❛ (a) fish in (a) bowl ❜
December 11, 2016
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Almost a month after Betwixt &Between its time to reflect and discuss the process of my choreograpy in the last days before the perfomance.
☃ ☀ On Wednesday the 16th of November we had our space rehearshal, first time with our props, our costumes and the choreography done. BUT I had a problem. Due to some reasons I have never before had the opportunity to enter the space I had chosen to dance. So when that happened on that day, I paniched because everything seemed so different. The space was communicating to me other things that I thought it would. The thing I had prepared didn't make sense to me and it felt strange. Fortunately Ana Sanchez Colberg and Candy Karra asked me to do excactly what I had planned to. Then they suggested some things.
For instance, play more with the suitcase. Think even more out of the box. Carry it. Roll with it.
Also, play more with the space, go back and forth and then again back and again back and then suddenly forth.
They also suggested to not repeat so many times my movements although I wanted to play a lot with repetition.
What I have done, was to minimilize my piece to the extreme and when I showed what else I have discovered that I hadn't put it in the piece, they simply said do that!
For some reason I was stuck. I feel like I was more focused on the pieces of the others that I was participating that I left no space of thought and judjement in mine. The voice of someone third is always helpful and it did made me clear my mind up.
☃☀The next day, 17th of November, we had the run- through. I decided to simply follow my instict and corrections. I used the space and the columns, I played with empting the space and filling the space and I believe that I used the suitcase in more ways although even now that I am writting I am thinking of more things I could have done.
My main concern was that I didn't feel faithful to my concept that I had worked and process from the beginning. But I think I realized that since space was such a big factor in that it is more than logical that impacted my choreography at last. For example repetition is not only expressed with repetition it can be done in other ways such as repeat the movement in reverse or evolve it.
☃☀ On 19th of Novement, the big day, I believe that everything went great. I was in a state of zombie, I was literally only focused on the now and then get ready for the next. The whole show-on time lasted about 8 hours.
My piece worked as on the run through. I am very open in improvising even on perfomance so when I realised that when there were kids right in front of me behind the glass, in the first show and that they were reacting to my expressions or to my suprising appeareances from the suitcase or the columns I totally used it! They were laughing and made little voices that gave to the piece a whole other aspect.
My mistake is that on the 2nd show I started with that intention again without first scanning the audience. Its a fact that a perfomance changes according to tge audience each time. For some reason, they create a common energy and I think that it is necessary for the performer to identify it and proceed accordingly.
↠ For me collaborating with the space finally makes sense.
I believe I have a clearer understanding of site specific dance excaclty because I had this struggle with my space.
The space is the second choreographer. Actually it is propable that the space IS THE CHOREOGRAPHER and you are the assistant one or its dancer. You follow its rules, you suggest ideas and possibilities, you interact, you might also try and change it but in the core the space is the one who will decide and you will follow.
↠ 'In site- spiecific dance choreography, dancers, the space, and the audience are all partners in the experintial creation of place. While many dance styles- presented on a proscenium stage or in different locales- can be said to create a sense of space, it is my belief that contemporary concert dance, offers fecund opportunities to generate conversation between dancer, viewer, and the inhabited space (p.2).
Munjee, Tara. Embodied Place: Variations of Spatial Engagement in Site- Specific Contemporary Dance Choreography. 2012.
Just because I am the dancer or I am the choreographer, doesnt mean that I act on my own. The space is my partern, it is alive, it corresponds to everything I do, everything I dont do. It replies to my stillness as I reply to its.
The audience on the other side has also a major role to play. The audience adjusts itself to the situation, the dancer does too, and actually so does the space, Suddenly, if a space is filled with 20 more people, the space has a a new character and all have to take that in consideration.
↠ This is something I wrote two days after the perfomance not only for me but in general:
To what good overthinking can get you to sometimes? Sometimes you just have to trust yourself.
Did my concept came in life?
Did something came out or it was just a girl walking around?
Is it possible to choreograph exaclty what you want and think?
Do we have to explain to the audience from before the concept and what we want to achieve conceptually? Do I, personally prefer when I read the description of the perfomance and the vision of the choreographer, because it makes more sense, or when I just let it drive me to something that might be completely irrelevant to what she/he intented?
If the audience doesn't get anything, is it then pointless? Is it a mistake of ours? Is it that the audience might not be ready? Does it matter?
↠ 'Where do we go within ourselves to source, or locate, our dancing? How do we let movement impulses flow into expression without too much restriction or convention? What's the pathway to our unique creative flow? How do we get there, know when we 've arrived and find our way back to dailly life (p.50) ?'
Olsen, Andrea. The Place of Dance: A somatic guide to dancing and dance making.
