STARTING POINT | INITIAL IDEAS 

This conversation can inspire us to deepen the research in some particular aspects that we find fascinating. It can be our main metaphore. Therefore, It is useful to gather information from different sources and methods. I mean, to do a literature review from the scientific and the artistic perspective, in parallel to explore through movement. This somatic approach will allow us to compose with a specific focus, based on body awareness. I have been practicing this way of moving and composting since I did the somatic trajectory ELAP (Embodiment Life Art Program) where we learned to move from one specific body system or tissue, and learn what is the mind that emerges. This mind leads the way we place material in space and time. For this residency, I want to explore moving from the hands and the gaze, while the skin is our meaphore for composing. 


This allows for narratives to emerge, develop and transform. Therefore, there is no specific topic or theme as a starting point. The starting point is the curiuosity of the embodied experience of signing, the eloquency of the hands gesturing and how to observe this in many different ways. 

LAYERED FILM EXPERIENCE 

Instant composition where different scenes are build by framing and adding or removing layers. 

 

  • Inspired by the method of Mobile Choreography developedn by PibLab, I want to try to use phones to record live. This allows to have different perspectives of what is happenig to be able to compose with different frames. 
  • TO DO: since I need several phones, I can ask friends for their old phones.
  • This opens 2 possibilities: A)Iterations: to record first and show later B)Live editing: to project live via video call
  • Objects: table, phones, selfie sticks, big paper, or big piece of cloth, tripods, projectors 
  • To do: experiment with materials to project on: skin, paper, fabric, wood, 

 

  • Speech-based. Create text or something done? Famous speeches? Peace agreements! 
  • Bring the little speaker 
  • Buy a microphone - I asked Died for a recommendation. 
  • Buy a sound recorder - use the old iPhone as a sound recorder 
  • Ask for Beamer 
  • Buy a small Beamer? 
  • Projection: projection on full body - project in from in small body 
  • Clothing: white and colourful 
  • Watch trios. 
  • Speech and hand movement. Look at DV8 
  • Work with voice - describe 
  • It’s like a live film. Everything is framed by the projector. It starts against a wall. Create a mobile wall that can be transported easily. Like the TV. Stands. One leg? Two legs? Tripod? 
  • Small torches and lights. Go to the Tiger in Utrecht and in Amsterdam 
  • We see the dancers record and then we all together watch what was recorded. 
  • I’m also on stage doing the camera work sometimes, moving the projector, moving the surfaces, taking what they recorded and projecting it 
  • Play with in camera editing: In-camera editing is a technique where, instead of editing the shots in a film into sequence after shooting, the director or cinematographer instead shoots the sequences in strict order. The resulting "edit" is therefore already complete when the film is developed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org › wiki

In-camera editing - Wikipedia

  • Play with long take 
  • Have the iPhone as a live camera 
  • Do many and long improvisations and start to create from there. 
  • Project a white frame and do thinks inside. 

SKIN 

As a somatic approach, during the residency, I would like to spend time talking about the skin and all we know about it.

         The skin defines us by giving us physical limits and at the same time, it gives us the space to connect, to feel,           to shape,           to enjoy,

        to exchange,       to recognize,        to pain.

 The skin is layered, wrinkled, it has different textures, it stretches, it is moist and dry. It grows and dies, it is dust

 

It is a permeable border between in and out.

 

 

Skin as a territory

  kin as meeting point - touch

    in as landscape 

     n as curvy - this informs the movement form the hands

        as sssk - sensuality 

         s s

          s spiral

           skin as exchange 

       the skin adapts and transFROMS 

layers of skin wrinkling - aging

     protection surface

                       canvas

           skin color as a space of discrimination!

 

THE SKIN AS METAPHORE FOR COMPOSING

Each rehearsal is a performance, and each performance is a rehearsal 


ABOUT THE METHOD:

 

Prototyping method - Movement as a research tool

The method is to do, record, see what we do, discuss what is working, why,  and do it againg but deeper, with more nuance. We continue this circle for ever.


Emerging dramaturgy - Emerging narratives

From the first day we will be composing, and each time we will get better and better, because we craft what we find. We spend time developing all the materials, each different scene, and we allow the dramaturgy to emerge. Therefore, we will learn what are good ways to start and finish. And in between, we will allow different narratives to emerge. These narratives might be different every time.   


