Big If dance.theatre

Thanks all. What a great day. I totally love these Sundays and wish for them to just go on and on into perpetuity. We missed those of you who were in travels elsewhere and glad for those of us who traveled the journey of today's excursion.
Our Process today. We started with a download/debrief/update of the state of things with the Emory/CCE relationship. And I presented a proposal for August 3. It is inspired by this: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/324/5925/332.2.full

Inspired by that: I want to get three scientists to give us their download. (We've got two - David Lynn and Martha Grover - from whom I have articles, and lectures, and some discussion) I would like them in addition to the weightier stuff, also provide a one sentence summary. Just like the scientists did for their collaborators in the linked example.

We will then create three short dances (which for the sake of August 3 will be videos). Each dance/video goes with one of the scientists' research. Mannie will be filming and editing the dances to work for video.

At the event on August 3.
The audience will be given a handout which outlines the experiment. It also has a summary of the three scientists' researches. Then the audience will watch each of the three video dances. (Each video will be relatively short.) After viewing, the audience is asked to match dance video to research. As they are trying to decide, all three videos will play, simultaneolsy so that the audience can remember what was in each one. The screen will be divided into three areas so we can look at each one as we choose. The videos will loop so that you can reference as needed. (Maybe the theme from Jeopardy will be playing at this point...) Then three volunteers are asked to tell why they think a certain dance goes with a certain piece of research. They must "defend" their decisions. After an audience member has made and defended their decision, "I think Video A goes with research #3 because.....) the audience, if they have a different opinion gets to state their defense.
The ultimate purpose of this experiment is to use art as a way to talk through a different metaphor when thinking about the science.
Mannie will be videotaping our process, discussions with scientists (if we can schedule) and also the event itself, especially the audience part of the interaction. I am hoping to get Dr. Cherilynn Morrow to be our facilitator for the discussion.
The second part of this experiment is to repeat the exact same thing but for an audience of "general public" at my studio. Then we can compare the two different audiences. Of course, ideally would be to do this several times - what would it be like to do it for: an undergrad course at Emory, Ga Tech or GSU? For a grad course? For an Emory dance or theatre class? And for different configurations of "general public"?
I'm suddenly very excited.....
I think our method of creating material - the three x three improv is also providing a rich way of getting at material. I liked our process today:

Version 1: Read the science text before dancing and then try and keep it in mind while improv unfolds.
Problem: There seems to be a general consensus that we loose track of the science text, possibly because we aren't completely immersed in a full understanding of it.

Version 2: Everyone was assigned a key word from the text. This word was to guide movement choices. The words were: polymer (Taylor), copy (Nicole), mutate (Damita), response (Corissa), encoded information (J). My job was to participate in the improv, but in some way that on the third round I could read the text aloud as a layer for the improv.
Problem: The limitation/restriction that the word placed on imagination and bold choices perhaps because of the parameter of having to repeat/remember and the word becomes parameter #2 and we need more time to practice working like this.

Version 3: I read (a new) text from the essay by Tirard, Morange, and Lazcano that David gave us. Dancers were to respond to the text as they heard it. "Illustrating" it in a way, but then the second and third time of the improv I didn't read the text and the dance had to unfold on its own terms, memory, mutations and adaptations.

Happy 4th of July.

Rehearsal Notes May 15

I realized that by the time I finish this piece, the whole thing, not just the zillion ideas I have for pieces of the piece..... It could be (if it's anything like the time frame I spent on "The Annunciation") after Alexandra graduates from college.
But that said:
Rehearsal notes for today: We worked for the first part of the time to really get better at the Richard Bull improvisation. To get that "muscle" working. The structure: Timer set for 3 minutes. enter the space when you are ready. interact. when the time is up. exit. Timer is re-set. Enter the space and try to repeat exactly what you did. When time is up. exit. Timer is re-set once again. Enter the space and try again to repeat exactly what you did.
On the third one: new layerings from the outside. In this case: text.

We talked about the dilemmas. Do you always try to repeat version 1, or on the third round do you try to repeat the changes that happened in version 2 and they become the new baseline that you try and repeat? Talked about this in terms of evolution. If you let go of version 1, and try to repeat version 2 there is a possibility that someone was relying on some part of the version 1 and if you take that out, you might be taking out a whole eco-system. OOOps - there go all the frogs.

I loved Damita's comment. We were all trying to talk about what cues/signals etc we used to help us remember what we had done. Damita commented that she "tried to remember things of substance" Jennifer asked, wryly "And how do you determine what has substance?" Damita replied, "Sadly, it was inanimate objects... oh, and Simon."