I suppose everyone plays with this idea. How much of unique material do I produce? How much of these is mine and how much is influenced unconciously from others? How do you dive in your soul find what you need to take out and pass to others. How? How much of these mine? And if it is completely mine then why do I want to give it to others? Why do I want to change them, or express an idea through an image, a movement, a word?
Something what troubles me a lot is about how dance is used now. Contemporary dance is leading to a path that dance as a movement in the traditional way, is rare in the perfomances. We mostly see dance theater which I love, but all that gives me the (faulse) idea that it is not possible to express what you want with a literally dance piece. What if I want to? Am I too conventional?
I hope to find the balance I search for and answer one day accordingly to me.
November 13, 2016
<exploring even more possibilies>
November 11, 2016
Yesterday we visited Benaki museum to have a space rehearsal. When I saw the space I am using in my choreography again, something switched. My mind became clearer and also my thoughts took a more logical order.
So lets imagine a space, a room that a wall of it is made by glass. I thought if using this whole passageway to its end. Very close to the glass in order to be as closer as I can to the audience. Not necessarily looking at them but through them.
The will follow me back and forth, travelling with me. As I want to show how my questions are not a personal story but a universal one that applies to anyone. It is a massive phenomenon.
Vicky Spanovangellis gave me the image of two trains in standby. One of them moves and the passengers that are on the other one that is stable, might have the illusion that they move also.
This image lead me to a more compatible with my concept.
People that are waiting for their train to come and see another one leaving. They will also get in a train. They observe the other train. The train will return to its position at some point. Most likely they will return as well.
Moreover I would like to mention my thoughts about my costume. Due to my suitcase which is an old one with flowers, I was inspired to have a vintage look, maybe with some kitsch elements.
#the title of my piece will be:
(a) fish in (a) bowl
We are all fishes. We are all in bowl.
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We are all observers. We are all out of the bowl.
(A nice phrase I have read is: ONLY DEAD FISH FOLLOW THE STREAM)
October 28, 2016
These are some parts of the readings we had to read so far that struck my interest:
Place and grid neurons match the actual place you are dancing with your internal compass, effortlessly linking memory and the imiginative world you are creating. Place has interior and exterior dimensions. Most dancers have a place inside themselves where they go to reach a particular state of awareness, permeability and receptivity of creativity and perfomance (146).
Context shapes content. Performing a solo, for example, as a duet or quartet begins to adress how the content is affected when the environment changes. Similarly, when a dance is performed in a different place, new dimension are revealed. The understanding of bodies in space and compositional frames informs the possibilites of what the viewer expects and experiences. Understandind abstraction is based on kinesthetic memory. (....) The ever changing dialogue between container and content, place and space, emptiness and fullness creates a dynamic dancing ground of mapped experiences, leaving traces in the air that are visceral, visual in effect (p.146).
Olsen, Andrea. The Place of Dance: A somatic guide to dancing and dance making.
''Dance is not only about movement, but about space and writing and thinking. What we 've tried to show is how dance is not just a footnote or sporadic event but an art form contained in itself''' Muriel Maffre (p.92).
''In the past museums were condidered temples of art, but museums are becoming more of a place of exchange and encounters'' Muriel Maffre (p.92).
Stuart, Elaine. Jackson Pollock Meet Trisha Brown. 2014, January.
The bodily experience of movement through space; that is the articulation of body parts in reference to one another and to the largest space, was described as coenesthesia by American modern dance artist Erick Hawkins.(...) The sentient body gathers information about itself in reference to space (both internal and external to the bodily surface) and this embodied, sunjectively- perceived and known sense of space contributes to a construct of place (p.2).
(....) A cursory summation of the manifold ways in which the compositional strand os space is adressed in contemporary choreography:
-the body's form
-the pathways traversed through space
-levels or zones of space
-the relationship and distance between and among dancers
-the amount of space consumed in a dance
the use of space in the design of set pieces and props
-orientation in the three dimensions
-physical tensions and supports created through and by moving body
are all compositional elements extensively discussed in dance literature, and pedagogical methodologies exists for developing skill in each of these areas (p.4).
Munjee, Tara. Embodied Place: Variations of Spatial Engagement in Site- Specific Contemporary Dance Choreography. 2012.
October 22, 2016
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| Our lives are penknives- Katerina Gogou (I wouldn't dare to translate it in another language) |
October 19, 2016
This is a brain storiming that I did last week in order to let my mind free of exploring new dimensions of my ideas
My first intention was to create a duet. However since the person I have chosen won't be available, I had to find someone else. All this week I was pushing myself to decide but I concluded that my idea is best to be intepreted as a solo since after all it seems to lead in a deep personal research. In other words this is want I want to discover/ communicate to anyone who might see it:
how come even if we are stuck we don't try to move forward?
how come even if we move forward, we stay in the same spot? (mentally and physically)
how come we think we moved on but actually stayed in the same spot?
how come whole crowds have such a mental process?
how come we don't evovle mentally as we have done in the technology and science?
how do I move on?
how do I move on among others?
what sacrificies have to be done?
how much do I want to go on?
how far (-> what is place?)
for how long (-> what is time?)
under which prerequisites?