 

 

 

 

 

DIFERENT CAMERA SHOTS AT THE SAME TIME

Since the concept is to do a live film, I need to have different camera shots and angles. When editign, you always put very different shots after each other. Too similar shots together look very weird. I can do this using several mobile phones as cameras. This reminds me the several projects I did with PiBslab around their idea of Mobile Choreography. That method was to create a film, but it could also be an inspiration to do it live, as I did with the telemaric dance projects I did during the pandemic. We were doing live video editing using Zoom, since closing and opening the cameras can create different layouts for the film. I can come back to this idea for stage as I did with 2/3 y Un Baño


MOBILE CHOREOGRAPHY + TELEMATIC DANCE  Record and play at the same time different perspectives of the same situation 


TO TRY

  • In the 6 cameras layer: the 3 phones under record the full scene (continues landscape) from the front perspective whit no movement. The phones over record from different perspecrives. Very different shots.  
  • A records B, C records A at the same time / didnt work so nicely with my inclusive dance group, but its good to try again 
  • Exchange the roles as part of the composition 
  • Play with movement in space, create different constellations, 
  • Find different ways of interacting
  • Create a score of filming beacuse recording is also a dance!!    
  • DRAMARUTGY IDEA:  the dancers do an instant composition dancing solos and recording each other as a chorus. To try with Werktitel!
  • Recording as dance: only one camera and everyone around. The camera person stays and moves from their place (grounded and as a tree) and the other ones go around | Also the opposite: the dancers are grounded and the camera dancer moves all around.  

 

BIG HAND DUO OR SOLO


  • Big projection of a hand in composition with a live dancer
  • the owner of the hand is sitting on a chair and table, close to the audience. Not in a chair... can we see their torso? can we see a part of the face? the eyes? are the hands floating or with a background? What's the frame?
  • There is a live camera (iPhone connected to Modul8 as an external camera) recording the hand. Theather lights are off and there is special lighting for the hands 
  • This is not the first scene because it has the potential to be built in front of the eyes. They arrive there after a big "group part" because this is an intimate part.  
  • Dancer moves to the music - in a very precise way (no music = no movement)
  • Hands moves to the voice -  sign language-based 
  • Play with the perspective 

 



LYRICS


Oh my love
Where did you go?
And why did you leave?

I close my eyes and you are here
I open them and you are nowhere to be found

All you left was a note with the words
"Sorry, leaving earth"
I borrowed a spacesuit from Sun Ra himself
Set out on my astro travels
Dodging lifeless satellites as I made my way past
The dark side of the moon

Where did you go?
and why did you leave?

Love in outer space blurred from the speakers
My soundtrack for the six-year odyssey
To find you

Mars truly is a red planet
and meteor showers are not so serene
while in the midst of them

Oh I have witnessed things quite wondrous to see
Travelled through the tail of an icy comet
Mesmerized by the brilliant glow of stars outside my port window
Yet nothing compares to you
Star of my story I always tell
I searched for you on the moons of Jupiter
Europa, Io, Ganymede and Callisto

The storms of Jupiter rages
The surface is always changing

I hope this transmission finds you soon
As I drift in space
I can make out Earth in the distance
Shining bright
No need to return
Nothing there for me without you

You are my starship, wherever you are
The storms of Jupiter rages
The surface always changes

Did I miss your distress beacon?
Did I take our love for granted?
Can you hear my transmission?

Where did you go and why did you leave?

Where did you go and why did you leave?

SOLO & CHOROS


  • One dancer goes into their world and the others support them. Inspired by a workshop I took with Laura Aris in TicTac in April 2024. 
  • Done with Arabesque, the dance group I direct from the University on Twente - April to June 2024
  • Done with Werktitlel, a dance collective from Amsterdam that commissioned me a dancer work  - April to June 2024

Different layouts

 

Video of a rehearsal with Werktitle in june 2024 where the dancers are doing an instant composition based on "solo versus choro" and at the same time are doing live video editing. Therefore, this idea brings two layers of composition: what happens in the real space and what happens in the prohjected film.   

 

The dramaturgy that is emerging here:

  1. Solo supported by the choros - no video / 2 or 3 solos 
  2. Only one camera. Moving or static? 
  3. Another camera joins. 2 cameras recording opposite parts of the body. One camera recording the torso or legs of the soloist (depedning how they are moving) and the other camera recording the legs of another dancer that is watching. 
  4. 2 more cameras join. 4 cameras in total. Play with different perspectives, not so much camera movements.
  5. last 2 cameras join. 6 cameras in total. Play with camera movements, different perspectives and at the end no camera movements. Record also the space, record other faces. Play with visual similarities. 

 

Landscape between the 3 & no camera movement

3 very different perspectives & camera movement 

ITINERANCIAS DRAMARUTGY IDEA. 

 

Do a first scene where all the dancers do an instant composition dancing solos and recording each other as a chorus. 

 

Then, do a second scene that loops back, interacting with the video projection of the composition they just did.  This can be practiced with Zoom. 

 

What can be choreographed are the cameras shoots and movements.