Canvas

#Project1

Through the art making process, may we discover new knowledge production potentially transformed onto the performative moving body.

Modes of Making

Swipe Painting Technique

Individual Pieces

Group Pieces

This was the first exploration of shared agency in the art-making process between humans and objects. A shared sense of agency was perceive among the dancers. Decision-making was equally distributed among the group.

Videos for a closer look at details

Paintings that will inform Choreographic Scores...

Individual and Collectively

Group Painting

My Movie.MOV

Individual Painting

My Movie 2.MOV

Materials:

Canvas
Acrylic Paint
Floetrol Pouring Medium
Clear Sheet Protectors used as Swipe Tool

Process:

Participants were shown a demonstration of the swipe technique with acrylic paint on canvas. They were then given 3 canvases (2- 8x10, 1- 16x20) and a choice of what colors to use for their project. It was noted that one participant followed strictly the directions in the demonstration. One swiped their painting both vertically and horizontally on her small canvases and diagonally on the larger one. Another participant swiped all three of her canvases in wave motions and the final participant deviated from the directions altogether. I did not stop anyone or redirect their personal process. I allowed the art to live and grow through them.

The next painting was created collectively on 24x36 and 36x48 canvases. The participants were still utilizing the swipe technique. The expression used when given directions were, “I would like you to make a patchwork together.” Surprisingly, the one participant who fully strayed from the directions in the first exercise, followed my exact concept when creating this painting. The other piece turned into a galaxy of paint cells and waves. As our time together was coming to a close, the girls worked in pairs rather than altogether on one piece. We also ran out of time and I did not have the dancers write in a journal.

Moving forward I have reflection questions for the participants to respond to such as:

What color did you choose and why?
Which direction did you swipe the paint, elaborate?
When you look at your finished painting what is your first thought?
What do you see in each painting?

These questions will inform the Improvisational movement prompts.

Reflection:

I am especially intrigued by the choreography of paint on the canvas. The shared agency between “human” and “non-human” in the production, the unpredictable movement, and the pouring medium adds to the process that will be transferred and shared with the body. A place where method meets art and art meets method. Somewhere in between digested and reverberated diffractions murmuring of material thinking. An entanglement of practice and process. A transformation of enactments and re-articulation recapturing relationships. This will open space in the dancer’s imagination and activate self-experimentation as essential to understand in the art-making process.

(See Monthly Reading Reflection)November 2020

Energies in Action

During the following practice, I worked alone, seeking connectivity with the materials. Self, materials, and matter in dialogue with one another. Talking back through intra-actions allows reflections to diffract creating an exchange of images. Energies share time, shifting space, allowing natural play to exist between stimulus and the magnitude of possibilities to come to life.

December 2020

Modes of Making

Drip Painting Technique

As the Paintings spoke to Me, it was decided they not remain in their current state.

IMG_4583.MOV

Ring Pour Technique

Materials & Process

Aadhan

The pouring cup was layered with black, white, gold, silver and aqua green acrylic paint mixed with glue, water and silicon oil.

Kohath

After the painting medium was poured on the canvas, the material was manipulated: shifted, twisted, lifted, and turned. Exploring weight, space, time and flow disclosed elements of effort through shared material practice.

Juma'i

Forced levels, directions, and air patterns dripped materials from one canvas to the next. Sharing paint from the final canvas onto the first two was choice-driven as I sensed a relationship between these three canvases, almost as if there was a common DNA connection among each one.

Method in Motion

Sisters.mov

Reflection:

Seeking to emerge in the choreographic act through process and practice, I found myself aware of the camera, feeling as if this was a performance. The first act did not turn out as I intended, not that I even had an artistic intention in mind per se, but actually, as I am writing this, I come to realize act one unfolded as it was meant to be, just not as I intended it to be. Working in my basement, my husband entered the room and distracted me as he did a little jig on the side. I invited him to join me to paint, adding, "we can dance a duet,” but now that I think of it, we would have been dancing a trio with materials. After I finished dripping paint on the canvas, I was ready to pick one up. The color sagged as if it had a sullen look on its face. The Painting diffracted an urgency to wash away this performance and prepare for act two.

