UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
Designing a Choreographic Movement Matrix: The Intermedia Relationship Between Stage and
Screen
by
Jennifer Mahood
A THESIS
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF MASTERS OF FINE ARTS
DRAMA
CALGARY, ALBERTA
April, 2012
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In this thesis, I examine the movement connections between stage and screen through my own hybrid works, Somnolence and Fraction (contemporary dance and videodance within live performance). I suggest that a hybrid work and process renders a work intermedia, and that the intertwining of these mediums through the process give rise to an intermedial work that is greater than the sum of its parts. Additionally, I argue that there is something even more foundational embedded in the hybrid process: a web of connections that exist across the mediums. I assert that it is this web of connections (what
I call a matrix, or matrices) that is made between mediums that allows for the hybrid work to be perceived and experienced as a whole.
u ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and Foremost I would like to acknowledge the encouragement and support of my close family and friends, Heather and Scott, Geri, Marcia, Michael, and Amanda. Thank- you! I appreciate your listening ears and encouraging words.
To Mark, my husband, I extend my deepest gratitude for the patience, love, and grounding support that you have demonstrated throughout this process.
To Melanie Kloetzel, my MFA supervisor, a special thank you. You are a remarkable artist, scholar, and teacher who skillfully walks the line between encouraging and demanding.
Thank you to Melissa Monteros, and the Department of Dance for your support throughout my MFA coursework and concert.
iii Dedicated to the memory of Robert E. Mahood
IV TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract ii
Acknowledgements iii
Dedication iv
Table of Contents v
List of Figures vii
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 1: WHERE STAGE MEETS SCREEN 7
Intermedia 7
Modern Dance Pioneers 10
The Beginning of Film in Live Performance 17
Dance on Film: Intermedia? 21
CHAPTER 2: MAKING DANCES AND MAKING VIDEODANCES 34
Contemporary Dance Choreography 34
Videodance 38
Focusing the Eye: the role of the videographer 38
Camera Techniques 39
The Editing Process 44
Dance and Videodance 47
v CHAPTER 3: SOMNOLENCE 50
Initial Movement Creation 52
Videography 55
Building a Hybrid Movement Vocabulary: Developmental Dualism 64
CHAPTER 4: FRACTION AND THE LEARNING PROCESS 74
Fraction 74
Initial Movement Creation 76
Videography 76
Building a Hybrid Movement Vocabulary: Developmental Dualism 80
The Learning Process 87
CHAPTER 5: MOVEMENT MATRIX OF MEANING 93
Analysis 109
Moving Forward 112
Conclusion 114
REFERENCES 116
APPENDIX A: Somnolence Timeline 121
APPENDIX B: Somnolence sections 2, 3, 4, 7,9,10, and 11 122
vi LIST OF FIGURES
1.1 Intermedia Chart
2.1 Screen Shot of Final Cut Pro Workflow
3.1 'Stone house'
3.2 'Structure'
3.3 'Rockslide'
3.4 'Tree'
3.5 'River'
3.6 Weather Shield
3.7 Makeshift Dolly
4.1 Fraction Performance Space
4.2 Fraction Television Sequence Still
5.1 Jump Movement Matrix Map
5.2 Pebble Movement Matrix Map
5.3 Section 6 Matrix Map
5.4 Section 6 photographs
5.5 Overlay of Jump Movement Matrix and Pebble Movement Matrix
5.6 Photo: Twice
vii 1
Introduction
Movement. It is the fundamental core of both dance and film. Both forms rely on motion as an essential ingredient. As a choreographer and general movement enthusiast, I find the juncture between these two mediums fascinating. What happens when dance is on the screen? What happens when that screen is placed within a live dance context?
What are the possibilities for movement to collectively communicate through these sites?
The combination of these mediums is a paradox. Dance dates back to the beginning of our species, and video (my cinematic medium of choice) is a relatively new technology and realm of artistic expression. One focuses on an organic body, the other on a synthetic body comprised of data bytes and pixels. The two mediums seem worlds apart, yet the common key interest, movement, marries them in an enticing way.
Many screen-based technologies connected to dance have emerged in the last two centuries and the discourse around dance and technology has grown full and varied. I am focusing on videodance and dance within live performance because of my fascination with each medium's commonality: movement. Specifically, I am intrigued by the varied perspectives each medium has to offer movement through their individual creation processes, and their sites for performance. By intertwining these processes, I seek to reveal and shift the way we see and experience space, time, and the body.
The digitally-mediated body is a counterfeit concoction of data bytes. It is a forgery, not real. It is not made of flesh, blood, and bone. However, through sympathetic human perception, humans recognize and identify with the digitally-mediated body as a replica 2 or a version of the human form. It looks human. However, it is decidedly different. It is considered a cyborg, part human, part machine.1 (Dodds, 2004; Hables Gray, 1995; Hess,
1995; Haraway, 1991) It is two-dimensional. It lives on the screen, free of the earthly realities of gravity, time, and space.
In my choreographic works Somnolence and Fraction, I employ videodance within live contemporary dance performance, juxtapositioning the mediated body with the living body through coexisting stage and screen spaces. Through these works, I pose the questions: what happens when the mediated body shares a performance space with its genuine, original, three-dimensional, living, breathing, fleshy self? Where does the dance live? How can I facilitate a process that lends itself to creating a movement vocabulary that is equal and entwining of both bodies? How does the movement communicate between stage and screen? Is there a foundation for the work that unites the live and video elements into a single work?
1A cyborg is considered a hybrid of human body and machine. The term, made popular through science fiction, is applicable to our human dependence on technology. Hess has coined die term 'low-tech cyborg' to include humans with any technology such as a phone or computer, whereas Hables Gray has deconstructed cyborg technology into four categories, 'restorative', 'normalizing', 'reconfiguring' and 'enhancing'. (Dodds, 2001, p. 265) Dodds draws from Hables Gray discussing the videodance body as most closely related to an 'enhancing' cyborg because of the digital capability for enhancing the possibilities for the human body. Dodds draws a correlation, not an absolute, that the videodance body is a cyborg. She draws this distinction because the videodance body is not human. It is a replica unable to think and feel; therefore, Dodds implies that the videodance body can be considered entirely mechanical. Haraway, the original theorist behind all these later arguments discusses cyborgs through a feminist perspective, using the cyboig as a metaphor for the dualisms in feminist politics. Haraway believes that there should be no distinction between bodies and objects. She states, "We are all cyborgs." (Haraway, 1991, p. 150) Throughout this thesis I apply the term cyborg to digital bodies. I use this term to distinguish between the live bodies and the digital bodies. I feel the term 'cyboig' can be applied to the videodance body, because of its perceived-as-human nature, and its digital existence. However, an argument can be made that all involved in the process were cyborgs due to the cyborgian relationships that myself and the live dancers had with the digital dancers. 3
Through my investigation, I developed a movement vocabulary that itself is both carnal and digitally-mediated. It is a hybrid. The movement lives in the bodies of the performers, both visceral and virtual. Each of these bodies is capable of communicating movement through individually distinct processes; however, in these works, each medium is completely dependent on the other to interpret the overall work. Through a hybrid vocabulary, the way the audience and performers perceive movement evolves.
Audiences and performers alike view the established vocabularies through multiple virtual and visceral sites and bodies. Between these sites and bodies, movement connections are created and layered, revealing the true depth of videodance within live performance.
The method to create this interconnected movement vocabulary involves using parallel temporal trajectories for both visceral and virtual movement. As the parallel strands of the respective mediums - movement and video - were created they were being knit together in the rehearsal process. As I developed dance phrases and video sequences,
I would bring them together to affect and influence one another. This created a process where the live vocabulary informed the creation of the video sequences, and the digital vocabulary informed the creation of the live movement. Each medium inspired the development of the movement in the other medium. Through this process, I created a hybrid movement vocabulary through stage and screen sites, on cyborg and human bodies. 4
The resulting work became a new breed, unique from both its dance and videodance lineages. This new breed shares characteristics with each art form, and has characteristics of its own. It is able to communicate in multiple layers through a complex matrix of movement.
I am interested in this work because of the infinite possibilities available for communication when these mediums are woven together. Each medium is able to present what the other cannot. A digitally-mediated performer cannot think. It cannot embody. It does not have instincts or intuition. It is a 'carbon' copy lacking guts and soul. It can, however, move in extreme slow motion, and reveal in vivid detail the smallest freckle on a face. Adversely, the human body is fragile. It is subject to the physical laws of our planet and the body's own personal limitations. It cannot defy gravity or instantly transport or transform itself. It cannot be magnified, blurred, or dissected. However, it is filled with a liveliness and essence completely distinct, unique, and individual to the person. The live body can think, feel, and respond to the moment.
While intertwining the live and videodance worlds during the rehearsal process, I began to discover the realm of possibilities that lay between the mediums. The body
(flesh or data) acted as a site for the movement material to manifest. These sites multiplied and offered diverse and plentiful perspectives creating dynamic connections between all the movement sites. Although dance and videodance each have their own distinct creation processes, an intertwining process became essential to discovering the 5 dynamic connections within a hybrid movement vocabulary; the process became the key to creating work that is inextricably intermedia.2
Within the work, each medium offers different perspectives on the same movement, and the work's meaning lies in the culmination and juxtaposition of all the perspectives.
Through developing the movement vocabularies on both human and cyborg bodies,
I discovered a matrix of movement connections that lay between the human and cyborg bodies. As the mediums delivered varied perspectives on the movement vocabulary, the connections between the movement material on stage and screen grew, deepening the works' potential for communicating meaning, and revealing a singular entity that transformed the whole.
In this thesis, I make this argument through the examination of my own processes and performances of Somnolence and Fraction. I also frame the work within a historical and contemporary context by discussing the relevant dance and dance for the camera creation processes and key figures. In Chapter 1,1 briefly outline a historical lineage to
my work by discussing the term 'intermedia', film's first usage within live performance, and the relevant contemporary and historical pioneers in dance, and dance for the camera
In Chapter 2,1 examine the 'parts' to creating an intermedia work when using both dance and videodance. In Chapters 3 and 4,1 specifically outline the 'parts' that came together to create the works Somnolence and Fraction. In Chapter 5,1 discuss the whole of the work
by examining the movement matrices that are created and built in the works. I
2 To be defined and discussed in Chapter 1. 6 demonstrate that the matrices reveal the movement connections that lay between the human and cyborg bodies, allowing the singular intermedial work to communicate meaning in new and varied ways. 7
Chapter 1: Where Stage Meets Screen
In order to understand a complex movement matrix and how it is communicated through stage and screen, some background on both the dance and videodance idioms is helpful. Delving into the relevant dance history, film history, dance for the camera history, and intermedia history provides us with the necessary framework to grasp what renders the work hybrid. As such, the following pages provide a frame of reference for the pieces Somnolence and Fraction in the greater context of dance and technology within live performance.
