Sunday 31 July 2011

photos week 3







Telling Stories with Vincent Dance Theatre...Lila Dance / Abi Mortimer Response to witnessing VDT's R&D Process

In the creative space, 14 people are telling stories about hope, feminine, sex, desire, struggle... it starts with their own personal histories, told in couples. Each person is allowed to speak without question or dialogue, but instead they have an uninterrupted space to think and deliver their story over a 2 min time frame. There is hesitancy, nerves and excitement as each topic reveals something about an individual. It feels very personal.

There is then a shift in perspective as Charlotte returns to a re-occurring theme that has continued to crop-up over the 3 week period: that of mediating.

So now each person tells the other's story to the group, but in the first person’s perspective by empowering the use of the word "I". This was a very interesting process and I was struck by several ideas.

Firstly I noticed the care by which each person carefully revealed the story of their partner. It seemed that each person was very mindful of firstly "going public" with a story that was told to them specifically within an "intimate setting" (or at least one that contains all the social possibilities of intimacy- that of "one on one"). How much to reveal? I also noticed how each person was keen to reveal the truth.. to tell the story with respect- as it was told to them by its owner. A strange tension between reaching into the short-term memory to reveal a story that belongs to the owners long-term store. So there was much emphasis placed on pause, and the act of remembering. It made me think about the body or brain as a bank- in which you could download information and "lift it" when required- but doing so without embellishment, by somehow removing yourSELF from the equation- the death of the author?

I then thought how impossible this is.... to be a mouth piece for someone else without empathy. Empathy- that which connects us with another human being so that any action between two people is always an INTERaction. How powerful empathy is that when we tell someone’s story we do so with the pause, breath and mindfulness of that person- feeling their words in our body seems to cause a reaction, even if that reaction is not the same as the one they experience. WORDS + BODY = FEELING. It made me wonder about, when following this chemical reaction, how much is it their story and how much is it now mine? if I sense it, feel it and if I let the words swell in my gut and come from my mouth with my inflection is the story not then mine? How many levels of truth have to be revealed in order to claim an ownership over these words? is feeling, empathising enough? is the object then made redundant?

This process also made me think about how often in life are we the mouth piece to someone else... without our knowing it?

The words "I should do......." "I ought to do that......" spring to mind.

These words "should and ought" express a will that is outside of our own- yet coming from our own. Who is doing the thinking for us when we "should" do something?

Thursday 28 July 2011




Thursday 28 July - A day of rich images and stories

A warm up
A fairy tale in paper skirts, of blood in a box, of blue horses and bloody worms,
A folk dance made up by kids,
A piece of music that took me back to India,
A conversation about intellectual property,
A time line of a woman's life held in a steady frame,
A galloping suffragette,
A list of childlessness,
A group of of girls throwing themselves at men,
A fatigue invading the room,
A lunch al fresco,
A dinner on the lawn,
An offer,
An apology,
A concern,
A dialogue,
A melt down,
A warm down.


Tuesday 26 July 2011

Photos

















Naughty Pandora


Oh, Pandora, do not open the box.

But I just…

Do not open that bloody box!

I was just…

Zeus said – do not open that f***ing… NOOOOOOO!!!!

Aaaarggh, noooo, why? oh why?

What have you done Pandora!?!?!?!?

JO

Madame Aggiss Strikes Again

Blogging!

The hell I can…………I is woman!

I can blog till I drop should I so choose.

And today I choose.

Today what to say………………..

screaming…………

Can that woman scream? The hell she can………..

And moving with balls and following the beat and keeping in time and making it loop and running around with touch and with and with go and with touch and go and can I go!

The hell I can…………….

The watching and waiting and talking and listening and thinking and moving and doing and doing……….

Can that woman go?

The hell she can…………………….

She drags her game fleshy body into touch

DON’T TOUCH ME!!!

That almost missed………my contact moment

I contact with my eyes my thoughts my head

Just don’t touch me……….

The hell you will………

Its not about shoes and shopping.

Or is it?

Shoes landing

Shoes in droves

Piles of shoes and filthy talk.

Go Mistress go, get the action in the room

Breathe the life into the space

Make it sing

Bring on the visuals

Bring on the action

Bring on the courage

Bring on the stasis and sound

Ladies! bring me my box.

Its full of clutter, white clutter and amplification

I need to say a few words with my spangly pants in the air

With my fallen woman ways

With snippy snippy biting words

And so I speak to the sound of Calamity Jane

I speak to the sound of choking paper and rotten boxed beings

And can I go?

The hell I can…………..


Laughter

So much laughter

And do I laugh?

The hell I do.

Leah's Memories of Today and Yesterday

Sitting backwards on one of three chairs in a row, Liz and Aurora either side of me, swishing and flicking our hair back and forth in unison, whilst Joanna sang not amazingly to some music……..Janusz sharing the story of his box and watching this performance type thing I got déjà vu at that moment for some reason………Janusz chased me in stilettos, I was wearing cream high heels too. I have blisters to prove it!

Other stuff... We did a fun activity where to begin with two people asked each other any sort of questions. Then gradually other people came up and swapped with either of the two people questioning. The process began again with the new couple asking questions to each other. After some time of swapping everyone ended up hovering at either sides of the questioners shoving them gently, whenever they wanted, out the way to swap with them. After a while of that we began a new activity, leading on from the last one.