I begin to reflect upon this performance through the lens of a phenomenological method of analysis. I had completely let myself go as my practice took over. Camera off and on to mixing mediums, like a mad scientist, experimenting with new compounds. Glue, water, paint, and silicone oil. As I turned the camera back on, I was in a trancelike state. My gesture performed without stimulating a conflicting movement in itself nor the desire to make the act more fully my own. The art came to be in the act of making a painting. Without self-expression yet played out in space where movement connected to the energies of an impermanent experience. Through this act, discovery leads to acceptance of an object of permanence. Honestly, a relationship was cultivated into more than acceptance between self and object...a feeling of kinship manifested through processual creation.

(See Monthly Reading Reflection)December 2020

Modes of Making

Imagery Mapping

1stFoot.MOV

2ndFoot.MOV

Hands.mov

Action, transformed, translated,

Through the medium of an image which is fixed and permanent,

Touched upon that which is shared in space and the passing of time

through the aesthetics of impermanence

The body

Responsive to things in the World

as theory unravels into moments of experience

Form takes shape

Heavy, Light

Rise and Fall

Movement takes flight

Reflection:

In the process of reflecting on my movement inquire and my reading response this month (see m AN u Sc r i PT), as well as aspiring to develop meaningful lesson plans for my hybrid dance students during a pandemic (many of whom have never taken a dance class before in their lives), I found myself coming full circle with the topic at hand. Scores. During one of my recent class projects, I asked my students to choose 10 words from a section of writing on Climate Change and design 10 gestures or movements as they engaged their body in physical thinking. As I assisted and prompted students to begin their movement exploration, I walked past a girl who was writing symbols on her paper. I was exhilarated to see the markings and asked her what they were. She hadn’t even stood up to begin moving. She explained she drew the pictures to remember her moves. I ask if she knew what the drawings were called and explained that she was notating a dance Score. I expressed how impressed I was with her choice in documentation to recite her movement as opposed to the choice of technology to record her dance.

Pondering the conversation, I considered why I do not teach a unit on Scores. In the interest of following the school’s curriculum guide, it is not a requirement. It is also not clearly indicated in the State Standards to include notation while teaching dance. As an educator, I clearly see the importance of teaching students the importance of formulating methods to develop and preserve their choreography. This occurrence or happening located me as a researcher in the world, as an observer, making visible the practices in an attempt to make sense of the phenomena in a natural setting.

As an educator by trade, I have been trained to follow a script. As an artist participating in an interconnected practice in this field, I find it my place to execute this practice in the context within my classroom. Drawing parallels from my student’s work of drawing symbols on paper, to my work with painting, the body is not dependent on embodying movement. The act of choreography can occur without the body, yet it can be argued we are always using our body during every action we engage in. The development of the Score is the act of choreography, made with pencil and paper or paint on canvas. As for the difference between my student and my work, she had a direct plan in drawing her symbols, where action painting results produce unpredictable movement in the image. Just as I teach my students about crafting dances, there is no right or wrong way. There are a plethora of methods in generating movement as a variety of approaches in developing Scores. Art can and should be different, provoking thought and discovery through creative inquiry. It is here where thoughts in action become knowledge in motion, process is intertwined with shifting experiences, and the world's diverse ways expose themselves through the inseparability of entanglement.

(See Monthly Reading Reflection)
January 2021

Modes of Making

Body Image

Reflection:

My intent in the studio was to revisit movement synthesized last month and apply Laban Movement Analysis through the four motion factors of Weight, Time, Space, and Flow. After reading a suggested text by Valerie Preston-Dunlop, “Chu / Mm (Choreutic Unit and Manner of Materialisation),” I was motivated to incorporate her methods as I utilized my painting as the impetus to construct shapes in space. Manipulating the body as the artistic medium, I explored Body Design, Spatial Tension, and Spatial Projection.

