Isadora users.

xcat

Cat Jones / Ben Byrne / Alex White
Directors
Electrofringe
www.electrofringe.net

Festival Dates
27 September - 1 October 2007

Electrofringe is assisted by the Australian Government through the
Australia Council for the Arts, its arts advisory body, the Australian
Film Commission and the NSW Film and Television Office.

Festival Partners in 2007 include ABC Radio National - The Night Air,
Realtime/Onscreen, Reeldance, Japan Media Arts Festival, Australian
Network of Art and Technology, High Tea with Mrs Woo, Octapod,
Performance Space, PVI Collective and This Is Not Art (TINA).
Electrofringe is auspiced by Music NSW.

Flicker

Image from: http://www.artspace.org.au/gallery/gallery_exhibition.php?e=80

26 October - 17 November 2007
Flicker
BRENT GRAYBURN

Flicker takes as a point of reference Joseph Conrad’s book ‘Heart of Darkness’ and the principle of the Panopticon, a prison building designed to allow prisoners to be observed without the viewer being seen. Surrounded by four screens of imagery on opposing walls, viewers become isolated within the centre of the space, the centre of the journey. Swamps, rivers and a bleaker world carry two minds toward each other within a declining environment where even representation has its doubts; a deluded place with a tinnie and an outboard. Flicker is a journey away from the commonly understood rules of video space into a more haphazard location; cutting, painting, cloning and keying all remove chunks of ‘footage’ until there is just black, no sky. Two characters drift in a cut-up narrative that is confused and out of balance, images collide, occasionally synching, observing. Everything is watching. Nothing is real.

Acknowledgements: Angus Wray (production), Clare Milledge (styling and production), Pete Baxter (set design), VA Hire (camera support), Tim Gibbs (camera support), Fin Design + Effects (technical assistance and 3D support), Dean Baker (character M); Brett Heath (character K), Mark Shorter, Courtney Botfield.

here/ there/ then/ now

here/there/then/now
site, collaboration, interdisciplinary performance

http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00005732/01/5732_1.pdf

stills continued

Stills from weekend film shoot

stills from weekend film shoot

Of course, the ring of fire needs to be reshot when its completely dark and from a higher angle - I'll do that this week.

Grounded Light

Grounded Light is a work by Keith Armstrong that really resonated with me in the context of this work.

We've been talking so much, but its amazing how sometimes talking feels like empty words that are quite abstract until they are filled up with tangible, visual meaning. So much of art (all kinds of art) is about the power of aesethic. It's amazing how aesthetic, when done right, can be such a strong conceptual carrier.

And there is something about the aesthetic of this work that really strikes a chord with me.

Writing about it on his website Keith Armstrong states:

'Grounded Light was a performance/installation event presented on Mt. Tinbeerwah, Noosa hinterland, Queensland for the 2003 Noosa Gallery Floating Land Festival. As the lit performer wound her way up the mountain audience groups followed by lamplight. The work continued on the summit of Mt Tinbeerwah with a video installation in the lookout tower and hundreds of white lights quivering in the wind - accompanied by stunning 360 views of the shire’s lights, floating over the ground, far below.'

Here are some images from his site:http://www.embodiedmedia.com/projects/groundlight/glightbase.html

For general info about Keith Armstong go to: www.embodiedmedia.com






Image credits:

Image from performance, performer Lisa O'Neill. Photo Phil Hargreaves

Image from performance, performer Lisa O'Neill. Photo Phil Hargreaves

Lisa O' Neill in the Heart of the Light Installation, Mt Tinbeerwah Plateau, Photo Phil Hargreaves

Lisa O' Neill , Mt Tinbeerwah Plateau, Photo Phil Hargreaves

A quote I like

I've been thinking a lot of dance as form and the relationship between dance and video (after all, these were my initial interests in the project). I've come to the point that the exciting thing about hybrid work, and the reason that I wanted to be invovled in the project is because I do feel that some kind of itneresting dialogue can occur between the spatial, temporal, and aesthetic sensibility of the dance, and the spatial, temporal and aesthetic sensibility of the video. In many contexts, artists are working outside of the parameters of their own practices when they come to work that is hybrid, interdisciplinary or collaborative, but in many ways, this is the point isn't it? In this context I've started to feel like what is important about bringing two different disciplines together (in this case dance and video) is to examine what it is about the processes, practices, and strategies for resolving things in one particlar medium or discipline that make that medium interesting - and then to ask the question: what can the traits and strengths of that medium offer to the other disciplines involved in the collaboration?

This line of thinking makes me feel like I'm wasting too much time resisting my own process, and that I need to get my hands dirty, immerse myself in the work a bit, experiment, take some risks, and allow things to emerge. I think that it is only after some work has been made that a true sense of criticality might emerge - a space where we all might be able to reflect on how that emergence is happening, what is interesting about it, what needs to be taken out, and what needs to be added etc. This is not to say that the final work can't be critical, or conceptually rigorous but I do think that criticality needs to come from a process of emergence - from seeing the dialogue that can be created between the video and the dance and then trying to refine or extend on the tangible outcomes of that process.

