ThROUghLiNE

Project #3

As the work progresses with each project, I seek to capture the process of painting in the film and represent images within the screendance of where inseparability between both painting and choreography takes place. Typically I work with multiple dancers, I had the opportunity to work with a professional dancer on this project that will allow for observation and reflection of dancers on varying levels in the study as I begin to examine how the methods may be used as a teaching tool for both the emerging dancer who still places the emphasis on their technique and the mature dancer who wears it like a second skin.

Materials

The Body
Canvas
White Costume
Acrylic Paint Mixed with
- Floetrol / 300g
- Glue / 200g
- Pouring Medium / 100g
- Water / 25g
30g Paint to 60g Mixed Medium

Process:

The flow painting and ring pour technique were explained to the participant. She was given a white costume to wear and told not to worry if any paint ended up on it. The idea of the white costume was that she was a canvas herself. White tarp, white 36X48 canvas, and white costume. A sense of uncertainty of what will become of the project, this canvas, this body in costume, this dance. Just trusting in the process and allowing art to live and grow through them both.

Movement Tasks

Improvisational task: Paint the body as Canvas

Explore movement as if you are the canvas being manipulated through motion

Trace the movement as a map

Examine various level changes

Follow a pattern and retrace your steps

PaintFlow.MOV

Paint Flow

This was the first time after making a painting that I had the dancer explore movement tasks the same day. This was a prime opportunity for her to recall the experience of making the painting and reflect on the action that just took place. She moved with grace and ease. She displayed no ego or question about the movement. She did not think to look in the mirror, as I usually would have participants face away from the mirror because they tend to look at the shape their body is making. It truly was an embodiment of the practice.

Paint Hits the Canvas

This is another beautiful act of improvisation. It is as if the painting is speaking to her and she is speaking back, or her memory of the act of paint hitting the canvas speaks to her and she is sharing this experience with both the painting and me. As if the painting is alive and she wants the painting to hear her. She is beginning to develop a relationship with this painting. She was in awe by the work she produced. It is as if she is thanking the painting for this act of inspiration. This comes so easy for her, no question, full of fluidity and rich movement material.

Hit Canvas.MOV

October 2021

Movement Tasks Continuation

Reading the Score (Painting)

Mhand.mov

Exploring Mapping with Hands

MSetHand.MOV

Setting the Hands Phrase

MTravelingHand.MOV

Traveling with Hands

MHandsTransitions.MOV

Hands with Transitions

MSetHand.MOV

Final Hand Phrase Set

As the dancer mapped the painting leading with her hands, she was working deeply on the task. She operated on a totally different level than the younger dancers who would try to look in the mirror and question their movement. There were no questions, there was no wrong way to move. Like the day she made the painting, here again, she was having a dialogue with the painting, as if asking it a question, allowing the answer to guide her movement, and then would look back to the painting to gather more information. The material produced was varied in level and energy. She reviewed the footage filmed and set the phrase as it was improved. We evolved the movement by adding traveling and transitions through projection.

The Body as an Architectural Site

The task was to choose 6 images within the painting that you are drawn to. Using your body as a site, transfer that image onto your body, embody the image as your body becomes an architectural site to represent your perception of this illustration.

After creating the gestures or poses, look at your painting and connect the images...as if connecting the dots. How would you map that pattern in space as if you take the canvas and the dance floor becomes your canvas travel through the space mapping the pattern?

Once the shapes and patterns were set, the dancer was tasked with adding dynamics to the images once she arrived at the site where they resided. I wanted her...and the dance to live in these moments and allow the audience time to digest the physical forms rather than the movement continue to progress. (Dynamics include: tension, release, vibration, sharpness, lightness)

MFeetFloor.MOV

Mapping with the Foot

As we moved on to the final task to explore I returned to the popsicle sticks and chance method to dictate what would be our fate. The first stick chosen was a “Blue” stick and then a stick that had the word “Foot” written on it. All of the movement produced was standing up the entire time. I found this interesting as usually when I personally participate in the task of mapping with my foot I end up on the floor and then those next to me do as well. This is clearly a moment when the act of intersubjectivity affects bodies in a shared experience. In this case, there was only one dancer participating in the act during the task. She chose another stick with a dynamic, “Sharp” which lead her to add accents to the movement, and the final stick was “Floor”. The dancer expressed that to take movement and bring it to the floor was her favorite task (she had to do in college). She completed the task smoothly, having the ability to transfer the material she had carved in space while standing and carry it to the floor added volume and texture to the phrase. This, in turn, added multiple dimensions to the movement, especially when it came to filming.

SetChoreo.MOV

Choreographic Arrangement

An abundance of material was developed within a few rehearsals and it came to the point where we had to stop tasking the tasks and start to piece together the choreography. I wanted to start with one of the first movements explored and from there we composed the work corresponding to which movement surged into the next. I selected a song but was not in love with it for this piece. The music did not dictate the movement, it was just sound layered over the dancing at this point. The main focus was to connect the making of the painting, a dialogue formulated with the painting, a shared agency in the choreographic process and developing a film to capture it all.

Final Rehearsal

Final Rehersal.MOV

End of Project #3...see PerformancesNovember 2021

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