In this one male and females where split up (men on one side and women on the other)

Both groups had one microphone between us. We had to ask the opposite group a question about being a female or a male. But the hard thing was, the whole group had to ask the question at the same time without planning what we were going to ask. Everyone sounded hilarious speaking very slllooooowwwlllyyyy and trying to say the same thing at the same time, not knowing what an earth the rest of your group was thinking about saying. It made me have to go with other people’s instincts as well as mine.

Yesterday was slightly different, we started with improvised moving in partners (I was with Janusz) which led to making a slight dance thing, Charlotte gave us a list of things we could make our dance about. Our list was to do with childhood. We thought what we had done already was to do with wanting love and needing affection.

So far this experience has been, laughs, smiles, serious moments, talks (lots of talks) boxes, performing.

"Take a flower
And undress it petal by petal
And it also desires you
And it also undresses you
And petal by petal
Take a flower"

Mikel Laboa

Maybe what we are looking for is a feeling of reciprocity in the struggle.


-Alex-

Saturday 23 July 2011

Day 10 - Janusz


dust, empty, caress, buried, bitch, blond, black, desert, eat, driving, vessel, fertility, society, embellish, crack, hope, pressure, minutes, monkeys, mama, watch, hear, expectations, horizon, stir, drink, shit, hole, time, tick, ash, crop, tock, fit, give, omit, erase, meet, spot, fertilizer, tits, mum, try, stop, move on, uff, pitch, men, penis, kick, blink, take, penetrating, charge, weight, we, women, fork, knife, sssssss, water, cuddle, delete, breath, space, clouds, cycle, recycle, post, it, thought, concept, us, ass, don’t know, sperm, click, loss, on and on, air, mhmmmm, hit, belly, pump, hormones, crazy, hopelessness, aaarrghh, why?, hey! want you, spells, mhmmmm, giggles, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (clears throat), rain, sock, suck, kids smell, sshhhh, shhh, shh, move on, milk, expressing, myself, rhythm, time, six, sex, nine, twelve, feeling, feels, like, that’s, the, right, end……. (pause)

“The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”

Mark Twain

this week we experimented with visual designs projected in to/on to the space and also language scores. The language scores sourced material from manifestos and interviews.
There seems to some questions around what are more or less appropriate forms, though it is interesting to be looking at, listening to, and experiencing many different propositions.
Also, one might find themselves inside the image in the space, and as such, not necessarily be able to 'see' it.
a video has been edited and posted, and i thought an editing of the media, gave a kind of economy to the view of some events.
The kitchen is all a bustle of activity during meal times.
I enjoy it when it the machinations seem like musical theatre. People singing quixotic funny songs and whatnot.
We made a list of images that had previously transpired, and tried to recreate some of them in some integrated fashion. This seemed hard to do in an integrated fashion.
Some new people came this week, and some people have gone away.
Some other new people will come next week.
It keeps developing and reveloping, and then there is something for more discussion.
I am assuming, that each individual is developing strategies, about what it is they are doing now, in relation to what their ideas or agendas were, when they arrived.
I am having a bit of a tendency to send things up, but i remain serious in a fashion, about researching the notion of 'feminism'. Though i am not sure i am the person to ask about that especially.
I have placed a value on humor maybe as a component.
Also, sound, movement, language, visual design etc..
Eastleigh has a very comprehensive pound shop.
ss

Thursday 21 July 2011

Week 1 - Video no. 1

Day 1 - Luisa

Coming alive again, lots of inputs…responding is a sea of possibilities…started off dressing Aurora as she walked in a state of oblivion. I was extracting costumes from a box that used to contain explosives during the war, the sign on them “UK Government explosive” struck me as its mark of a time that happened and in which they had such a different purpose from today’s. I handed Aurora some large brushes which she used as maracas. From there we shifted our focus to an improvisation with percussive sounds again using the boxes. Alex stepped in to advise on rhythm and accent. We sort of found a rhythm and tried it in a structure with 6 people, stay silent and walk for two and then stay still and bang for six.
I was an observant for some time….
There was an interesting moment when three people moved gently to the sound and rhythm they were making. Rob began telling jokes about women with the aid of Aurora who would suggest words to him. Scott was also coming in with sounds that punctuated the joke. A swapping of roles took place and as Aurora remembered fractions of the jokes, the involuntary fragmentation added an emotional resonance for me.
Rob on chair, father written across blackboard and pram being pushed into the space, Andrea across the back wall. Rob changed the word father to fucker, he undressed and approached Aurora with intention, she picked up his clothes and put them back in the box and put it in his proximity, he hid behind board

‘happy’ family tableaux followed

letting the voice out…
crying sounds of a baby
mamma was
laughter of a mature woman

head of a woman
female
microphone
holding head to her vagina
lying her chin in arms


A vital trio with Janusz and Greig along the wall we ran, made contact, collided, shifted grabbed, squeezed into spaces.

30minutes alone with the box…oh oh..… after wandering with it and away from it, the words “I am a lake , searching for the reaches that make me “ rescued me from what seemed a vacant journey - the box was now a room of my own, I searched for my reaches in the limits of that space.

Aurora and ashes
the perfect and the imperfect man
“perfect woman” was entertaining.

Luisa