In that context, I felt like this quote was appropriate:

'To draw a Carp, Chinese Masters warn it is not enought to know the animal's morphology, study its anatomy or understand the physiological functions of its existence. They also tell us that it is necessary to understand the reed against which the carp brushes each morning while seeking its nourishment, the oblong stone behind which it conceals itself, or the rippling of water when it springs toward the surface. These elements should in no way be treated as the fish's environment, the mileau in which it evolves or the natural background against which it can be drawn. They belong to the carp itself.. The carp must be apprehended as a certain power to affect and be affected in the world' Feher and Kwinter.

Perhaps the carp in this context is the dance. If so, the question is, what kind of potential does the dance have to affect and be affected in the world (pehaps the world of Needfire, as performance). For me this is a kind of seed, that has the potential for a really exiciting process to emerge - and sometimes, an exciting process is the key to opening a space that can be both conceptually rigorous and aesthetically interesting. I feel that the recent discussion that happened between Cheryl and I started some very exciting energy around this process - and a deeper understanding of where she is coming from will allow me think video that is more responsive and sensitve to the dance itself.

Link to paper on highland dancing

http://www.sqrchdi.com/history2.htm

History of Scottish immigration

I definately think that there are ways to work elements of Scottish into more contemporary concerns such as ritual, loss of culture etc. I'm thinking about that a lot, and will be back with more details in the near future.

In the meantime, I found this link to the history of Scottish immigration in VIC - it may provide some useful info, and there are some nice pics on the site.

http://immigration.museum.vic.gov.au/Origins/history.aspx?id=52

Boxing art

Keith Armstrong (Brisbane) is currently directing new media art for the Colourise Productions, indigenous media project - Savage Trajectory/Boxing Art

The blog can be found here. There are some interesting conversations about the conceputal development of the work happening here - it might provide a good model.

http://www.embodiedmedia.com/projects/BoxArt/

The Needfire Dancers

The Dancers of the Beltaine Collective performed the fire choreography for the Cabaret at BMEc on June 23rd.

This piece was only about 5 minutes but gave us a good indication of how the work could look. It was dissapointing that Sarah's beautiful footage couldn't be seen very well, but it did give us a sense that the two together - film of fire and moving bodies could be very affective with the right technical facilities.

The audience received this piece very well - clapping along and cheering. The energy of the dancers was beautiful and their pleasure in their work infectious.

Water images

9 sacred trees

I had a skim of the net to see if I could find any celtic symbols related to the 9 sacred trees. Could there be an area of the film where celtic symbols are flashing on a back background... perhaps just on one video project (the other two might have something else showing). I typed into google celtic symbols and 9 sacred trees under an image search and came up with some interesting results.



This image from: www.cornwalls.co.uk interested me because it was a bit like an artwork that I did for a collaboration between Dennis Kratz and Graham Chalcroft called 'Secrets of the City, Gumbramorra Swamp Thing'



Image: Dennis Kratz 'The Drowned on Cooks River Road' from Secrets of the City, Gumbramorra Swamp Thing!

Another image I found was on a site called 'The World Tree.' www.sacredlands.org/Dragonvale/WorldTree/ Don't get me wrong, this is an incredibly tacky, kind of self help site (but hey, we all need a bit of kitsch, tacky self help sometimes don't we!) but there was some information of interest. I do like the idea of the four different elements - perhaps this could relate to the weather (earth, water, fire, sky) and the four elements they also mention here: th physical, the mental, the emotional, and the spiritual This is all quoted direct, and the picture at the end is taken from the site.

The Sacred Circle

This is an ancient symbol used by almost all the native people around the world. There are many different ways that this basic concept is expressed: the four grandfathers, the four winds, the four cardinal directions, and many other relationships that can be expressed in sets of four. Just like a mirror can be used to see things not normally visible (e.g. behind us or around a corner), the Sacred Circle can be used to help us see or understand things we can't quite see or understand because they are ideas and not physical objects.

The Sacred Circle teaches us that the four symbolic races are all part of the same human family. All are brothers and sisters living on the same Mother Earth.

The Sacred Circle teaches us that the four elements, each so distinctive and powerful, are all part of the physical world. All must be respected equally for their gift of life.

The Sacred Circle teaches us that we have four aspects to our nature: the physical, the mental, the emotional, and the spiritual. Each of these aspects must be equally developed in a healthy, well-balanced individual through the development and use of volition (i.e. will).

Links to interactive/ relational artists

Paul Sermon and Andrea Zapp, 'A body of water' http://www.hgb-leipzig.de/~sermon/herten/

As noted on the website: 'A site-specific telematic installation linking the shower room of the Ewald/Schlaegel und Eisen mine in Herten with the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg. The images of visitors in the shower room in Herten are mixed with images of the Museum visitors in Duisburg and appear on one side of a water screen. Historical film footage of miners showering are projected onto the other side of the water screen. Realised for the Connected Cities Exhibition, Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum Duisburg in Germany, June 20th to August 1st 1999 (catalogue printed).'