Intermedia
In discussing the formal emergent whole of a work of art, I point out that the elements, or parts, lose their original individual value and assume those conferred upon them by their function in this specific whole. (Maya Deren cited in Brannigan, 2011, p. 40)
Somnolence and Fraction are both works that are categorized as 'intermedia'. This is a term to describe a work where the mediums are inextricably intertwined and dependent on one another to reveal the overall work. Often confused with multimedia, intermedia work communicates a singular idea or concept through multiple art disciplines. The degree of interconnectivity between the mediums helps distinguish between multimedia and intermedia work. Multimedia describes a work that uses multiple mediums; however, each medium can exist independent of one another.
Intermedia art on the other hand is work that cannot be reduced to its parts. The term 'intermediate' (Coleridge, 1817, p. 242) was first used by Samuel Taylor
Coleridge in an 1817 publication, Biographia Literaria. In the text, Coleridge uses the word intermediate to describe two different images conjured through the immediate juxtaposition of thoughts. He used the term intermediate "to define work which falls conceptually between media that are already known." (Higgins, 2001, p. 52) Although this was the first seed of the intermedia concept, the term we are familiar with today was not coined until the 1960s, and was first seen in a publication in 1966 by Dick Higgins, an artist and publisher who wanted to give an identifiable category for works that were conceptually between mediums.
Figure 1.1 Concrete noetiy Intermedia Chart Vinva Dick Higgins Man Aft
Taken from Higgins Fluxui (objects, publication, this chart dncmaand depicts the "concentric and overlapping circles that expand and contract in relationship to 'Intermedia' framework that encompasses them" (Higgins, 1996, p. 52)
Molvcna llaly Dancc Theater 19 January, 1995 9
The term 'intermedia' appeared in Higgins' 1966 essay titled "Intermedia". The essay was included in the first Something Else Newsletter, also published by Dick
Higgins. Higgins used the term to give an identity to post-modern art that was being created at the time. Many artists were experimenting well beyond the confines of their purist mediums rendering them difficult to classify. Higgins intended to demystify and inform the public of this new type of work (considered avant-garde), by giving it a name.
The term offered clarity: intermedia work is a conceptual fusion of artistic mediums.
Although Higgins expresses frustration in his 1981 publication regarding the periodic confusion between 'intermedia' and 'mixed media',3 the term "shortly acquired a life of its own." (Higgins, 2001, p. 52) It was something that the public could understand.
Ironically, the term also allowed the public to categorize and compartmentalize the works, which is exactly what Higgins argues against in the 1966 essay.
Higgins felt intermedia work reflected the social milieu of the time. Much as societal class systems and/or categories were crumbling, so were the boundaries between art forms. Art work could consist of more than one medium, blurring the boundaries and making it difficult to categorize. This relationship between art disciplines was mirrored in western society. The rigid normative attitudes and social divides between class and race were softening through the social revolution. Defining movements such as the feminist movement, the civil rights movement, and the gay rights movement all sought equality,
3 Mixed media and multimedia are often confused with intermedia. Multiple mediums are used in all of these categories. They can be a combination of any two or more mediums including audio, video, visual, movement, text etc. It is possible for a work to be multimedia and intermedia. The key difference between these terms is in the relationship between the mediums. In mixed media or multimedia works, the mediums simply exist together in time and space. In intermedia works, the mediums are conceptually fused together. 10 integration, and a dissolving of rigid social boundaries. Life and art were falling between mediums; both were hybrids, intermediate.
As discussed, intermedia is a fusion of artistic forms that cannot be categorized as any one independent art form. Through the fusion of forms, the work transforms into something that can only be recognized as a whole. In my process, I created intermedia works using the art forms of contemporary dance and videodance. Both of these mediums exist in a current context; however, each has predecessory forms, and a history that dates to the turn of the twentieth century.
Modern Dance Pioneers
Three women are credited with being the pioneers of modern/ contemporary dance at the turn of the twentieth century: Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, and Loie
Fuller. Dissatisfied with the opportunities for dancers at the time, and disenchanted with the aesthetic direction of the concert dance form itself (which was mainly focused on ballet), each carved a new place for dance and planted the seeds for a new dance form.
All were interested in creating art that separated dance from the role of entertainment, and each one had a particular passion that has given roots to the contemporary dance of today. These women challenged social convention, and changed the course of concert dance with their bold and exciting careers. Although I will touch on Duncan and St.
Denis' contributions to contemporary dance, I will focus my efforts primarily on Loie
Fuller due to her relationship to both dance and film. 11
Isadora Duncan
Although an American, Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) lived and worked in Europe for the majority of her life. As an early feminist, Duncan cast off traditional female roles and allowed her artistic practice to be inspired by the 'natural'. Rebelling against ballet technique and inspired by the natural objects around her, Duncan sought the 'natural' in
human movement. She took inspiration from pedestrian movements such as walking,
running, and skipping. She deemed that the emotional centre for a person was located in the solar plexus and that all movement was initiated from this location. In addition to
rejecting the rigid traditional techniques of ballet, Duncan also rejected rigid traditional dance attire by dancing barefoot and without a corset. She famously wore a Greek
inspired tunic and bare feet, through which her work became known as barefoot dancing.
(Au, 1988, pp. 89-90)
Duncan's contributions to the foundations of modern/ contemporary dance go
beyond bare feet Her contributions can be seen today in contemporary dance's
continuing embrace of pedestrian movement and in contemporary dance's interest in the
human body's relationship to gravity. Through her revolutionary approach to movement and the moving body, Duncan radically changed the face of dance, planting the seeds for a promising future. Unfortunately, Duncan is often remembered only by the tragedies in
her life, such as the drowning deaths of her children and her own fatal car accident in
1927. 12
Ruth St Denis
Ruth St. Denis (1879-1968), also an American, had a career that flourished in the
United States, beginning on the vaudeville circuits. First known as Ruthie Dennis, she was the subject of the earliest dance on film when she performed a simple skirt dance outdoors that lasted two minutes. This film was created by Thomas A. Edison in 1894.
(Brooks, 2002, p. 54) Later, Ruth Dennis adopted the stage name Ruth St. Denis, a name that reflected her interest in spirituality and exoticism. On the vaudeville circuit, St. Denis was able to find people interested enough in her work that they wanted to support her financially. This took her choreographic career off vaudeville, and placed her in the theatres as 'high art' (although in times of financial difficulty, St. Denis did return to vaudeville).
As a choreographer, St. Denis was fascinated with eastern cultures. Many of her dances depicted her interpretations of the Orient. (Au, 1988, p.92) St. Denis's interest and curiosity for the exotic led her to research her movement in books and through visual art, but her on-site knowledge was severely limited and many today regard her work as problematic due to her penchant for cultural exploitation.4 Radha, one of St. Denis' most famous works, serves as a piece for critical examination within its historical context.
Analyzed by Jane Desmond in her article "Dancing Out the Difference: Cultural
Imperialism and Ruth St. Denis's 'Radha' of 1906", Desmond describes the movement as
4 At the time, American audiences were enthralled with St. Denis' exotic images; however, through the lens of history, St. Denis' work could be considered problematic due to its culturally appropriative roots and its racial coding. 13
"turns and flourishes of the skirt dancer's repertoire mixed with a smattering of balletish steps and Delsartian limb movements." (Desmond, 1991, p. 32) Desmond argues that St.
Denis' work reveals the ideological functions at play, particularly indicative of the feminine role at the beginning of the twentieth century. The dualism of the goddess/ whore visible in the work, as well as the embodied racial difference between the performer and the character, are interpreted by Desmond as enabling St. Denis to publicly exhibit a sexuality that would not be acceptable for St. Denis to exhibit herself.
(Desmond, 1991, p. 44) Members of the audience read this dualism as both titillating and spiritually transcendent.
St. Denis' dance training came from American Delsartism, a popular training method for upper and middle class white women in America at the turn of the century.
American Delsartism was based upon French musician Francois Delsarte's movement practice which focused on gestures, and the emotional and spiritual states behind them.
(Au, 1988, p. 92) The practice was a series of movement exercises that focused on the transitions between poses, instead of the poses themselves. St. Denis mixed Christian
Science with the spirituality she found in the Delsarte work to arrive at her own concept of spirituality that she felt could be expressed through dance.
In 1914, St. Denis married Ted Shawn. Together they created Denishawn, a formal dance school that trained many of the next generations of modern dance artists, most notably, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman. (Au, 1988, pp. 14
94-95) It was through this training school as well as her mixing of multiple cultural forms that St. Denis had the greatest impact on contemporary dance.
Loie Fuller
A pioneer more closely related to my research, Loie Fuller (1862-1928) took a special interest in stage technologies within her work. An untrained dancer, she was interested in embellishing movement by using large amounts of billowing fabric in a constant state of metamorphosis. This material was then highlighted by multicoloured lights from various angles projected on her body. Isadora Duncan describes her experience viewing Fuller:
Before our very eyes she turned to many-coloured, shining orchids, to a wavering, flowing sea flower, and at length to a spiral-like lily, all the magic of Merlin, the sorceiy of light, colour, flowing form...She transformed herself into a thousand colourful images before the eyes of her audience. Unbelievable. Not to be repeated or described. (Isadora Duncan cited in Brannigan, 2011, p. 32)
Although Fuller was not trained in ballet or other codified techniques of the time, she had a technique of her own that she employed to powerfully wield the billowing fabric around her body. In her book, Tracing the Light: Absence and Presence in the Work of Loie Fuller, dance artist and scholar Ann Cooper Albright discusses the dismissal of
Fuller as a dancer by historians and questions specifically what about Fuller and her artistic practice would have historians assume that she was not a dancer. Albright then clearly disputes this assumption. By discussing her own experiences recreating Fuller's
work La Lys, Albright describes the physical demands and agility that are required to 15 keep the fabric moving, and the feet from tripping while metamorphosizing from image to image. (Albright, 2007, pp. 5-6)
The metamorphosis of images through motion, combined with the electrical lighting techniques created by Fuller, have led dance and film critics and historians to consider Fuller as the precursor to film because she herself was a "moving image".
