Bewilderments of the Eyes - Project Blog

Bewilderments of the Eyes

Performer's Perspective: Reid Brechner

1/31/2015

Back in October of last year I had the pleasure of working on the Untitled performance with my friend and fellow Laurentian, Reid Brechner. It was my second time creating a performance with Reid and I certainly hope there are more opportunities to work together in the future! He recently posted the time-lapse video of the performance on his website and I figured it would be a great opportunity to share some of his art with you. To revisit the video or to see some of Reid's other amazing work be sure to check out his website here!

Here's a preview of his site:

"The potential for new meaning and re-contextualization out of contradiction is the focus of my art. As a student of art history, I have always been most interested in how the same meaning can be transformed to serve dual purposes. Hence, when I began my studio practice, I was eager to explore the idea of duality, specifically by bringing together my two academic fields, mathematics and art. The problem that this presented, however, was the inescapable contradiction of trying visually to represent something which is purely conceptual. My art has developed over time to embrace this contradiction and draw on this duality to create tension in my work." ~Reid Brechner

The Couple in the Cage and Beautiful Trouble

12/14/2014

A few years ago I watched the documentary The Couple in the Cage featuring performance artists Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Coco Fusco.

“For two years, they travelled through various Western metropolises, presenting themselves as undiscovered Amerindians from an island in the Gulf of Mexico that had somehow been overlooked for five centuries. They called their homeland Guatinau and themselves Guatinauis.” (quote from Beautiful Trouble webpage)

Their performance marked the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's discovery of the Americas bringing up themes of racism and colonialism still present in our cultures today. In this trailer you can see a clip of their work:

While the critiques these performers presented are startling, their pointedness is also what makes me have such high appreciation for their work. The fact that through their creative performance Gómez-Peña and Fusco were able to evoke a world wide discussion showed me the value of performing arts. Watching The Couple in the Cage inspired me to continue studying in the Performance and Communication Arts department here at St. Lawrence University.

Now facing the closing of my Bewilderments of the Eyes project and my upcoming graduation, I have returned to this point as I look to organizations such as Beautiful Trouble, 350.org and The Theater Offensive as potential paths for my performing arts future. These organizations all use arts and creative means to promote education, awareness and social change. As my professor, Dr. Randy Hill would say they are, "performing so it doesn't have to stay this way". Which is exactly what I hope to do.

Dance Concert Photos and Video

12/6/2014

Last but not least, here's a video of our third performance "Bewilderments":

My amazing dancers got me congratulatory flowers and our stage manager Maggie made me an awesome sign. I couldn't be more fortunate in having such incredible friends! Thank you everyone!

Dance Concert Performance!

12/3/2014

Come see our final performance in the fall Dance Concert!

Towards a Poor Theatre - Jerzy Grotowski

12/2/2014

In the book Towards a Poor Theatre Jerzy Grotowski explores theater as an encounter between the actor and himself, the creative team, and the audience. There are three key points directly related to the Bewilderments of the Eyes project. First, theater uses a sign system. Second, theater revolves around interaction and contact between people. Third, theater does not need to be "rich" to be successful.

What is theater and what is it doing?

It is, "linking the private and the public, the intimate and the crowded, the secret and the open, the vulgar and the magical. For this we need both a crowd on stage and a crowd watching - and within that crowded stage individuals offering their most intimate truths to individuals within that crowded audience, sharing a collective experience with them," (Brook 12).*

"He calls his theatre a laboratory," (Brook 11).*

"It is the experience which we take upon ourselves when we open ourselves to others, when we confront ourselves with them in order to understand ourselves ... in an elementary human sense," (Grotowski 59).

*Towards a Poor Theatre Preface by Peter Brook.

Theater and Signs:

As discussed in my Theater as a Sign System post, Grotowski also looks into the use of signs in theatrical performance. He opens up about how his actors, "do not concentrate on the spiritual technique but on the composition of the role, on the construction of from, on the expression of signs," because "a personal process which is not supported and expressed by a formal articulation and disciplined structuring of the role is not a release and will collapse in shapelessness," (Grotowski 17). In other words if we do not compose our messages correctly in signs they will collapse and not provide the audience with the meaning. Grotowski states: "we compose a role as a system of signs which demonstrate what is behind the mask of common vision: the dialectics of human behavior...A sign, not a common gesture, is the elementary integer of expression for us," (18).