I focused on a specific image as I sculpted my body into living architecture and materialized the painting into Body Design. I then explored tension within the body, between limbs, the muscles within my body, and the floor. Once I felt confident in my stance, I proceeded to project my energy towards a Spatial Projection. “These images are transformed into dance movement, emerging as synthesis of choreutic fragments, the curve, the line, the angel, the axis, performed in wrist, in head, in waist, in focus, in floor pattern, in relationships. Fragments of geometry are the particles in which choreographic imagination manifests itself” (Preston-Dunlop 80).

Discovering this direct relationship to the painting, I was aware of what I was attending to within the shifting space in my body. I was aware of the intentional patterns of mattering produces through the intra-active agency shared between painting and self, the inseparability of the object diffracting material practices of knowing and becoming. It is here where the body movement produces knowledge, although the body was not in constant motion, virtually to the eye, it was within the shifting space held within the body.

(See Monthly Reading Reflection)

February 2021

I am white, I am bare, I am naked

I am nothing and everything waiting to happen

I am the place - the space that gets messy,

stared at, forgotten about, left to collect dust.

I am adored, admired, I am walked past and ignored

I am left to children and grandchildren

worth nothing but memories - until I am no more.

Participant Movement Exploration

Merging Materials

Mapping the Painting as a Score
Physical Thoughts, Tracings, and Trajection

Modes of Making

Finger/Hands Guide Tracing

Soph Hands.MOV

Individuals choose which one of their paintings they want to investigate away from mirrors.

Scar_Hands.mov

Explore improvisation movement, mapping with fingers/hands and allow the body to follow.

Bell Hands.MOV

Individuals recorded self for 5-10 minutes and then analyzed repetitive patterns in movement.

Additional Tasks & Reflection Questions

After reviewing the video, Dancers were directed to set a pattern from their exploration. They looked for a phrase or movement that stood out to them or was repetitive in the practice.

With your new-found movement phrase explore the idea of:

Lightness---(for a few minutes repeating the phrase)

Participants answer the following questions in their journal:

How did this task change the movement or phrase?
Where in your body did it change the movement?
Where in your body did you feel light?

Strong---(think of tension, engaging your muscles, heavy, weight)

Participants answer the following questions in their journal:

Did this action change the movement?
Where did you place strength in your body?
What word would you give it?

We decided Timing was based on music, mood, environment, experience

So we moved on to explore:

Space---think:

Traveling
Rising
Sinking
Opening
Closing

Put music on and explore your movement phrase now with “Space” In mind...do not forget about the planes (high, medium, and low).

Record yourself after completing all the tasks (new movement development after exploring dynamics [Effort: Flow, Space, Time, Weight]).

Go back to watch the first phrase recording and write about the difference from the first movement sequence to now.

Hands.MOV

Evolution of

Movement

The additional tasks exploring dynamics and space were layered onto the movement to add texture to the aesthics of their action and force the dancers to move out of a very small bubble they were dancing in.

Through developing movement on top of the initial task, choreographic transformation emerged in and through the body of the work evolving choreography beyond the initial movement exploration.

Working Remotly

Due to Covid 19 quarantine, one of the participants joined via an online platform. This did not impede her movement, if anything, she was not influenced by other bodies in the room, and strictly worked from prompts.

Foot/Leg Guide Tracing

Soph_Legs.mov

Exploring Movement

Scar_Legs.MOV

Processing Imagery

Bell Legs.mov

Setting the Phrase

Reflection:

The dancers used their paintings as a blueprint for movement exploration. Some of their movement was interesting, fresh, and original, but some were elementary as if they had a pencil in their hand (or foot) and were trying to trace the movement of the painting on a two-dimensional plane in space. By manipulating their initial movement and adding layers of dynamics to the movement, the dancers engaged more in a sense of freedom in their movement. This development proved to be more aesthetically pleasing. Since this was the first time they were reading their paintings as a Score, they wondered if they were doing it “right”. It was as if I could see the conversation they were having with this painting. They were looking and listening for the movement on the canvas to transfer to their body, and not just diffract the image, but apply it in a way that was comfortable in their skin.

April 2021

To Write, to express - to draw on ideas that come from within onto the page -- to turn thoughts into words when words are limited in play leaves room for the imagination -- as much room as a blank piece of paper to explore space untouched, but seen in the mind's eye -- But leaving thoughts and images in the mind and not sharing them with others causes them to be trapped in space unseen. Once they are exposed, it is as if space becomes full of images and ideas - not just to be seen, but to be expanded upon, learned from, developed into knowledge - a springboard to transpose thoughts into reality and possibilities.