(Sommers, 1975, p.54) Germaine Dulac (French filmmaker and theorist), while reflecting on the birth of cinema and the moving image in relation to Fuller's work, stated "that [her work] was also cinema, the play of light and of colours in relief and in movement." (Gunning, 2003, p.85) In relation to dance for the camera, Fuller was able to create an aesthetic that we would not see again until the experimental film movement sparked by Maya Deren's dancefilm in 1945. In her book Dancefilm, dance and dancefilm scholar Erin Brannigan describes Fuller as an "influential artistic force that would ultimately exceed the possibilities of early cinema." (Brannigan, 2011, p. 21)
An intermedia artist ahead of her time, Fuller wove a tapestry of movement, lighting, and costume. She was able to stir kinesthetic connections through moving images and stimulate discourse regarding the body, both disassociating from the image it conjures, and abstracting the movement it produces. In her book Electric Salome, Rhonda
K. Garelick draws the comparison between Fuller's amalgamation of movement, costumes, and lights and the blending of societal movements at the turn of the twentieth century when she states, "Fuller was neither entirely human, not entirely machine, but an on stage enactment of the fin de siecle's - and modernism's - newly blurred boundaries 16 between these realms." (Garelick, 2007, p. 6) Fuller herself was exploring intermedia works, which at the time had no official categorization.
In addition to movement, Fuller was interested in machines and science. She was a member of the French Astronomical Society, invited into the society for her investigations into the physical properties of light. (Garelick, 2007, p. 7) Fuller even had patents for her mechanical inventions (perhaps as a reaction to the widespread imitation of her Danse Serpentine). Having her inventions patented was a method for Fuller to control the reproduction of her work by others; however, the patents also serve as a historical record of Fuller's scientific and theatrical contributions. Fuller sums up her artistic intentions behind her hybrid work in an interview: "I wanted to create a new form of art, an art completely irrelevant to the usual theories, and art giving to the soul and to the senses at the same time complete delight, where reality and dream, light and sound, movement and rhythm form an exciting unity." (Albright, 2007, p. 185)
Fuller was equally adored by those of the Art Nuevo Movement, the Symbolists, and the Futurists. Her art transcended boundaries in art and life. French poet and critic,
Stephane Mallarme determined that Fuller was "... always a symbol, never a person." (Mallarme cited in Gunning, 2003, p.81) Tom Gunning reiterates Mallarme's statement in his article "Loi'e Fuller and the Art of Motion":
Fuller embodied poetry but a poetry without the need for words. As the embodiment of Symbol, she was meaning divorced from specificity, and image unmoored by reference or representation, becoming purely the flow of movement in all its sensuality and its constantly changing, evocative pursuits of analogy - the pulsing matrix of meaning itself. (Gunning, 2003, p. 81) 17
Fuller's movement aesthetic stems from the fin de siecle era in dance: the disillusion of the pose, and a drive towards constant motion. (Brannigan, 2011, p. 21) In dance, the transitional movements between stillnesses became the focus, allowing for constant motion, and constantly evolving images. In the dance world, this can be seen as a rebellion from the pose-oriented ballet. Many of Fullers fin de siecle contemporaries such as Isadora Duncan, took the idea of constant motion and applied it to the natural human body, whereas Fuller sought technologies to enhance what the human body could do. Albright also cites this as a possible reason why Fuller's work has been dismissed and not properly credited throughout history. (Albright, 2007, p. 10)
In addition to Fuller being credited as a visionary for the moving image, she herself was the subject of films as well as a filmmaker. Captured on film by the Lumiere
Brothers in 1896, Loi'e Fuller performed her Danse Serpentine,5 Fuller also collaborated with George Melies in a rare film, now locked away at the Smithsonian. (Garelick, 2007, p. xiii) Her own films were not created until the 1920s when Fuller was able to apply her visionary aesthetic of movement to film. She was the first artist to be both a choreographer and filmmaker. (Brannigan, 2011, p. 100)
The Beginning of Film in Live Performance
With the birth of film by the Lumiere brothers in 1894 and the first flourishes of
LoTe Fuller's costumes and Ruth St. Denis's twirling skirts, contemporary dance and film
5 Serpentine Dances were the subject of many early dance films; however, the collaboration between film and dance visionaries (the Lumieres discovering film, and Fuller the original creator of the Serpentine Dance) makes this in particular a noteworthy collaboration. 18 began to intersect, envelope, and subsume each other over a similar temporal trajectory
(in addition to each form having its own history). Movement is at the fundamental core of each form. Each is time-based, and concerned with aesthetic values. Iconic dancefilm pioneer Maya Deren eloquently described the unique relationship between dance and film when she said, "I feel that film is related more closely to dance than any other form because, like dance, it is conveyed in time... [I]t conveys primarily by visual projection and...it operates on a level of stylization - it is the quality of the movement that renders the meaning." (Brannigan, 2011, p. 120)
Although the birth of cinema was in 1894 and its history of as a form can be traced readily, the earliest record of film used within a live performance setting was in
1905 in The Pills of the Devil, created by French filmmaker Georges Melies.6 (Giesekam,
2007, p. 29) In this work, Melies used film to create a scene that explored a journey. In this scene projected on a screen at the back of the stage, the main character is taken up
Mount Vesuvius, and then launches into the Heavens by a coach driven by a devilish coachman and a skeletal horse. The horse-driven coach gallops past stars, the Sun, the
Moon, and other planets. When they reach the end of the road, they plummet in a
6 Although Melies is thought to be the first to incorporate film into theatre, and there were a handful of artists quick on his heels, it is often Erwin Piscator who is credited with this achievement due to his 1929 book, The Political Theatre (Giesekam, 2007, p. 32). Known for using documentary style films in his works, Piscator wanted to bring reality to drama. Many of the films he showed within his stage work were political documentary footage. Piscator argued that film within theatrical work drives theatre forward, keeping it contemporary, reflecting contemporary life. He believed that audiences are better able to receive a work when the pace is quickened through masked scene changes and rapid editing cuts. He acknowledged that audiences were becoming accustomed to watching material with a faster pace than traditional theatre due to the emergence and accessibility of mainstream media. 19 downward spiral to Hell. The filmatic main character then reappears on stage live, as if he just arrived in Hell via the coach. (Giesekam, 2007, p. 29)
This 'insert' of film allowed Melies to be free of temporal and spatial confines that he would experience if he attempted this scene within the theatrical setting alone.
Through his use of film, Melies was able to distort perspective, and employ editing techniques to create a space, and pace, that would be impossible in a live setting.
In the book Georges Melies, Elizabeth Ezra outlines M61ies' different use of filmatic inserts, which she breaks into three categories: subjective, explanatory, and displaced diagetic inserts.7 How Melies employed these inserts was instrumental to what he wanted to achieve. Using film as an integral part of the work made it difficult for the audience to separate the plot into film and theatre. This integration demonstrates a first effort towards intermedial performance. Similar to Fuller's work, Melies wove two worlds together so that one could not exist without the other. The intention of his work could not be realized without the film or live theatre parts; therefore, it could only exist as its intermedial whole. (Ezra, 2000, pp. 38-40)
A magician turned filmmaker, Melies was known for his use of magic and trickery within his works. Film opened up a new way for Melius to explore seemingly magical occurrences for the stage. In Melies' film, Le Diable Noir, he explores editing techniques using footage from a single fixed locatioa By doing this, Melies was able to
7 Ezra explains that subjective inserts are a voyeuristic view into the dreams or subconscious of character. This can also include hallucinations, and internal dialogue of the character. In contrast, explanatory inserts are from a third person perspective. These inserts seek to highlight the importance of an object or person through close-ups, unattainable through the stage alone. Lastly, displaced diagetic inserts are used to show another time or place, such as the Heavens to Hell scene in The Pills of the Devil, previously mentioned. 20 make objects move, disappear, and reappear instantaneously. In such sequences, it appears as if the objects themselves are dancing. Considered 'theatre of attraction',
(Gunning, 1990, p. 100) M61ies' work valued 'the thrill of display' (Gunning, 1990, p.
100) over narrative content. Tom Gunning argues that the narrative serves "as a kind of frame for the films' true subject: the process of appearance, disappearance, transformation and reappearance." (Gunning, 1990, p. 100)
It is no coincidence that as modern dance began, the cinematograph was invented and that as the first swirls of Lole Fuller veils occurred, the Lumiere brothers cranked their camera for the first time. Melies would surely not contradict me, he, who chose his actresses among the dancers of the Chatelet, and whose every situation, every movement of the character is, as if by magic, naturally choreographed. (Patrick Bensard cited in Brannigan, 2011, p. 19)
Historically, Melies' work in theatre can be linked to Fuller's work in dance. Both were interested in spectacle. Both were interested in creating something for the eye that was beyond what was thought possible. This attention to spectacle and their entertainment value earned both less than due respect historically when compared to their contemporaries. Over the course of time, Fuller and Melies have been rediscovered as visionaries, misunderstood through history until contemporary work evolved into a shadow of their work from years earlier. Instead of exploring within the confines of what their forms were, Fuller and Melius were interested in exploring beyond the borders of dance or theatre, creating hybrid intermedia works. The intentions in the artists' works are the earliest seeds of the kind of interaction I am exploring in my own intermedial process. 21
Through discussing important historical figures such as Fuller and Melius and their first steps towards intermedial works, I am laying the historical context for my own work.
Dance on Film: Intermedia?
Based on what I have previously discussed in this document, the title of this section, 'Dance on Film' implies an intermedial relationship between the two mediums; however, this is not where the section begins. It begins fifty-one years before the first dance for the camera, when the earliest dance was documented on film. I follow the trajectory of how dance and film mingle throughout history culminating with contemporary examples of intermedia works by Merce Cunningham and Bill T. Jones. I discuss this particular timeline to give the videodance section in my works Somnolence and Fraction a historical context; however, first I must discuss the etymology of the terms associated with dance, film, and their integration for greater clarity in this section.
Dancefor the Camera Etymology
Much like how Higgins felt the need to categorize intermedia art in 1966, in a 1965
Dance Magazine article Allegra Fuller Snyder saw the need to dissect and categorize all the dances that were being captured on film due to its proliferation into the dance world.
She separated dance films into three categories: simple recordings of choreography, documentary films of performance, and 'choreocinema'. Choreocinema was the first term used to describe a dance film as its own artistic entity. (Brooks, 2002, p. 57) Today the term 'dance for the camera' encompasses Snyder's vision of choreocinema, in addition to 22 implying that the work is its own artistic entity. The term 'dance for the camera' encompasses both fields of film and video.