Theater, Connection and Poor Theatre:

"Theatre is an act engendered by human reactions and impulses, by contacts between people. This is both a biological and a spiritual act," (58).
"By gradually eliminating whatever proved superfluous, we found that theatre can exist without make-up, without autonomic costume and scenography, without a separate performance area (stage), without lighting and sound effects, etc. It cannot exist without the actor-spectator relationship of perceptual, direct, "live" communion," (19).

These parameters prove the set up of the first two performances function and act as theatrical performances regardless of their non-traditional approach lacking qualities of "rich" theater. Instead these two performances applied many of the theories explored by Grotowski in the sense that they were focused on the connections, impulses and reactions of the performers and the audience members.

Performance and Communication Arts Mission Statement

11/20/2014

For those of you unfamiliar with the performance and communication arts department I have outlined the mission statement below. After each point I have listed parts of the Bewilderments of the Eyes project which best demonstrate the assumptions given. It is important to note that I am attempting to select the few best examples, though all aspects of this project to some degree apply.

The curricular and extracurricular activities of the department of performance and communication arts (PCA) are guided by a number of fundamental assumptions:

All performances are acts of communication, and all acts of communication are performances;
First performance: "Audience"

All humans communicate, and all humans perform;

First performance: "Audience"

Performance entails not merely the disingenuous act of faking but more importantly the creative and constructive act of making;

First performance: "Audience", Second performance: "Untitled", blog updates following the rehearsal process especially of the dance concert performance "Bewilderments", Dance concert performance "Bewilderments"

Communication entails not merely the transmission and reception of messages but more importantly the community-inducing communion among humans that the transmission and reception of messages makes possible;
Second performance: "Untitled", Dance concert performance: "Bewilderments", Bewilderments Recap video, Theater as a Sign System blog post

Performance and communication are not just acts in which humans sometimes engage but rather the fundamentally humanizing acts that shape who we are and how we negotiate our relationships with others and with the material world in which we live; and
Judith Butler and Rita Lasar blog post, Dance concert performance: "Bewilderments", Bewilderments Recap video
Examination of the basic components of performance and communication theory, when coupled with repeated practice in the art of shaping performances and engaging in communicative acts, enables students to become more effective and ethical producers and more discriminating and critical consumers of performances and other communicative behaviors.
Research and process, analysis of texts, blog writing and reflections on the project

As we approach the end of the semester, my posts will continue to shift towards reflection on the project as a whole and will explore questions such as: why does it matter? were the objectives met? and how has this served as a capstone project in the field of performance and communication arts?

The Viewpoints Book - Anne Bogart and Tina Landau

11/20/2014

The Viewpoints Book by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau, like The Art of Making Dances and The Intimate Act of Choreography, is a guide book of sorts for looking at space and relationships that occur within an area. Bogart and Landau present a variety of characteristics of viewpoints then expand on different types of viewpoints and their purposes.

Viewpoints is a philosophy translated into a technique for (1) training performers; (2) building ensemble; and (3) creating movement for stage.

Viewpoints is a set of names given to certain principles of movement through time and space; these names constitute a language for talking about what happens onstage.

Viewpoints is points of awareness that a performer or creator makes use of while working. (Bogart and Landau 8)

The physical viewpoints that Bogart and Landau discuss are: Tempo, Duration, Kinesthetic Response, Repetition, Shape, Gesture, Architecture, Spatial Relationship, and Topography. All of these viewpoints are applicable to the Bewilderments of the Eyes project perhaps most obviously in the Dance Concert performance.

The act of choreography, as Blom and Chaplin explained, is about experimenting with these viewpoints and their sub-components and building phrases of movements. Here's a look at viewpoints in the Dance Concert performance:

Tempo: at what pace the dancers move on stage and the pace of changes.
Duration: how long or short an action is sustained by the dancers.
Kinesthetic Response: how the dancers respond to the tensions of the other dancers connected to the elastics.
Repetition: redoing the same movement patters multiple times.
Shape: the forms the dancers create.
Gesture: when the dancers reach away from each other pulling against the tension of the elastics.
Architecture: the stage and how we use on stage space for choreography and off stage space for choreographed transitions.
Spatial Relationship: all of the dancers on stage are always in relation to one another, in this case it is emphasized by the elastics outlining their exact relationship.
Topography: the floor pattern the dancers follow was mostly based on diagonal lines from upstage left to downstage right and upstage right to downstage left. At one high point in the dance there are also parallel lines running across upstage and downstage and at another there is a circle center stage. This topography viewpoint also factors into the lighting design process.