Swipe Choro.MOV

Sharing Choreography

Each participant teaches the Score analogy or interpretation of their artwork with the group. This practice exchange with others is mutually beneficial as unintended consequence occurs after their initial reading of the painting The dancer is required to recall their movement phrase, describe and explain the set pattern with others, including dynamics hidden within the in-between. The choreography extends possibilities with others and the nature of the creative act between object and self and self with others. The self turns itself inside out as it gives itself to others to explore unfamiliar movement patterns. Thinking on this, I wonder how much will be altered through the process of this shared practice and what will remain the same?

Connecting the Phrases

I have decided to arrange a melding together of one's hand tracing to another dancer's foot mapping of their painting (Score) so on and so forth to craft the performative piece. One phrase flows into the next, allowing the dancer's personal voice in relation to the carving out of their canvas in space. Forms of technique begin to emerge from dominant perceptions of the body's history, rond de jambe, attitude, and pointed feet. What may push the dancers beyond the act of codified technique? How should I have them look at their painting and translate forms and shapes into and through body language which pushes beyond their comfortable borders?

Trio.MOV

Exploring the Body as an Architectural Site

Stop the Movement

Reflect on stillness, shapes captured within the permanence held within the painting, not as movements within an already determined image of dance. Link the concept of texture trapped on the canvas to the bodily structure. I wanted the dancers to reflect upon what moves us, not how we move and feel the shift of energy within their bodies. I am not sure how this layer will be added to the final piece of choreography, I just wanted the dancers to STOP moving, read the Score and transcribe it through intentioned gestures.

Bella Gestures.mov

SPrinG.MOV

Playing with Film

I began to think about how I will piece this work together as a film. Playing with filters on the camera I came across this one that looks as if it is a drawing on the page. I like how the images in the background are not completely still, we can see them moving, we know it is not a still frame, but a living, breathing picture. Then I faded the final frame to color when the image begins to move. I think as the dance begins I will bring the film into normal view, as if it is a picture or a painting coming to life. I will examine more options with editing as I am intrigued by developing this tapestry of capturing dance.

Connecting the Dots

This is a video reviewing choreography all the dancers have put together (one is missing). For these young dancers, it has not been a conventional way of creating or learning choreography. It is not the typical codified movement they are learning in their dance studios. It is not a style they are familiar with, yet was produced from the creative power held within their personal voice. A styling produced from a reflective relationship with their paintings. In a sense, I see it as an aesthetic of shared territories, negotiating space...not quite sure how to connect the dots yet.

IMG_5607.MOV

May 2021

Colors, texture, a rendering of traces flooding space Negotiating compositional dividesThe scope extends negative and positive Blending into oneness, othernessComponents and conditions illuminate beyond linguistic events Interwoven with various forms of knowledgeCombine bodily doings reflective of embedded practice, coherent frames of action.

Composition Process

Order of Movement Patterns:

B- Arms

S- Arms

O- Arms

B- Legs

Sc- Legs

O- Legs

S- Legs

Sc- Arms

Why? When we first transitioned each of the dancers movement patterns to the next, it was connected to which one flowed best into the following. At the time we were all facing the same direction, standing in a line learning the material (without including transitions between bodies in space). In adding the transitions, I needed to think how it was related to the context of the work. How? were the movement of the bodies going to be in relation to the paintings? The painting...or dance started with the 4 dancers in a diagonal, in the same direction Dancer "S" painting was. As the dancers traveled in the patterns to get to their next placement, they traversed in a directional flow as Dancer "Sc" painting flowed. Joining to face center in the subsequent placement was in connection to where Dancer "O" swiped the paint on her entire canvas. In the last placement they dropped one at a time like the paint on the canvas and in the very end they moved in relation to the bodily architecture task before the filming ends (see performance).

Placement Review/Final Documentation

Final Rehearsal.MOV

End of Project 1 (see performance) June 2021

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