Further dissection of the dance for the camera idiom reveals the method and technical process of capturing dances for the camera: Is the work captured on film, or is it captured on video? The dance for the camera sections in my work Somnolence and
Fraction, were both captured on video, thus creating videodance sections. Like all dance for the camera works, videodance embodies the equal importance of choreographic craft and video vocation. However, the specific term 'videodance' (McPherson, 2000;
Rosenberg, 2006) accurately appropriates the medium's digitality, and the term's agency of articulation. Similar terminologies are 'filmdance', 'screendance', and 'digital dance';8 however, 'videodance' is the most accurate and specific term for my research. Throughout this thesis, I will refer to other works using such terms as 'dance for the camera',
'dancefilm', 'digital dance', or 'videodance' to appropriately label the works' mediums. To discuss my own work, I will use the term 'videodance'.
Dance on Film
As previously discussed, the earliest film depicting dance appeared in 1894 featuring modern dance pioneer Ruth St. Denis performing a skirt dance. During the time of filming such dancers as Fuller, Duncan, and St. Denis, camera use was limited. The filmmakers employed a single shot from a fixed wide-shot, revealing the dancer, and
8 The term 'filmdance' or 'film dance' implies the intermedia product of both film and dance. The term 'screendance' applies to all dance on any screen. This can be filmdance, videodance, telematic performances, or any web-based dance performance. The term 'digital dance' is similar to screen dance; however it implies the works' digitality such as animations, and motion sensor technologies. 23 documenting the dance. At the time, there was no variance in camera positions or proximity because the cameras were extremely heavy and loud. Melies often referred to his camera as his "moulin a cafe", or coffee grinder. (Ezra, 2000, p. 25)
Many dancers were being filmed at the time with the excitement of this new technology; however, dance was essentially taken from one box, and placed in another.
Film was simply documenting dance. The spatial aspects remained unchanged; although filming on location was a possibility, space was still seen as a rectangle with an unchanging background. Many filmmakers used dance within their films because of its role in entertainment at the time; therefore, many of these early dance films have a
Vaudevillian vibe. Melies often worked with dancers from the Folies Bergeres, a company that often played a burlesque revue. (Greenfield, 2002, p. 23) The choices of subject made by the early filmmakers (all male) largely shaped the general public's assumptions of what dance was at the end of the nineteenth century, and left a legacy of assumptions and attitudes surrounding dance that are still accepted in some circles.
Dancefor the Camera
As previously mentioned, dance for the camera as we understand it today was not born until 1945. At the helm of the new experimental form was Maya Deren. Credited with starting the avant-garde film movement, Deren's first films were of dance. Most notably A Study in Choreography for Camera in 1945. Three minutes in length, the film opens on Talley Beatty (dancer) slowly spiraling in the trees; the camera pans past him, and finds him again. This cut is repeated, and each time Beatty is performing new 24 movement giving a temporal arc to the scene, and creating a circular sensation for the viewer. Beatty raises his leg in second position, and as it comes down, there is a cut to a new location; however the movement of Beatty's leg is matched on the cut to create a sense of continuity. In the film, it appears as if Beatty has been magically transported to a new indoor location. The climactic moment in this film is the 30-second leap that culminates with Beatty in a second position plie, looking off into the distance.
(Greenfield, 2002, p. 23) The leap exists in a variety of background settings, over seven shots. Deren uses the magic of cinema to create the impossible. She filmed Beatty from a variety of positions and proximities, allowing her to distort time and space.
Deren considered this work a "duet" between herself and Beatty: the camera and the dance. (Brannigan, 2011, p. 101) Through this work, Deren radically shifted the way filmmakers traditionally thought about film structure. She approached film with a dance sensibility. (Dodds, 2001, p. 7) Her understanding of movement and gesture informed her choices to work without spoken words in some of her films. She was not interested in
"what is occurring, but what it feels like or what it means" (cited in Brannigan, 2011, p.
105) Essentially, Deren was interested in revealing the how, not the what in her films. She rejected the linear timeline associated with the mainstream narrative cinema. She re- envisioned film as an outlet of artistic expression, using technologies unique to film, rendering her art as distinctively different from both theatrical narrative and concert dance. 25
Deren changed the face of film by exploring its potential beyond documentation.
Her work harkens to the ideas of Melies, and drives them forward within a dance context through her exploration of movement continuity. Deren pushes Melies film tricks into illusions. Where Melies portrayed the simply impossible, Deren builds on the possible and extends it into the realm of impossibility. She strings the audience along through recognizably possible tasks that are pushed to the impossible extreme.
Deren's discovery of the unique possibilities of dance and film birthed a new art form: dance for the camera. Currently, dance for the camera has many practitioners, workshops, festivals, and university programs all dedicated to the form. Douglas
Rosenberg, director of the International Screendance Festival proclaims that dance for the camera has "liberated dance from the theatre and given it a new and different proscenium: that of the film or television screen." (Rosenberg, 2000, p. 280) In addition to this statement, one could also say that dance for the camera has liberated film and video from traditional dramatic narratives and introduced the camera to a form that shares its most powerful and dynamic asset: movement Sheril Dodds also discussed this point of contention. She describes videodance as 'art television'. In her 2001 publication, Dance on Screen Dodds states, "It is the hybrid status and experimental agenda of video dance that allows it to challenge and disrupt established boundaries and, as a consequence, problematize existing aesthetic and conceptual structures." (Dodds, 2001, p. 125)
It is largely accepted among dance for the camera practitioners that dance for the camera is an art form unto itself and should be viewed as an entity independent from its 26 dance and film roots. Dance for the camera itself is a hybrid. "It is a fusion or amalgamation of two distinct sites in which the codes and conventions of each medium are inextricably linked." (Dodds, 2001, p. 126) Rosenberg discusses dance and camera's hybrid relationship stating:
It is that synergy which produced a work for the screen that operates on a visceral, kinesthetic plane as well as on a logical, narrative, or abstract one. It is the body in motion that contextualizes the work, but it is the carnal, predatory nature of the camera that enlivens the dance as it plays out on screen. (Rosenberg, 2006, p. 13)
Through this hybrid interdisciplinary integration of dance and camera, a work emerges that is more than the sum of its parts. It is intermedia.
Many contemporary dance artists have dabbled in the integration of dance and technology; However, I will focus on two well known contemporary dance artists that have produced intermedia works using dance and digital dance including dance for the camera: Merce Cunningham and Bill T. Jones. Although their works and ideologies are very different, each choreographer shares a passion for the potential of the human body in collaboration with digital technologies.
Merce Cunningham
A prominent figure in the new generation of modern dance, Merce Cunningham had a specific interest in integrating technology with his choreography. As Maya Deren was discovering the intermedial relationship between dance and film, Merce Cunningham was beginning his choreographic career. Also pushing boundaries, Cunningham used technology to explore the possibilities for movement. A pioneer in his own right,
Cunningham was interested in movement for movement's sake. In an interview with 27
Bloomberg News, Cunningham confirmed, "What interests me is movement...Not movement that necessarily refers to something else, but is just what it is. Like when you see somebody or an animal move, you don't have to know what it's doing." (Tobi, 2009)
This idea of pure movement was central to Cunningham's life's work.9
Through his extensive career, Cunningham was instrumental in shifting the way choreographers thought about movement and how movement was traditionally structured.
He used chance and indeterminacy in his process and performances to structure his work.
He believed that anything could follow anything. (Au, 1988, p. 156) In Changes: Notes on Choreography, Cunningham wrote, "In applying chance to space I saw the possibilities of multidirection. Rather than thinking in one direction i.e. to the audience in a proscenium frame, direction could be four-sided up and down." (Cunningham, 1968, p.
30)
Through his exploration for movement's potential, Cunningham began to explore dances for the camera, and motion capture video within live performance. In an interview with Kent de Spain, when asked about what is important to him in his work, Cunningham replied, "It's the possible way you can see something in a way you haven't... I think
[technology] is absolutely a marvelous way to open your eyes again." (de Spain, 2000, p.
8) Cunningham's best known dance for the camera piece, Points in Space, was created in
9 Before Cunningham developed his own concept of dance, he was a trained Graham dancer performing with the Martha Graham dance company. Cunningham's own ideas about dance were a great departure from his training and personal dance history. Cunningham rejected the emotional overtones and the often narrative structure in Graham's work. He rejected the psyche as impetus for choreography, and pursued the path of the physical body's potential. Cunningham's work is 'simply' about the moving body in relationship to space, time, and gravity. (Foster, 1986, p. 32) 28
1986, Cunningham's inspiration for the film came from his favourite Albert Einstein quote, "There are no fixed points in space." (Vaughn, 2002, p. 35) However, Cunningham felt that in the space of the screen and the eye of the camera, fixed points in space could exist. Although Cunningham was interested in the multiple points of view that the camera space provided, he was not interested in manipulating the body beyond its natural capabilities. He wanted to see people dancing, (de Spain, 2000, p. 8) After finishing the dance for the camera, Cunningham created a live adaptation of Points in Space. This is a notable process because most choreographers adapt their live works to a dance for the camera, rather than the reverse.
Another Cunningham work, Biped, created in collaboration with media artists Paul
Kaiser and Shelly Eshkar, is a live performance that includes digitally-manipulated material projected on a large scrim. This intermedia work makes use of the motion capture process to produce the digitally manipulated material. In the process of creating the digital material, the dancers wore motion sensor markers on specific body parts.
Kaiser and Eshkar then captured the dancers' movements through a camera and computer, mapping the motion of the sensor markers.
What is unique about motion capture, is that it captures the movement in space, but not the mover. The human body is removed from the dance. In this work, the cyborg body is represented by lines and dots. The digital movement resembles the movement of the live bodies, but the digital incarnations do not. This cyborg does not have any social or cultural constructs associated with its image. It has no gender or race, but its movement is 29 undeniably human.10 In the work Biped, the juxtaposition of live and cyborg bodies poses the question, 'can there be dance with no body?'
With the creation of this cyborg, Kaiser and Eshkar were able to get to the fundamental core of Cunningham's work: movement. In the article "The Ghost in the
Machine", Ann Dils comments on the absence of the body in the digital images as a part of her initial reaction to the work, "Through the images and environments they create,
Kaiser and Eshkar finalize a transformation that Cunningham begins in his choreography: the human body as biped, as stripped down to a moving, two-legged being." (Dils, 2002, p. 95) When Kent de Spain asked Cunningham about Biped, Cunningham responded, "...I thought there were moments where the movement of one thing against the movement in the back - say the movement of an object or a shape moving at a different kind of time that the dancing - was a kind of doubling of the possibility of how you see and what you see." (de Spain, 2000, p. 14) In this statement, Cunningham articulates the very interest that I share with him regarding digital dance within a live performance. However,
Cunningham, who stated that it is the "doubling of the possibility of how you see and what you see," may not have agreed with my assertion that its the specific intermedial integration of dance and digital dance that lends a complex matrix of movement to create deeper layers of meaning.
Bill T. Jones
10 In the work Biped, the digital bodies' cyborgjan identities are related to Haraway's ideas on cyborgs in A Cyborg $ Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminist in the Late Twentieth Century, discussed in footnote 1. 30
In 1999, Kaiser and Eshkar collaborated with another renowned choreographer, Bill
T. Jones. Using similar technology to the digital process in Biped, Kaiser, Eshkar, and
Jones set out to make a dance for the camera using motion capture and animation called
Ghostcatching. This work is similar to Biped because both utilize motion capture to create 3-D cyborgs created by Kaiser and Eshkar; however, this work differs from Biped because it exists only digitally as a dance for the camera.
Upon seeing his cyborg reflection for the first time, Bill T. Jones asked Paul Kaiser,
"Is that me?" (Kaiser, 2002, p. 109) The rendered subject of Ghostcatching is a series of computer generated lines and colours that represent the human body, specifically the body of Bill T. Jones. As a performer and choreographer, Jones is known for pushing boundaries and challenging his audiences to think and feel. His often confrontational approach to performance is conjured by his mere presence. However, in Ghostcatching, the audience experiences Jones' presence only through his movement, and not through his body. In her article "The Ghost in the Machine", Dils makes this observation about Jones and his cyborgian construct: "Allowing spectators to see Jones in a non-confrontational work, and without his well-known face and the cultural moorings of race and sexuality that mix into his public image, provide a sense of intimacy...Ghostcatching is about a person, rather than a personality." (Dils, 2002, p. 100) Jones describes this oscillation between movement and mover in his own words:
Ghostcatching with its process of extracting personal movement from the choreorapher-as-prime mover and freeing this movement from the personality and temperament of the choreographer-as-performer, represents an unlikely parallel to the traditional notion of the choreographic innovator developing a personal style 31
of movement, codifying it, and projecting the results onto a community of dancers. (Jones, 2002, p. 107)
Although a technological first for Jones, Ghostcatching was not his first rendezvous with technology or with body politics.11 Jones stirred controversy in his works Still/Here
(1994) and Untitled (1989), where he created live works that featured video documentation of people who were diagnosed with terminal illnesses.12 Still/Here and
Untitled have a unique relationship between the digital and live world: life. Each work juxtapositions living people against people who are dying or have passed away. In this context, video has granted a virtual presence to those who have lost their living presence.
The video produces "physical evidence" (Birringer, 1998, p. 167) of their existence, depicting their living bodies. This digital presence, the only incarnation left, will not grow or change organically. It may only change through digital manipulation.
In Still/ Here Jones explored the issue of life and death through an intense process of traveling around the United States, holding fourteen "Survival Workshops Moving and
Talking About Life and Death". (Jones, 2002, p. 106) In the workshops, Jones met with non-dancers that were terminally ill. Through guided movement explorations, the
participants created gesture phrases that explored aspects of life with a terminal illness.
11 Ghostcatching mixed the issues of body politics and cyboig theory through the motion capture process. In this process, Jones improvised naked with the motion capture sensor markers on his body including his penis. This led to discourse regarding the very male looking cyborg. Whereas all other aspects of social and cultural constructs are removed, Jones, Kaiser, and Eshkar decidedly featured the performer's gender.
12 Controversy erupted over Still/ Here when after refusing to watch the show, a prominent New York dance reviewer wrote a 'review* of the work that was published in the New Yorker. The dance reviewer refused to see the show, deeming it victim art. 32
The final work culminates in a live performance featuring video documentation and some animations. The live work is performed by Jones' professional dance company. The gestures created in the workshops manifest on stage in professional dancers who perform against two screens that "were used as projections on stage intermittently, like flashes of memory or confirmation of the sources of the dance." (Birringer, 1998, p. 167)
Similarly, Jones' work Untitled, explores the divide between life and death. In this very personal work, Jones performs a duet with his long time dance and life partner,
Arnie Zane. Zane, who passed away in 1988, appears in this work through the manipulated video documentation of an earlier work that Zane created in 1977, Hand
Dance. David Gere describes the work as, "A shard of memory, recreated, the movement phrase functions as a bodily and epistemic remembrance as well as a starting point for this memorial to Zane." (Gere, 2002, p. 54) In an interview with Kent de Spain, Jones talks about virtual presence within his work through his experiences dancing in
Ghostcatching and Untitled:
I feel as if I am ricocheting back and forth. A moment ago I said that [the virtual dancers in Ghostcatching] is a valid creature. But is that Arnie Zane that you see [in Untitled]? You see some artifact of Arnie: brief, poetic, enough to give you the taste, the flavor. Having danced with him, touched him, known him, I say "no, that's not him." That's the best we can do. And maybe it's the respectful thing to do, that we don't try to create a golem or to resuscitate the loved one. (de Spain, 2000, p. 15)
Bill T. Jones and Merce Cunningham are both prominent figures in the realm of dance and technology, each with a very different voice, but a similar interest in the potential of the human body and its integration with technology. Both have explored their 33 own voice through dance, digital dance, and digital dance in a live dance performance, and each have poignant observations about the influence of the respective technologies on their work. Cunningham recognizes how dance for the camera, and other digital dance technologies, create a different way of seeing movement, and offers viewers more perspectives on the moving body; Jones echoes this by recognizing the dancing digital dichotomy through his reflection upon the cyborg in Ghostcatching, and the digital replica of his partner Arnie Zane in Untitled. Although each choreographer approaches dance and technology from his own personal experiences, both recognize that digital dance offers something that cannot be achieved by live dance alone. Through my own experiences, and those of Cunningham and Jones, I would argue that live dance offers something that cannot be achieved by digital dance alone.
Discussed throughout this chapter are the historical seeds and a brief outline of intermedial works, both in a live performance setting as well as through dance for the camera works. There are many more performance works that integrate dance and videodance; however, there is minimal discourse on this integration. I hope that this thesis serves as a starting point for further discussion. In particular, I hope this work initiates discourse surrounding the intermedia relationship between the mediums of dance and videodance. Additionally, I beseech other artists and scholars to take an interest in this vein of intermedia work, providing analyses through documentation and dissemination. 34
Chapter 2:
Making Dances and Making Videodances
In this chapter, I discuss from a practical standpoint how live contemporary dance performance and videodance are made. I give a framework of choices that need to be made in both forms to produce work that communicates meaning with an audience.
Essentially, I am revealing the steps in the processes to creating live contemporary dance and videodance as respective entities, in order to reveal the whole as greater than the sum of the parts.
The Parts
Contemporary Dance Choreography
In Doris Humphrey's words, "Choreography is the craft of designing moving bodies through time and space." (Humphrey, 1959, p. 49). Choreography can also be thought of as a language. Generally, each work of contemporary choreography develops its own language or vocabulary. In addition, each choreographer develops his or her own movement signature, a way of moving that is identifiably unique to the individual and his/her work. The choreographer's movement signature will have its influence on an individual dance's established vocabulary.
A movement vocabulary is the developed language of any given work. It refers to a set of steps or movements that are familiar within a dance. The term is derivative from language where a 'vocabulary' is defined as any group of words and phrases that are shared by a group of people; however, one abstract extrapolation of this is 'movement' 35 vocabulary, which uses non-verbal communication. A movement vocabulary is a group of movement signs and symbols. The movement signs and symbols are embedded in a code or language that is learned and deciphered by the audience through active viewership.
At its most superficial level, a dance is a series of 'steps' or 'movements'. These steps may be from an existing codified vocabulary (such as ballet), or they may be an original combination of body movements in time and space. These steps are "made up of individual actions, given particular spatial form, particular rhythmic form, particular co ordination of the body." (Preston-Dunlop, 1998, p. 95) Steps or movements can be equated to words in a written language. They are the building blocks or foundation of the dance. On this level, the signs and symbols of the work emerge.
Doris Humphrey's widely accepted 'theory of the phrase' describes how the 'steps' exist in the structure of a phrase. Humphrey describes a movement phrase "like a spoken sentence, with possibly a sub-clause or two." (Humphrey, 1959, p. 71) The choreographer develops these movement phrases by exploration, leading to permeations and variations of the phrase through dissecting, embellishing, and manipulating the movement in time and space. Through the development of a movement or phrase, the choreographer can create many movements and phrases that are related. When these phrases are placed in the context of one another, there are many movement connections that can be drawn by the audience. These phrases are related and can be grouped together under a movement theme (although it is unlikely that all of the phrases from a movement theme would be grouped together in a completed work). The movement theme then is juxtaposed with 36 other movement themes that are derived from different phrases. This creates a rich and complex vocabulary that is unique to the work. Through the careful development of movement material and structure, a dance emerges. Choreography, then, is a series of phrases that are craftfully organized and structured to communicate an overarching idea.
Much like learning a foreign language, the dance viewer learns the semiotics of this movement vocabulary by watching and engaging in a mental dialogue with the dance that is being presented. (Preston-Dunlop, 1998, p. 19) The viewer learns to read the layers of meaning by recognizing the signs and codes that are essential to the vocabulary, and seeing/experiencing the development of these signs and codes as they reappear in different ways and/or in new contexts. In Reading Dancing, Susan Leigh Foster describes this as dance literacy.13 Being literate in dance is understanding the language of the work.
When the viewer is literate, he/she is able to decipher the dance vocabulary and find a complexity of meaning. To successfully communicate meaning through a movement vocabulary, it is imperative that the choreographer reveal the vocabulary for 'reading1, while simultaneously providing the audience the tools to read it.