The Viewpoints Book, The Art of Making Dances, and The Intimate Act of Choreography are all very similar works presenting detailed breakdowns and explanations of the elements of performance and physical movement for stage. Unlike the other two books, The Viewpoints Book, offers a wider perspective giving the reader a general outline of what to consider when working on or creating a performance of any kind not just choreography.

Project Recap

11/20/2014

Need to catch up on the project? Here's a video recap of what we have done so far. Also, be sure to come see our final performance in the Dance Concert Dec. 5th and 6th at 8pm in Gulick Theater!

The Intimate Act of Choreography - Lynne Anne Blom and L. Tarin Chaplin

11/19/2014

Page 51, choreography exploration exercises explained by Blom and Chaplin and used in Kerri Canedy's Advanced Modern Dance class at St. Lawrence University:

Page 71, Doris Humphrey reference in Blom and Chaplin's The Intimate Act of Choreography:

Reading this book felt very familiar. Perhaps this familiarity stemmed from its frequent references to Doris Humphrey's The Art of Making Dances, or my recognition of many of the activities which were used in Kerri Canedy's Advanced Modern Dance course here at St. Lawrence.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the the work:

"You do not learn to choreograph by reading about it, hearing about it, or by watching the major companies in concert. You learn by choreographing, by experimenting, by creating little bits and pieces and fragments of dances and dance phrases, by playing with the materials of the craft over and over again until they become second nature," (Blom and Chaplin 3).

"know what your intention is - then say it with clarity and simplicity...we should know what we are trying to say with movement," (8).

"Turning is magical, mystical, as in trance dances. By analogy it is connected to whirlpools, spirals, to the circle and all the symbolism that it calls forth," (47).

I like the first quote above because it describes a lot of my work this semester - experimenting over the course of hours, days and weeks with the dancers and how they move with elastics.

The second quote is also very relevant to my project because my performance had an intended message which I had to work with both verbally in the Dance Concert video clip and also in movement with the dance performance itself.

The third quote caught my attention because at one of the high points in the "Bewilderments" choreography, the dancers lift one dancer and collectively turn. As the quote explains, this was a visual metaphor established in my choreography representing the changes that a person goes through when interacting with others.

Overall, I enjoyed reading The Intimate Act of Choreography and think that it was a like a second in depth look at Doris Humphrey's The Art of Making Dances. One quality that I particularly loved about both of these books were the suggested in class exercises that choreographers and dancers can use to discover new movement. I thought that the exercises were useful whenever I felt stuck or caught up in one dynamic. In short, I recommend both of these books to anyone jumping into the world of choreography.

SYE Behind the Scenes

11/18/2014

Most people probably see this blog and think it is a behind the scenes take on the project. However, for this post I'm going to give a glimpse of the real behind the behind-the-scenes. It's so behind the scenes I don't even really have pictures of it except these few...

One of my biggest behind the scenes challenges was learning how to use the programs that I used to make my media. Working on my SYE I learned the basics of Windows Movie Maker, iMovie, Garageband, Audacity, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. These programs helped me make all the advertising and kept my blog posts looking cool with colorful graphics like the "Behind the Behind the Scenes" image above.

It wasn't just computer tools that helped me with the project - sewing elastics for the dance showcase performance and rehearsals has become a big part of my life this semester too.

Then there was sewing white clothing layers for the "Untitled" performance.

There were also the two days that I spent finding every way possible to turn a person into a blank canvas.

Makeup testing day one:

...and they did look awesome.

We, ODY and myself, had quality bonding time when I was waiting for Movie Maker to import the two thousand photos I had for my time-lapse video. Oh, and then there is this thing that tends to happen right when you hit save that looks like this:

So it's a good thing that I have such wonderful friends that have had my back this whole time. Especially the ones that always responded to my panicked 2am Snapchats.

and all the other cool people that just reminded me to smile.

Thanks everyone!

So, lots of sewing in my SYE secret lair aka the Costume Shop. Shout out to Selina French and the costume shop crew for being incredible.

Makeup testing day two: "I promise you'll look awesome!"...I hope?

I've spent lots of quality time with my man Plato. These are the three copies I keep at the library, there is one more on my bookshelf at home.

Speaking of the library, I've gotten to know ODY on quite an intimate level...

The good news is that it did work, eventually, with minimal wanting to tear my hair out. Okay, there were a lot of wanting to tear my hair out moments...

Not to mention, my advisers who frequently send me emails like these: