Last Monday we took such delight in creating AUNTS....one after another, they emerged from space; the space in our minds and the space in the room. These carry-overs of images delight me. The return of Cara talking about 'wholesome' and being asked by Damaris to put on the green bonnet and old fashioned dress (I know that was from before), the request of the monologue about 'garbage and compost and recycling', and of course, our signature mythology, geese on their backs. This is the organism weaving and creating patterns.
Since our culture is being created to make performances, and we have the 'gaze' in the room now regularly, yet the infamous December Third Evening with maybe 30 people including the Director of the MFA Program in the room is different. What is the difference? Does the arrival of a more traditional audience stimulate our culture to a new level of presentation?
Can we cobble together both new AUNTS and returning AUNTS and still keep our minds-hearts open to something that has yet to appear?
Can we begin to call in other elements like lighting? Someone wanted to change the lights this past Monday....it's the first time that impulse arose. We have some props....the basket of stones, the 3-legged stool, and some costumes, the green bonnet and old fashioned dress. We have the boom box and some sound environments.
Our 'deSoLAtE/deLiGHt' project is getting defining features!
2 comments:
I am excited to see how text spoken into the quads (as opposed to the gaze) will evolve... also the musing stool being used to muse about our process...
For December 3rd I love the idea of offering our gazers cards with our blog address for them to post their comments!
-Damaris
Hi Guys...
I can't figure out how to post my own blog paragraph besides by leaving a comment. Would someone please help?
I have an observation that actually arose from last semester's (spring) work with Aunts. It has occured to me to divide the performance work we have been creating into two groups--work that fits into the category of "images" and work that fits into the category of "scenes".
The way I define an "image" is this: movement, tableau, sound, etc that has the quality of presenting unchanging information.
I define a "scene" as: movement, tableau, sound, etc that has the quality of presenting a series of substantially different pieces of information, moods or actions.
These are tentative definitions and are open to revision.
In our work I've noticed both of these categories and it has been interesting to watch how I respond as an audience member. In both cases the aspect of "time" seems to be unrelated... an "image" can last for ten minutes and a "scene" can take place in thirty seconds.
An example of what I mean by an image-Aunt: BD's Laughing Butcher Bird. This Aunt had three main elements of shuffling feet, laughing on the floor and the jungle soundscape. At the time of the performers falling to ground the first time, the audience had basically received the "information" of the Aunt, and what came after was a repetition of the same event [which was, of course, delightful!].
An example of a scene-Aunt: EL's Grooming Two. In this Aunt I observe three significantly distinct phases--the parnter grooming, the couple interacting with the groomers and finally the groomers dragging their partners toward the upstage corner.
Please observe that these categories are not absolute. Even within an "image", change occurs and within a "scene" we find moments of images. Maybe we can look at these defintions as ends of a continuum with a lot of room for overlapping.
My sense is that these definitions may be useful in our process of setting and structuring material--setting lengths of time, deciding which Aunts go next to other Aunts and being clear on the information we are offering to our audiences.
Please feel free to respond with your own opnions and insights as my ideas are just budding and would apreciate the company of more well-informed flowers, like yourselves.
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