Although I am using written language as an analogy for choreography, there is one very big difference between the two: ephemerality. As I 'perform'/write this sentence, it is recorded on the page. My thoughts are live, but they are recorded and archived in this document. If words live on the page, then dance lives in time. A dance is as fleeting as the
13 In Reading Dancing, Foster explains "My choice of 'reading' and 'writing' as metaphors for interpreting dance draws upon contemporary discussions of these terms in literary and cultural criticism. In particular Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, and Hayden White support the argument that reading and writing are forms of (bodily) inscription." (Foster, 1986, p. xix) 37 moment. As Foster explains, "The 'natural' creative process, and intensely private search for inspiration and appropriate expression, cannot be learned but only assimilated by rehearsing and performing in a choreographer's dances." (Foster, 1986, p. pxv) The choreography cannot live on its own. It lives in the dancers' memories, cells, and imaginations. It is rehearsed and performed, but it can only be read in the moment of happening. This is to say that the dance unfolds as the bodies interpret the movement in the moment. Once the movement is done and the moment has passed, the dance is gone and can only live in a memory. During a dance performance, the audience witnesses not only the movement vocabulary, but the performer experiencing the choreography. "The act of moving in space has the outcome of transmitting both outward and inward in the same instant" (Rosenberg, 2006, p. 13). Each performance is unique, never to be repeated.
The dance can only manifest through the corporeal body to be performed live and in the moment. "Thus the dance remains an ephemeral event never to be captured in words." (Foster, 1986, p.xvi)
Ephemerality is what I love and hate about live performance. I thoroughly enjoy watching a choreographer's choices come to life through a thinking and feeling dancer who is living in the moment, constantly negotiating time, space, and gravity in relation to their instrument. As a dancer, I know the sensation of discovering the choreography manifest in my body, familiar from rehearsal, but new again in the moment. To me, this is both sacred and disparaging. While I am addicted to the sensation, I mourn the loss of the 38 moment. When I first began experimenting with live dance and videodance, I found that by using the two mediums I could satisfy all of my cravings.
Videodance
Comprised of a digital movement vocabulary, a videodance has no attachments to ephemerality. If anything, videodance embodies permanence. Yet, as stated, the medium of live dance and videodance is movement. So what makes the videodance process so different?
Creating a videodance is more easily broken down into steps because there is a codified process to working with the camera in videography, and with software in the editing process. So where to begin? The first step is creating the movement. The second step is to digitally capture the movement through videography. The third step is to import the footage into an editing software and then to splice, manipulate, and structure the footage into a final product. In the final step, the finished product must be exported from the editing software in a format that is compatible with how the videodance will be viewed.
Focusing the Eye: the role of the videographer
The role of the videographer is to continuously compose the frame, while capturing the raw footage. The term framing makes reference to what is in the frame: the objects that exist within the eye of the camera at any given moment. The frame is " a moment caught in time" (McPherson, 2006, p. 28), whereas a shot is a sequence of frames captured from the time the record button is pressed on until it is clicked off. Capturing 39 movement vocabulary on video digitizes and incorporealizes the body creating a format in which the virtual body can be manipulated. The choices of how to reveal the body and movement vocabulary are organized and compartmentalized through various ways of working with the camera (discussed below).
The lens directs the eye of the audience to exactly what the director, or in my case the choreographer, wants to reveal, such as close-ups and movement details. The camera also reveals the site/location, and itself is the site of the work. (Rosenberg, 2000, p. 277)
How the camera sees and captures the world has a large impact on the overall aesthetic of the work.
The role of the videographer is as lively as the dancer. There might be a plan, or pre-determined choreography for the camera, but the videographer must remain responsive, composing the frame second by second, as what happens in the frame changes. Often this job is a lot more difficult than expected. It is important to know what is in the frame, and what isn't. Everything that is in the frame will be a part of the shot.
What the camera sees is ultimately what the audience will see. Essentially, the videographer acts as choreographer by choosing what is in the frame. These choices serve to digitally develop the movement vocabulary.
Camera Techniques
As previously mentioned, unlike contemporary choreography, there are codified techniques of working with the camera in videography. These techniques are briefly outlined in the following four bullets. 40
1. Camera Position and Proximity
The camera's position is where the camera is in relationship to its subject. Although the camera can record the subject from anywhere on Laban's Icosahedron14, the positions are generally broken down into these angles: Front, Back, Worm's (Bug's) eye, Bird's eye view, Low Angle, and High Angle. (McPherson, 2006, p. 32) Front and Back refer to shots where the camera is placed directly in front of or behind the subject. Worm's eye view is an extreme low angle taken from beneath the subject. The Bird's eye view is taken from directly over the subject. A low angle is any shot with the camera placed below the subject, and a high angle shot is any shot with the camera placed above the subject. These positions can also be taken from any side of the subject.
The camera's proximity makes reference to the distance between the camera and the subject. There are many terms to describe proximity; however, the exact meaning of these terms will vary from project to project because proximity is relative. Wide-shots and extreme wide-shots are taken when the camera and the subject have the greatest distance between them. Close-up and extreme close-ups are shots that are very close to the subject, capturing specific fragments of a full body. These shots are often an intimate portrayal of the performer. A mid-shot is traditionally a half body shot. Medium-wide and medium-close shots lie in between, as alluded to by their names. This terminology is very useful for communicating between the cast and crew and understanding the aesthetics of
14 A geometrical frame made entirely of equilateral triangles, the Icosohedron has twenty sides with twelve points. Laban used the icosahedron as a geometrical representation of the kinesphere to understand and map spatial orientation in his Space Harmony Theory. 41 the work. Proximity determines how much of the body, and how much of the location is being revealed.
2. Camera Movement: Tracking, Tripods, and Dancing the Camera
A videographer must also pay attention to how the camera is moving in and through space. There are three overarching options: tripod shots, tracking shots, or hand-held. The camera movement in space typically moves from a fixed point. There are several possibilities from a fixed point, such as pan and tilt. Pan is the horizontal pivoting of the camera left and right, while tilt is vertical pivoting up and down. Zoom is the degree of the lens closing in on an object, or widening out from the subject of the frame. Zoom can be used to go from a mid-shot to a close-up or vice versa.
Another point of consideration is how the camera moves through space. Instead of using the zoom option, a different way to achieve a transition from mid-shot to close-up is to use a tracking shot. Tracking shots employ a track and a dolly, used to achieve a smooth picture. The track is laid in the desired direction of the shot, then the camera and operator are placed on the dolly, which moves seamlessly on the track. This can be done horizontally or vertically, or it can be circular or angular. The track is laid in sections so it is easy to lay in whatever pathway is desired. In lower budget movies, a wheelchair is a less expensive alternative, when the ground surface is smooth.
Tripod shots refer to when the camera is secured to a fixed position, most likely mounted on a tripod. These shots are appropriate for archiving. They are also great for certain editing techniques and special effects such as layering clips during the editing 42 process. A still camera alludes to an audience's passive presence, whereas a moving camera creates an active sensation for the viewer.
Another option for moving a camera is by holding and moving it through space.
This is called hand-held. In dance for the camera, this can be an exciting way to capture movement because the camera is free to move in any way the operator can direct it. The hand-held option can be a challenging choice for creating work because the aesthetic is often choppy. The camera has no buffer, and in the hands of the operator responds to every step and breath. If not done well, hand-held can feel like a bad home movie. When done well, hand-held can be an exciting way to interact with the movement material.
3. Technical Considerations
Other important tools for the videographer to consider are focus, white balance, aperture, shutter speed, and additional lenses. In the creation process, toying with focus can be a great tool to keep your audience engaged. A videographer may keep the picture sharp, blur the image to create tension, gently move from a blurred picture to becoming focused, or have a focused picture that becomes fuzzy. Unlike documenting on video, for videodance, being in focus is not always necessary. White balance, when set to a specific white found in the environment and light that you are shooting, ensures that objects that are the colour white in reality, remain that way on video. Setting the white balance to other colours can be a useful tool to create mood in the work. Aperture controls the depth of field, and shutter speed controls how much light is let into the camera per frame. The higher the shutter speed, the more blurred the motion will be. 43
Yet another consideration is whether or not to employ additional lenses. There are lenses that help manage light as well as depth of field. A wide-angle lens lets more footage into the frame. A 35mm lens will allow for macro shots. A fisheye lens will distort the image, magnifying it in the centre of the frame so that this area appears closer than the edges. All of these tools help a videographer create the raw footage that an editor can use to create the video work.
4. Space
Although working with the camera is very important, the filming environment is another powerful force in setting the tone of the work. There are many considerations when choosing location: type, amount, light, safety. Choosing a location that works for your movement and intention is critical. Movement filmed in an industrial space will be interpreted very differently than the same movement filmed in nature. Additionally, the spatial aspects of filming in a car or closet are very different than filming in a dance studio, or in an open field. In Making Video Dance, Katrina McPherson reminds readers that, "Given the power of location, it is vital to think carefully when deciding where to film, so that your locations add to, rather than detract from, your completed video dance work." (McPherson, 2006, p. 64)
Lighting is another element for consideration. How can I effectively light the scene to reveal the desired mood? Is there an abundance of light? Will additional lighting be needed? Do I have access to electricity? These are all practical and aesthetic questions 44 that need to be addressed when creating videodance. Essentially, "what you see through the viewfinder or on the monitor is what you get." (McPherson, 2006, p. 144)
The Editing Process
When the raw footage is transferred to the computer, the body and movement exist as data. They live in a virtual space where they can be digitally manipulated through editing techniques. In this world, the movement is released beyond the potential of the human body: a meta-dance15 is created. This dance is only bound by the imagination. The dichotomy of digitizing the dance experience is that we take this corporeal body, capture its image, and produce its replica. This digital replica can now be manipulated in ways that are liberated from reality and the physical laws that govern space and time, such as in
Cunningham's work, Biped and in Bill T. Jones' work, Ghostcatching.
1. Import, Sort, Organize and Build
The first step in the editing process is to import the footage that was captured on location into the editing software. In my process, I used the software Final Cut Pro 7.16
Once the footage is imported into the program, it must be catalogued and sorted. Clips can be named, labeled and organized into bins. This allows for easy access of the clips you want. In figure 2.1,1 provide an visual reference for Final Cut Pro.
15 A term Douglas Rosenberg uses to describe the dualistic nature of the dance on video: both corporeal and digital. (Rosenbeig, 2006, p. 12)
16 Final Cut Pro is professional editing software for movie post-production. It is a sophisticated tool for turning raw footage into a final movie. Figure 2.1: This image is a screen shot from my computer depicting my workflow in the Somnolence videodance sections, in the editing software program Final Cut Pro 7.
Once the footage is organized, it is time to build the first sequence. This is like building a choreographic phrase. Creating multiple sequences for the videodance sections
(or scenes), helps keep the work organized. When the sequences are complete and ready to come together, they can be placed in a master sequence.