I really want us as a group, divedance, to get really good at this improv structure. I think it could be very interesting to share the structure with the audience and then try and do the improv and get exact replications of what came before. Let the audience be watching to see if we can. I am intrigued as to how that changes how an audience looks at what they are looking at. I then want to have a conversation with the audience framed with such questions as: "How did what just happened connect to ideas about chemical evolution?" And then let the discussion between artists and scientists unfold. Thank you Richard Bull for this structure.

After a break a smaller group stayed and we worked with the script I am developing. A blend of narrative from "The Magician's Elephant" with David Lynn's lecture on Supramolecular Assembly and Koshland's "Pillars of Life" (PICERAS)

As for what/when the first performance? For the Chemical Evolution gathering in July I see the improv with discussion and the scene we are working on from the script. Perhaps also setting it up as a workshop with scientists - the way the TWISTS (Theatre Workshop in Science Technology and Society) workshops happened at Virginia Tech in relation to the Living Darwin project.

And meanwhile I am also working on a touring show for grades 2-5 to come out of this. Something about: "What is an idea and where do ideas come from?" Certainly can't ask "what is life and how did life start?" Not in U.S of A public schools....... But can I make a piece that triggers 8 year old's imagination in such a way that as they continue science (and other studies) through their school career they realize the delight in asking the "what if?" "could it be?" and "why not?" questions.

Chip continues to explore the "What is Life?" "What is Art?" "What is Music?" idea and how a conversation evolves around that. He wonders if scientists at work on their research projects are always asking the big question, "What is Life and how do you go from non-living to living?" or is that just a given and their more specific question is their focus. Do we as artists ponder the"what is art?" throughout and intentionally as we are making work? I would say - depends. I think I am often asking: what is dance? I am not sure I care if the answer is - no, but I do worry.

And then there is the Emory Dance Company piece for the Fall - where I would like to explore these ideas with a cast made up of double majors in Dance and Science.

That's all. For now.
Thanks for everyone who shows up.
Love

Mother's Day Rehearsal

Notes May 8

Discussion with Chip prior to rehearsal.
My ideas: I am interested in seeing what happens if we craft an image, a talk/dance image that we show to the scientist, and then ask them to interpret that image (midrash) using their research as the explanation for what they saw. Basically, to make sense of what is presented to them by using their research. This is what I always do – layer two different sources and make sense of it - but it would be interesting to hear how the scientist would construct meaning.
Chip has been thinking about working through like a scientist and setting up a series of experiments. If the scientists are asking: “What is life?”, we are asking (actually have been asking along with others in the arts) “What is art?” or more specifically, “What is dance? What is music?”. The question of “what is dance” led me to the definition of dance, that as I reflect – in the process of trying to come up with a definition big enough to hold all of what is dance, was similar to the scientific search for a definition big enough to hold all of what is life. (My definition of dance: Dance is movement aware of itself practiced with intent. When working with kids I have modified that definition for 2nd graders to: In dance we use our BODIES to make choices about how (EFFORT) we move in SPACE and TIME to express ideas.) Chip was talking about intelligence. The connection between life – what is/what isn’t- and ideas of intelligence. That reflects a lot on my definition of dance – how does just something moving turn into Dance. The idea is the intention. Yes, any movement can be dance, but the “can be” is motivated by making intentional choices to shape that which it is. Chip’s music experiment idea is to play a note, play a note, etc and when does it become music?
Chip and I are both anxious to get hooked up with a scientist. Up to this point we are working off printed materials. Looking forward to talking with a scientist who is actually at work on a project around “what is life?” and the specific questions they are researching. We have three connections about to happen within the next several weeks. I will be interested to see how this changes things.

Rehearsal:
Work on the Richard Bull improvisation. The parameters are:
A timer is set for three minutes. Performers enter the space when they are ready, and engage with movement ideas. Timer goes off. Performers exit the space. Reset the timer. Performers must exactly recreate what they did. Repeat this many times.

I want us all to get very good at being able to do this improvisation. So good that it would be exciting for an audience to watch us try and do this improv structure. But also I am interested in using it as a trigger to set movements from the improv and layer text over. Which is what we did.

We did the improvisation, but also with the parameters of PICERAS as the thought overlay for our movement choices. Program, Improvisation, Compartmentalization, Regeneration, Adaptability and Seclusion. Interesting how those now all have so much more meaning to me because I have been dancing and writing with those concepts. Now I see them everywhere and feel their immense logic.

