Performance/Sharing of Project 2

26th February
Sita:
I'm planning what we are working towards on this project.  Because we are aiming for a workshop-type feel, we won't do a big performance with lighting and costume like we did for Project 1, but we might do a sharing of some sort.  I'm considering a sharing/performance via iVisit Internet videoconferencing at the end of the project...what do you think?  I thought we could try and get everyone together at a pre-arranged time, and we can show what we've done and talk about it.  Unfortunately a Webcast would be a little too complicated, as I don't think I can get hold of the equipment.  Also, for those on modem connections it would be very slow.  And most of all, it's one-way, and I would like to be able to have a real sharing rather than a broadcast.  We could also put together a brief CD ROM and send one to each of you, so you could see it more clearly.  But again it's one-way.  Please let me know what you think.

For those of you who are not familiar with iVisit, is it available to download for free at the iVisit site, and is pretty easy to use.  I can put up detailed instructions if we decide to do this.  You don't need to have a camera, as you can still see us, although obviously if you have a camera it's nice if we can see you too.  It doesn't take up a lot of room on the hard disc either.

Steven:
The I-Visit sounds good. I don't have a camera but that's not as important as seeing the dancers and saying something---(though I know the motion is quite choppy...you did quite well dealing with this before---at least one can make real time suggestions)...

Clare:
I like the idea of the ivisit sharing session and I would certainly want to take part.

3rd March
Sita:
The sharing/performance will be on Friday 17th March at 6pm British time.  That is 1pm EST I believe, but I will check on that.  If you haven't used iVisit before and would like some help with getting set up then please drop me an email, and I will walk you through it step-by-step.  We will go ahead with it for anyone who can turn up, but the more the merrier!

17th March - End-of-project Sharing
Steven:
Again thanks to you and your dancers--please tell them again that I really enjoyed their dance! I look forward to seeing the movies of the piece...

I will say this much now on the basis of the internet iVisit version.. Geordie(my wife who watched and got so fired up she wrote you!) and I  both found it fascinating...Now take this with a big grain of salt!  We have seen a lot of dance over the years and perhaps it was the perceptual break-down itself that led to a novelty for us.

But that said...there is something eerie and also compelling about seeing the moments of a continuous process...I notice this when I  have worked with with rotoscoping and creating animation from stills...It is almost the effect of poetry....Meaning: evocative moments from a larger whole that you have to provide the subtext for...And it is happening on a more visceral/emotive level because it is non-verbal...Something purposeful seems to be happening and it is made even more mysterious by fragmentation...So the unconscious wants to fill in and sometimes fills in from its own peculiar data-banks.

Anyway it seemed to me that you were definitely trying to capitalize on the internet properties by making things slower so that "tableaux" could form ....which is the effect I  meant when I said Egyptian hieroglyphics...what I really meant was like a mysterious sequence from a mural, frieze or tableau, or many such, one after the other.

Whether you were trying to do this consciously or not, that is what worked for me as medium-specific....We will see how it changes with better motion...Talk about transformations!

Without falling down the rabbit hole of armchair philosophizing (is that a mixed metaphor?)...you know, what is dance, what is art, the medium is the message...blah,blah....Evocativeness can occur by chance or mediation, but an artist must be involved in the communication or the evocative properties do not resonate---they slip by without witness or communication, without a presence to inspire the viewer/audience look for what might be there.

Cunningham is gifted in working with the chance elements(which I witnessed once for a "Dance in America" tv program in which it was quite clear that neither he nor Charlie Atlas knew much about high-end tv studio shooting techniques)....But there is only so much even a gifted person can create from what are essentially random, meaning autonomous,"faults" in the communication system.

I think there are some great things going on here! You have done what I was hoping would happen in the early stages of my current project---people really sharing with the new possibilities...a few photos, clips, emails can really get some things popping up. Unfortunately there was more back and forth about schedules and apparently little time for my colleagues to venture into what is still new for them.

(I see the animation/notation advances as also very significant but only at the most fine-tuned level of a collaborative creation via the web...as opposed to reconstruction of an existing work).

Your smiling at the end meant a lot to me---I felt we indeed were all connected in this process..and I loved the seriousness of the girls efforts, loyalty to each other and to you....Wonderful...To me those are the true deep sources and elements of collaborative creative work....No point telling you this---you are as dedicated as they come!

I'm sure I will have something more to say when I see the movies! (You may ask : is that possible?) Yes, I too write about such arcane matters...and they continue to fascinate me..

Best, Steven

Sita:
Thank you very much for your comments - we all enjoyed doing the project and it was wonderful that everyone became so involved in it.

We did indeed work with the fragmentation of the medium - you couldn't hear because we weren't using sound, but I was watching the image that you could see and constantly giving instructions, such as 'hold that for a while' on particular images that I wanted you to catch, or framing instructions to the dancers.  We choreographed the version for the videoconferencing to be bigger and much more exaggerated so that we would get moments when the dancers moved faster and became blurred, or simply suddenly appeared on the screen from nowhere.  We also picked out certain parts to be slow so that you might get more of a sense of the movement.  I'm really glad it worked as well as it did!!

I think it might be Monday before I get the video up on the site - I need a little time to recover and we've got people coming to dinner tonight!

20th March
Sita:
The dance outcome of the project is now up on the site as a series of movies - click here to see them.

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