#(I have some thoughts of adding with intense expressions, and at some points melodramatic moments.- just a thought)#
October 11, 2016
On Monday the 11th of October, we had a scheduled visit at Benaki museum, now in order to take a tour around and decide where we want to place our choreography.
The relation between <body> + <space> is vital to our work as one aspect of our creative process is the collaboration with the museum (space) and the production of a site- specific result.
The space that drew my attention was a closed room that looked like a shop window. It was very small, propably around 1m x 2m. It automatically brought in my mind images of a duet that on the hand moves as if the space is big enough and doesn't seem to limit them but on the other hand this is just an illusion.
Unfortunately this space can not be used. So what's next? I have to consider how to create the image of a small space in which the performers are exposed as if they are shoes in a store.
Fortunately, there is a similar space in the museum. Though it is much bigger, it gives me the opportunity to work with that challenge. How will I show that this big space is so small that it almost fits me and one more?
Needless to say that I would like to the audience outside. Looking from the glass. As if they are looking at a weird fish and THEY decide when they leave. When the image has fulfilled them.
Moreover, I settled down about the amount of my dancers. It would be a duet. I think that this concept matches with my intentions and first thoughts.
(some more photos of our visit)
October 4, 2016
On Friday the 30th of October, I visited the Benaki museum with some other students to see the artwork exhibited in [Out]topias and decide which one I shall work on. There were three works that caught my attention and gave me some food for inspiration.
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| Paris Legakis- Voices of the poeple 2013 For me this piece was very special and interesting not only for its political - humanitarian context but also because of the movement choice and the development of the improvisation. |
Dogman
I' m a dogman
I'm running man
running to my place
to preserve illusion
Of knowing who I am
I can get mad
'cause no one understand
The way I really am
Nor that I would expect that anyway
From this piece I mostly enjoyed the little poem. I have read it so many times these days that I feel like I began to sing it. I believe that it can be interpreted in many ways.
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| Rootless Root Company- Dogman |
When I entered the small black room I new that something exciting would hide there and I was right. The film Departures by Xaris Patramanis captured me and I stayed without realising how long it was.The strange thing about it was that even though nothing happened, I always expected it would. Two words have stuck in my mind for this piece :
[continuation - permanence]
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| Xaris Patramanis- Departures |
Although I am very inspired by Departures I am still considering aspects of Dogman. I have to decide today what I will use as my inspiration-reference. I already have some ideas and I am playing with the idea to use many people: perhaps a very 'connected duet'.
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I was always into arts as I started playing theatre when I was 5 years old. Over time I also engaged into music (piano and chorus) as well as visual arts. However what I love most of all is dance.
Until now, I have done multiple dance classes and seminars with teachers like Giorgos Kotsifakis, Paul Blackman, Chara Kotsali, Athanasia Kanellopoulou, Christina Sougioultzi, Stella Zanou, Christina Reinhart, , Emi Korfia, Alexander Neskov, Ana Sanchez-Colberg, Eleni Papaioannou, Marianna Kavalieratou, Olia Tornaritou, Antonis Vais, Marilena Dara, Fotis Nikolaou, Linta Kapetanea, Ioanna Toumpakari, Rick Nodine, Seke Chimutengwende, Harris Kousios, Maria Doulgeri, Anna Karamitsou, my beloved Vaso Koukaki and others.
In 2014 and in 2015 I participated in AthensVideoDanceProject having created videos.
While in 2016 I danced at the piece 'When you only have 10 minutes' choreographed by Eleni Papaioannou. This piece was also presented at 2nd Scratch Festival-Cartel. ('When you only have 20 minutes') Chorochronos festival 2016 and PK 1st Platform.
In 2015 I participated in Circus Days- Athens Circus Festival at the piece of Levantes Dance Theater- Canapes Art. Through dance courses at Deree-ACG I have taken part at Mediterranean Bodies: part of "The Underwater Heart of the Mediterranean" project. Ana Sanchez-Colberg. Romantso, February 2016 and at The Falling Project: participatory dance event and part of the Mediterranean Bodies Events. Ana Sanchez-Colberg. Booze Cooperativa, February 2016.
A collaborative project with Areti Skavantzou about presence can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kBhDDIDdcs&index=48&list=PL7vy8WJjVumo1XViVESgVdQVW8rRJVfUt