On the fourth or fifth time through I layered on top the reading of a text I created that is an intersection of some language about PICERAS, some of David Lynn’s lecture on supramolecularity and excerpts from The Magician’s Elephant. I am not exactly sure of the connection between these yet, but I feel something is there and that if I just hang with it long enough it will begin to come clear. Actually, it did become clearer and clearer as we repeated and repeated, adapted, reproduced, evolved…..

I am enjoying this particular process. The Annunciation took me six years. Four of those years were me just working with me. Then Chip and I, with Nicole worked for a year on the process that created The Prologue for my MFA thesis. And in the 6th year, the Cast Extraordinaire assembled and we all know what happened next….
So this process – to be at my usual early, early stages of development but sharing in the process with others so early on is very unusual for me. Thank you to everyone who is willing to play in the vagueness.

I have rewritten our “script” based on what happened and hearing the words actually spoken in space. Next Sunday I will step out so that I can direct some of the ideas. For people who weren’t here I want to add a layer that would form a frame for what we worked on today to take place in. My image is a high platform along the back wall, with interesting looking chairs and a tight gestural phrase that takes place in/on/under/around/through those chairs.

I also want to get back to the duet that Taylor and J created with the swimming pool ladder. I want to see if that translates into an indoor space or not.

/

May 1 rehearsal. Outdoors. Dancing in the Garden. Our objective: discover a way that dancing at a site, is influenced specifically by that place. The movements are not “in the studio” movements photoshopped to another place. The movement choices are because of where the dancing is taking place. Easier said than done. As I worked I often had a thought, “I want to be there next” and would go there, without really paying attention to the opportunities offered by going there.
Assignment: After a summarizing of The Magician’s Elephant, I cut out quotes from the book, each on their own slip of paper. Our task – to come up with a method for selecting isolated words from the passage and then make a list of those words, separated from their meaning in the context of the quote. (For instance, I chose the number 7 because there are 7 letters in PICERAS – a scientific analysis of what makes something alive”. I circled every seventh word. That left me with: again, him, again, for, then, again.) We talked about methods for coming up with movement for a single word – including if in doubt, find a way to “spell” the word. I think I was telling myself not to limit the movement idea, to let it evolve rather than be a short representation.
Layer 2: When the movement vocabulary is formed into its phrase, or study, if longer – go back to the original text and see if allowing the narrative to peek through asks of you to add anything to the original. i.e. a clarification of focus, a tweaking of a gesture’s intent, etc.
Layer 3: Working with someone else, watch theirs and find ways to capture it on video. We had one camera, several phones, a flip and a digital camera with video capability.
Layer 4: Watching all the pieces, while someone read from The Magician’s Elephant and someone else read from the PICERAS article. (7 Pillars of Life: Program, Improvisation, Compartmentalization, Energy, Regeneration, Adaptability, Seclusion)

Discoveries, Inspirations, Curiosities:
- If the Elephant is Science
- Wow and wonder
- The Elephant in the room
- The evolution of the elephant
- Taylor’s story about her science teacher
- Damita – the subversive text
- Damita- It all started with a decision to….. story

Site Ideas: To get ourselves skilled so that we know how to discover a site that provides interesting potential, we can tweak out that potential, and we also have a collection of movement phrases, object icons and other ideas that we can layer into alternate spaces. Thinking to if we perform parts of this for Center for Chemical Evolution gathering of Scientists, that instead of trying to perform it as a “black box theatre presentation” we instead search out the locale and find a place that inspires – the end of a corridor, the turn of a wall, under an architectural detail, etc. So possibly we start meeting at other places to rehearse. And in so doing – what if we had a little sign that went with us that said what it was we were doing and what people might expect and a way for them to contribute via a box or something. Like: “Write down 6 juxtapositions that you observed, fold your paper 7 times, and then deposit it in the box.”

I will post photos and video clips when I get a second. Send me anything you shot on your phones.

A personal story to consider: a time in your life when what you intended was not the outcome. (In The Magician’s Elephant the magician “intended only lilies” but instead brought an elephant crashing through the roof.) This can be your story, or a story that you know.

Reminder – Corissa’s group Moving in the Spirit concert at the Rialto on Thursday. Blake Beckham’s work in progress, Plot, along with other choreographers at The Magnetic Theatre in Reynoldstown on Fri-Sun. The Color of Her Dreams (excellent!!! Go see!) At 7 Stages.