Andrea Zapp: http://www.azapp.de/

Andrea Zapp has a whole pile of interesting interactive work that you can check out. Of particular interest is the project Unheimlich an 'extraordinary performance installation for multiple users, linking and visually compositing audience members with live performers in the UK.' Check it out at: http://creativetechnology.salford.ac.uk/unheimlich/

Camille Utterback: http://www.camilleutterback.com/ There are a whole range of interesting projects on her site.

Some notes on Beltaine/ Celtic culture

Here are some things I've picked up... they might be used for stimulus...

From Tisdall, C. 1998, Joseph Beuys We Go This Way, Violette Editions, London.

(In reference to Joseph Beuys):

'On the great stone outside the tomb of the kings at New Grange in Math are the carved symbols (above) which indicated to Beuys that the ancient Celts had a sophisticated knowledge of physical and spiritual energies. The three energies are the spiral, organic or implosive form, the split cell and the diamond shaped crystalline or explosive form. Beuys interpreted this as an early example of the principles to which he referred in his Theory of Sculpture: the passage from warm, organic form (e.g., liquid fat) to cold, crystalline form.' (Tisdall, 1998, p. 72).

Spector, N. 2002, 'Pre-Cycle' from The Cremaster Cycle. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

'The ceremony enacted on this indoor druid mound recalls Beltane, the ancient Celtic festival that marked the beginning of summer. The ritual, which used to be accompanied by dancing and spirit workship, was customarily celebrated on May 1 (also the day of the maypole dance), and culminated in a sacrificial killing by fire. Since hubris always enacts a sacrifice in retribution, this glorificaiton of the Architect in the temple of his own making may just be his last stand. (Spector, 2002).

And this from: Maclean, M. (1998) The Literature of the Celts. United Kingdom, Senate.

The Wine of the Gauls is undoubtedly ancient, so ancient indeed, that Part II is regarded as a fragment of the song that accompanied the old Celctic sword-dance in honour of th sun. It runs thus -

Blood wine and glee
Sun to thee -
Blood wine and glee.
Fire! fire! steel, oh! steel!
Fire! fire! steel and fire.
Oak! Oak! earth and waves,
Waves, oak, earth and oak.

Glee of dance and song.
And battel throng.
Battle, dance and song
Fire! fire, etc.

Let the sword blades swing
In a ring,
Let the sword blades swing.
Fire! fire, etc. (cited in Maclean, 1998).

The design - in search of an aesthetic....

Site sharing

Some sites that may provide imput into strategies for creative process:

Florian Schneider: Collaboration - some thoughts concerning new ways of learning and working together
http://roundtable.kein.org/node/525

Project title: Durchblick/ (Entre)voir/ Land(e)scapes.
Work can be found at:
http://www.griffith.edu.au/school/art/research/research_keane.htm

Accented body:
http://www.accentedbody.com

Fire

Water

Vivienne Westwood

In terms of costume design, Vivienne Westwood could be a source of inspiration. I think a big challenge for the work will be to think about the costumes in a contemporary framework, while still having ties to tradition. I guess Westwoods designs appeal to me because of their somewhat exciting, sexy and rebellious use of tartan.

Check out some of her contemporary designs at:

http://www.viviennewestwood.com/flash.php

Also, this link allows you to make your own tartan. I reckon we could have some fun with that: http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1231_vivienne_westwood/tartan.html

Company in Space

Stephen recently drew my attention to Company in Space - a group based in Melbourne who have pioneered applications for new technology to movement. The website http://www.companyinspace.com/ has information about the group's performances and includes pictures and some movies (if you have broadband).

IMAGE: The Light Room: MIFA 2002. From http://www.companyinspace.com

Blog set up

I thought it might be nice to create a space where we can post our creative and conceptual ideas - a kind of forum where you can upload images, note your influences, link to websites that may be of interest... that kind of thing.

And in the spirit of that I thought I'd add some links here that are fuelling some of my ideas and thoughts for the project.

MATTHEW BARNEY - THE CREMASTER CYCLE.

Matthew Barney is an artist and sculptor whose sometimes absurd video pieces cross the boundaries between performance, installation and arthouse film (not even entirely sure that this is what you would call it).

www.cremaster.net is the site for Barney's The Cremaster Cycle a video art work extravaganza that takes over 10 hours to sit through. I saw it in Melboure and fell in love with the costumes, the pace and the overall surrealness of the video. Check out the site for a sense of the Barney aesthetic and the unique characters and costumes.

PETER GREENAWAY - WRITING TO VERMEER

I had to watch Greenaway film after Greenaway film at University, probably as a result of his somewhat cross-disciplinary approach to both art and film making (his done everything from painting to public art work to film making to opera). This link to his official site http://www.petergreenawayevents.com/petergreenaway.html gives you a bit of an overview of his work. Not sure how many stills from films are on here but some could be found by doing a search of his name.

BILL VIOLA - is an artist I think I spoke of breifly once. He did an amazing installation of bodies being submerged under water (in slow motion) that was on show at the National Gallery of Australia last year. His website is http://www.billviola.com/ and the work I refer to is called five angels for the millenium, some stills of which can be found here: http://www.billviola.com/bibliogr.htm