Yours everly evolvingly,
Celeste

Natural systems operate on multiple scales: the swarm rule

In Daniel Golman's essay (see link at right) he talks about swarm intelligence - think ants and how their system operates. "no single ant grasps the big picture or leads the other ants (the queen just lays eggs); instead each ant follows simple rules of thumb that work together in countless ways to achieve self-organizing goals"

The swarm rules might boil down to:
"Know your impacts.
Favor improvements.
Share what you learn."

I am thinking about "a sense of wonder" and if this new piece has the theme of invigorating a sense of wonder - in us who make it, who share it and those who share what their experience of it was. Thinking of that process as a system - thinking about David Lynn's ideas on systems.

There is also something about the visible and the invisible. We can't see molecules, we can see the ant colony. We can't see an idea, we can see its manifestation (sometimes). We can follow the evolution of an idea and follow the systems created by an idea. (From atom to atom bomb)

If bricks could move..... A NEW PROJECT BEGINS

With seed money from Emory University, Center for Chemical Evolution, Center for Creativity we are launched into a new project. CCE and Emory have funded several local artists/organizations to collaborate with scientists to explore the ideas of chemical evolution - "...the chemistry associated with the emergence of life. Research projects within the center have a particular focus on understanding how a complex mixture of molecules present on the early earth could have assembled into functional biological building blocks like DNA and proteins." (From the CCE website)
We are one of the artists/groups. Assembled by Chip and myself, we are an assortment of movers, musicians and performers committing ourselves to this artistic/scientific collaboration journey. Chip and I met with David Lynn and Meisa Salaita at Emory last week to get grounded. Sunday I met with: J. Noble, Corissa Castle WOod, Simon McLane, Damita Boyd, Taylor Kinser, Henry Peteet, Alexandra McColl and Normando Ismay at Normando's studio to start moving some ideas around. Here are the notes:


We started with an overview of the potentials for the project. Celeste handed out notebooks to all - and explained that I would like to keep track of some of the process via journaling. People are welcome to take their notebooks (ponder when we are not together) or just leave them with me.
Then we listened/watched the David Lynn short lecture on chemical evolution - while listening/watching we were notating and drawing on large sheets of paper with colored pencils etc. Encouraged not to stay on one's "own" piece of paper, but to move around. The lecture is here if anyone wants access to it:

http://bigthink.com/ideas/15500.

We then looked at the notations and noted similarities, ideas that grabbed us, images that were interesting, etc. Celeste made a list as we went. Discussion also ensued. Then time to dance.

Improv #1. "How Rules Give you a Direction". This was an idea presented in the lecture, the idea about rules, and then our discussion led to how rules give you a direction, and also that in chemistry the rules become pathways. So we made "rules" for the improv, all drawn from our notations from the lecture:
RULES:
- We've all agreed to play the game.
- We will work together as an organism - collaboratively, collectively
- Commitment to a process of wonder
- Mindful assessment
- Trust
- Something has to start it

With these rules (or parameters, actually) we started. Celeste chose words/phrases from our list and those were the catalyst. They were dropped in at intervals as the improv evolved.

Debrief: Immediately following the improv we journaled on our own for 10 minutes and then talked. The journaling was focused on capturing some of the thoughts while improvising, and also responding to the question "Did being in your body with this material produce a kind of thinking/or particular thoughts?" This discussion was videotaped.

Improv #2:
Equipped with what we learned from the first improv, what we reflected through journaling, and observations. We entered into a second improv. For this one the "ideas" would not come from Celeste dropping text, but from ---? We discussed that perhaps a gesture would signal that someone had an idea that we would explore. Of course, this comes from the science of it: where does life come from? where does an idea come from? and how does it evolve?

Same rules as improv #1

Debrief: The signal was unnecessary - movement ideas were "signalled", communicated and evolved without having to indicate that something was starting. No text emerged in this improv.

Comp #1:
Using Shakespearean sonnet as structure - we broke into a quartet, duet and two solos to explore the Center for Chemical Evolution's three themes. We worked for about 20 minutes and then shared what had been created. Noting moments that resonated. These studies were videotaped.

To close we watched:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL3lhm6oy5I
A rap video about astrobiology.

Next rehearsal Sunday April 24
NO REHEARSAL NEXT WEEK: APRIL 17 (Unfortuntately, I have to go out of town)
May rehearsals: 1,8,15,22
Hopefully our scientist will join us for these.
We'll talk about June and the July/August conference as I get more info.