Building a sequence requires splicing clips and creating transitions between the clips. It may also involve layering clips, adjusting opacity, and altering the colour palette.
There are many choices to be made. For transitions, I primarily employed straight cuts and cross dissolves. A straight cut is when a clip is placed next to another clip without applying a computer-generated transition in between. This can be used to jolt the audience, or it can appear completely seamless depending on the subject of the clip. A cross dissolve is a computer-generated transition that blends the last part of the first clip, 46 into the first part of the last clip. The effect is that there is a brief moment of blur before the image in the next clip clearly emerges.
An editor can also employ effects with a clip. These effect choices are numerous and only bound by the imagination. They can alter the colour, simulate a lens on the camera, make the images appear as if they are hand drawn, resemble water, etc. Many effects can be combined, or the editor can choose to use no effects at all.
2. Editing as Choreography
All of these choices that need to be made by the editor in the editing process renders the editor as the digital choreographer. The choices of sequencing the clips, such as choosing between close-ups, wide shots, angles, tracking shots, etc. and their juxtaposition ultimately reveal the digital movement vocabulary in the way the audience will perceive it.
Filmmaker Karen Pearlman, recognizes a relationship between editors and choreographers in the way that each sees movement. She asserts that choreographers and editors think somatically, both using intuition to make decisions. (Pearlman, 2006, p. 55)
The editor and the choreographer act as the stand-in for the audience (Pearlman, 2006, p.
53), making choices based on how they are perceiving and experiencing the work in front of them. Thus, the editor is the choreographer and the choreographer is the editor.
3. The Final Stages
Once all of the sequences are built, they are organized on the master timeline. If creating a videodance, titles and credits will be added through a text generator. In my 47 works, there was no text because the work was contained within a live performance. The final stage is exporting the footage so that it can be read by a digital video player on a computer (such as Quicktime), or so the video can be read by a DVD authoring program
(such as iDVD, or DVD Studio Pro). DVD authoring programs (and subsequent DVD burners that exist in most computers these days) convert the digital data and then burn the information onto a digital video disc. The disc can then be read or played by a digital video disc reader/player.
The result is a portable, repeatable videodance. The videodance will live in this location completely unchanged. It becomes an archive that is no longer ephemeral. It is proof of existence, as discovered by Bill T. Jones in his works Still/ Here and Untitled. A digital performance can be repeated many years down the road completely unchanged.
Dance and Videodance
As discussed in this chapter, live dance offers ephemerality, whereas digital dance offers permanence. Live dance offers a responsive performer and digital dance offers a performer free of time, space, and gravity. When these two mediums are intertwined, the possibilities for movement are endless. Videodance was inevitably born of the dance and film arts; therefore, videodance resembles both. When juxtaposed with dance in a live performance setting it is apparent that movement is the true medium of the combined work, and that the movement is communicated through both live and video sites. In my works Somnolence and Fraction, I am using both the mediums of dance and videodance. 48
Each uses the moving body as subject, but the site for communication is drastically different, and as such, drastically impacts the creative process and movement vocabulary development.
Sherril Dodds sums up the complexity of this intermedial relationship between movement and video elements in Dance on Screen,
The actual material body, constituted through flesh, blood, bones, and muscles is the 'raw material' for dance. It is given a sense of 'shape' of 'texture' through a number of formal considerations. These range from fundamental characteristics of dance, which is dynamic movement in space and time, to considerations such as location, music, costume, make-up, set-design, and lighting. The video dance body is then subject to another set of variables dependent on filmic or televisual codes. Again these involve formal considerations about decisions over camera position, camera movement, lens type, shot length, the use of colour, special effects, and editing choices. This gives the video dance body an additional texture, a layer of technological signification. (Dodds, 2001, pp. 148-149)
Although Dodds is specifically speaking of videodance, I feel this statement can be extended to include the intermedial relationship between live contemporary dance and videodance within live performance. In such a scenario, an additional layer of corporeal movement is layered with the digitally dancing body, another texture is incorporated into the work through a web of movement connections. This adds another layer of intermedial complexity to an already complex work, another layer of meaning to explore.
The collaboration between corporeal and digital movement development creates infinite possibilities for establishing a vocabulary. The movement vocabulary is developed from both sides of the screen. There is incredible potential for the dialogue between the visceral vocabulary and the digitally manipulated vocabulary to transverse 49 the screen, thus creating a hybrid movement vocabulary that can only exist in this intermedial interaction. Through my research, I have discovered a vocabulary that cannot exist alone in either world. This idiosyncratic vocabulary is a hybrid, both corporeal and digital. By describing the intermedia works, Somnolence and Fraction, I will unveil the process and the individual elements that came together to arrive at a hybrid vocabulary. 50
Chapter 3: Somnolence
In Somnolence, the relationship between the live movement and the videodance is, in Dick Higgins' terms, intermedia. The simplest reduction of the concept is the development and bringing together of two worlds. In the case of Somnolence, the two
worlds include waking life and dreams, contemporary dance and videodance. This overarching concept could not be realized without both the dance and videodance mediums working together. Already stated in Chapter 3,1 analyze my process of creating
Somnolence by dissecting the parts that came together to create the whole.
For the videodance portion of this project, I received funding from the Alberta
Foundation for the Arts. The work was filmed on location in the Crowsnest Pass, Alberta.
In this filming process, I employed colleague Amanda Bonnell as my production assistant. She helped me with equipment, lighting, cast organization, sound, and rowing a boat that we used as a dolly in the river shots. We travelled to the Crowsnest Pass, and spent an intensive two nights and two days filming at five locations: 'stone house' at the
Leitch Colliery ruins, 'structure' also at the colliery ruins, 'rockslide' at the Frank Slide site, 'tree' a dead gnarled twisted tree in the area, and 'river', specifically the bank of the
Crowsnest River. Due to funding we were able to stay at a local hotel, rent equipment, and rent a vehicle for cast/ equipment transportation.
Most of the locations for filming were Alberta Heritage sites. I was granted
permission to film on the Frank Slide and in the Leitch Collieries by the Department of 51
Transportation and Culture. The tree and river locations were public property, and
required no permission.
All the videography for this work was done by me on a Canon HV20. Other
videography equipment included a boom mic, a tripod, and a reflector board17. For the
night shoot, I rented a generator and borrowed four high-powered work lights thanks to a
grant from Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the support of W&M Dance Projects.
Somnolence consisted of five live performers: Caileen Bennett, Jessalyn Britton,
Chantal Connolly, Lauren Cote, and Liisa Hohn. The cast worked with me on this project
for a total of eight months. During the rehearsal process, we worked in the studio three
times a week from September 9th - October 2nd, 2008. Then on October 3rd, the entire cast and crew gathered all of the required equipment and drove to the Crowsnest Pass to
film on location for two days and nights. Once we returned from filming the cast took a
two-week hiatus from rehearsal so that I could organize the footage and begin to create
some sequences. We resumed rehearsals on October 22nd. We rehearsed between three
and five hours a week, culminating in the final theatre presentation in April 2009.
After the filming process, I began working with Calgary/ Montreal composer
Anthony Tan. Tan used the sounds of the pebbles that were recorded on location to create an original electro-acoustic composition that accompanied the work. Throughout the process there were many exchanges of sound files and rehearsal video. In rehearsals we
17 A piece of lightweight fabric on a flexible frame that is shiny and reflective, used to direct or diffuse ambient light in photography, film, and video. 52
would rehearse with sections of the musical score. The completed composition entered
the process in the last two weeks of rehearsal.
There were many elements that came together to create the work Somnolence.
As an intermedia work it is important that the piece be recognized as a whole. However,
to account for the whole in this document, I must describe the dance and videodance parts and how they came together. It is the product of these elements working together that I am interested in; yet ironically, I must examine the parts to reveal how they gave rise to the whole.
The Parts
Initial Movement Creation
The beginnings of any dance work starts with improvising around a movement or
theoretical idea. In Somnolence, I started creating movement material inspired by the
filming locations in the Crowsnest Pass. This area is known for its mining history, the
Frank Slide,18 and the strong winds that help shape the landscape. The textures of the
environments served as initial inspiration for creating movement phrases. I began by creating a phrase for each location. We had six rehearsals before our filming date. The
phrases were mildly developed, meaning there was attention paid to the dynamic palette of each phrase, and the phrases were complete; however, the phrases were not yet developed into larger movement themes. The phrases were further developed on location through the choices I made in revealing the movement through the eye of the camera.
18 A devastating landslide/avalanche that buried the town of Frank on April 29th, 1903. For more information please visit www.frankslide.com. 53
Then the digital movement was further developed in the editing process that happened simultaneously with the live development process.
We captured five filming locations on video. For each location, there was something specific about the landscape that inspired the initial phrases. At the 'stone house', for example, I envisioned two ghostly girls from the past that possibly perished in the 1903 rockslide. This notion of childhood inspired movement that was playful and youthful.
At the 'structure', I was Figure 3.1: Video still at the 'stone house' location. inspired by the confined space, and by the contrast between the concrete walls and the green grass floor. I was also interested in the extreme depth, which I exploited in the rolling scenes. Chantal Connolly's personal movement signature inspired me to create a quick twitching style of movement for Figure3.2: Video still at the 'structure'location. this location. I decided to shoot 54 much of this location from a tripod. In the editing process, I played with the idea of superimposing the images for a ghosting effect.
I have been in awe of the
Frank Slide ever since I was a child. Seeing the giant boulders and rocks stretch for kilometers still stirs a deep emotional response from me. At the Figure 3.3: Video still of the 'rock slide 'location. 'rockslide' site, I was particularly aware of the pebbles on the ground throughout the path system. I paid special attention to the rhythm of the movement, and designed the feet to slide on the ground creating a soundscape. This location inspired the "pebble toss" movement theme throughout the work.
The tree at the 'tree' location' is twisted and gnarled. When first saw I immediately imagined a character or a person so tormented by that they sprouted
and became entangled inside the tree, frozen time. The tree Figure 3.4: Video still from the 'tree 'location. movement material reflects being 55 confined in the spiraling tree. This is demonstrated through Jessalyn's slow spirals, contrasted by rapid twists constantly trying to break free and escape this fate.
There is no specific choreography attached to the river site. It is simply a neutral location unrelated to the others where the dancers could all be together. At this location, all of Figure 3.5: Video still from the 'river 'location. the dancers perform their phrases from the other locations. The river is symbolic and related to the idea of the 'pool' projection that happens downstage left in the work. This location serves as a nexus for the dream world.
We shot at these five locations over one weekend. After we finished class at the university on Friday we loaded up the cars, and drove to the Crowsnest Pass. We had a tight schedule for the weekend, so I planned to begin with the night shoot at the 'stone house' as soon as we arrived.
Videography
Location 1: 'stone house'
The team arrived on a Friday night After checking into the hotel, we went for dinner, where we discussed the shoot. This was everyone's first night shoot. It was also 56 the most production-intensive of the shoots. I wanted to do this location first to allow for time to reshoot the following evening, if we needed it.
In Calgary, in preparation for the night shoot, I rented a generator to power the lights on location. W&M Dance Projects loaned me four work lights that I used to light the space. Initially this took a lot of experimentation. I wanted the figures of the cast members lit in the second story windows, and I wanted side light for the dancing shots inside the house. Bonnell and I tried many configurations. We used two lights on the dancing subject inside the house for all mid and close up shots. We used the back left corner of the house for these shots to create intimacy. I hoped the spill of light from the first floor would eerily illuminate the window figures. This didn't turn out as I hoped.
Even though we were using many lights, we positioned them so that the stone walls were still quite dark. I wanted the feel of an old gas lantern, what would have lit the house when it was functioning.
On this shoot we were most successful at capturing solo sections with all five cast members. We also captured a large amount of duet work between the 'sisters', played by
Caileen Bennett and Liisa Hohn. I was less successful at getting the wide-shots that I wanted because the lighting wasn't working out with the second story windows. As the generator became low on gas, we turned it off, and began to capture the sound of the phrases being performed on the gravel floor of the house. In total, we were on location for five hours. 57
Back at the hotel, Bonnell and I reviewed the clips from the house. Although I was happy with many of the shots, I wanted to reshoot some of the material. I wanted to try and light the windows from behind, and use the shadows that I was originally trying to avoid. I planned to light the windows from outside the house, so that the figures would appear back lit or silhouetted. I also planned to reshoot some material with the 'sisters', and with Lauren Cote, the dancer who is in the role of storyteller. We made plans to reshoot the following evening.
In hindsight, I am thrilled that we reshot a lot of the movement material. The shadows contributed to the texture of the work, and the revised lighting in the windows was exactly what I had envisioned; however, the main reason I am thrilled we re-filmed is that the tape from our first night's shoot never played again. It somehow became a corrupt tape from which I was unable to extract the footage. This was extremely frustrating and very problematic in the editing process because I was counting on footage that no longer existed. It was impossible to get the funds, time, and weather to re-film, so
I had to do some creative problem solving to deal with the development of the vocabularies.
Location 2: 'structure*
It was raining. We had a relaxing morning while we waited for the rain to clear. By
10:30, I decided that we needed to get some shots, regardless of the weather. The team went back to the collieries, but this time we filmed in the concrete structure that is part of the collieries ruins. 58
We cleared the area of any glass, stones, and branches. The dancers familiarized
themselves with the location, and we problem solved the wall scene. Bonnell set up a
ladder on the other side of the wall so the dancers could easily get over the wall. We
rehearsed the movement material and prepared to film in less-than-ideal conditions.
Most of the shots in this location were fixed on a tripod, and ranged from mid-shot
to wide shots. My goal was to overlap these tripod shots in post production to create a
ghosting effect. The biggest challenge at this location was the rain. By starting to film in
the rain, I committed myself to the environment, and I needed it to keep raining to
maintain continuity. It was also very important that none of the equipment got wet. I
rigged an umbrella to the tripod, and we put the mic on the camera, under the umbrella.
The rain continued, and I had yet another challenge to overcome: How do I create the handheld shots without getting the equipment wet? I solved
this problem by sliding the handle of the umbrella from the tripod down the
back of my vest. With assistance, I Figure 3.6: On location at the 'structure 'with zipped the vest up to my neck, and tied improv^sed weather shiM Photo courtesy of Jessalyn Britton a scarf around my forehead to hold the
umbrella firmly in place. 59
Upon reflection, the rain was a happy accident. It greatly aided in building the texture and mood for this scene. Due to what was naturally happening with the light, I decided to increase the exposure on the camera. In addition to camouflaging the rain drops, a unique colour palette was born specific to this site. The high exposure created a greater contrast in colour between the sky, the grey of the concrete, and the green of the grass. Because the concrete was wet, the texture of the stone was more visible than if it had been dry. This textured grey environment contrasted Chantal Connolly's black costume and the green grass nicely. I was able to tune into a colour palette that I would normally be unable to get, because the raindrops reflected the sunlight. It was this light reflection hanging in the air that aesthetically pulled the scene together. The colour palette and use of space defined this site as very different from the others. This was especially important as it is in the same location as the 'stone house'.
Location 3: 'rockslide'
After a lunch break, we went to the Frank Slide site. The storyteller, played by
Lauren Cote, is the main subject at this location. The rain stopped, but the clouds were low on Turtle Mountain and the sun was starting to peek out. We hiked down into the landslide rubble and set up. We established ourselves near a tree with bright yellow leaves. The leaves contrasted the boulders and backdrop of Turtle Mountain. I was thrilled to have another element of life pop up in the seemingly barren sea of rock.
We were filming at a heritage site that was open to the public, so I had the additional challenge of keeping tourists out of each shot. This sometimes meant waiting 60 for a group to pass by. While we waited, we filmed close-ups. I asked the dancers to venture off the path into the rocks and each stand on their own rock within close proximity to the other cast members. I captured this on video with a wide tripod shot.
Then, I asked the dancers to trade rocks. I captured each dancer on each rock. In post- production, this gave me the opportunity to play with cutting clips that reveal the dancers standing on their original rock, immediately juxtaposed with another clip where the dancers are standing on different rocks. I created a sequence where the dancers switch rocks instantly. Much like Melius' work, Le Diable Noir (previously discussed), the dancers appear as if they elude the reality of time and space.
These types of effects in post-production require a great deal of planning for the filming portion of the process. Without envisioning the overall aesthetic of the work, it might not have occurred to me to capture the dancers on each rock. Planning is an important part of the process. Without a plan one could be left with a lot of footage that doesn't amalgamate in post production. Having said that, a plan is a great place to start, but it is also important to leave room for in-the-moment inspiration and improvisation.
Location 4: 'tree'
On Sunday morning the cast went to the tree location. The Crowsnest Pass is known for its extreme weather and wind. The wind whips through the valley with such 61 force that many of the trees in the area are twisted and gnarled from the environment, most notably the Burmis Tree19.
The tree that we worked with (not the Burmis Tree, but a tree similar in character) has a vast amount of undeveloped land surrounding it, and it is precariously positioned on the top of a small hill, alone. In the initial research trip to the Crowsnest Pass, I chose this as a location because I felt like I could see the wind trapped inside the tree. The bond with nature that I felt through this section of filming process and my immediate connection to this tree is perhaps the closest I have ever felt to Isadora Duncan.
This location was an unforgiving environment for dancers. AH five cast members performed here. The patch of space in front of the tree appears to be open in the videodance; however, in reality, it is full of obstacles. The tall grass, uneven ground, extreme wind, little burs and thistles, and the not-so-gentle slope to screen left were all obstacles for the dancers to negotiate. Fortunately, this isn't apparent in the videodance.
Jessalyn Britton and I filmed her solo sections. I was using a hand-held approach, so I also needed to negotiate the natural hazards. Bonnell was busy capturing the sound, so I had the other dancers help me by holding onto my jacket as I moved, so I wouldn't fall. As the filming got closer to the tree, the conditions became even more hazardous.
Britton took care not to fall off the small cliff behind the tree, and I did my best to
19 A heritage attraction in the Crowsnest Pass, the Burmis Tree was named after the town it was located in. Although the town of Burmis ceased to exist, the Burmis tree stands next to an Alberta highway precariously perched upon a stoney ledge. A Limber Pine, the tree lived between 300 and 700 years, dying in 1978. A landmark in the Crowsnest Pass, the Burmis Tree is considered the most photographed tree in Canada. For more information, please visit http.V/www.crowsnestheritage.ca/?page_id=69. 62 stabilize the camera in the extreme wind. We did many takes to ensure that we had enough footage that wasn't marred by the wind in terms of hair and costumes.
The dancers handled this part of the filming process particularly well. At this point in their careers, three out of five dancers had experience dancing on video before (in another project of mine), but none of them had experience shooting outdoors. Although I had created videodances that had outdoor locations, I certainly had never worked in such an extreme environment. The cast and crew all rose to the occasion. We all welcomed the adventure.
Location 5: 'river *
This scene is the only one that never really turned out as I had planned. In my head,
I saw a single shot where the camera tracks down the river's edge revealing all of the characters spaced along the bank doing their signature gestures phrases associated with their previously mentioned location. In my mind, this scene is what would bring it all together.
I particularly wanted to capture this all in one shot. I am often amazed by directors and cinematographers/videographers when I see this technique used. It leaves me in awe because I know how hard it is. My plan to use a boat on the river as a dolly was, I felt, ingenious. I could never afford a track or a crane for this project, so riding the gentle flow of water to capture the shot seemed like a successful way to creatively solve this problem.
In one of my research trips in July with Amanda Bonnell, we discovered this location (the swimming hole and bank) courtesy of a police officer. The officer politely 63 stopped us while we were researching the tree location. After we explained what we were doing, he directed us down the hill from the 'tree' to a perfect spot for filming the river scene. There was a 'swimming hole', or large pool of water for us to get the boat into the water and get organized before we launched ourselves into the river currents. Bonnell and
I practiced going down the river. Bonnell was rowing and guiding the boat, and I was operating the camera. Success. It was perfect. I could capture the whole riverbank, and we were mostly safe.
In October when we filmed with the cast, the river's water levels were quite a bit lower, and the currents ran differently than in July. This should have occurred to me, but alas, it didn't. The entire cast trekked down to the bank and got into costume.
We were ready to give it a try. Bonnell and I were precariously positioned in the boat and were committed to getting the shot. We launched ourselves into the Figure 3.7: Our makeshift dolly at the 'river' loacation. Photo courtesy of Jessalyn Britton river.
The cast was on the river's edge, and Bonnell and I were in the boat for 'take 1'.
"Rolling!" Bonnell and I got ourselves into the river current. The dancers knew when to 64 begin performing their gesture sequences. We drifted past Britton successfully capturing the scene, we drifted past the 'sisters': success. As we approached Connolly, the boat spun around, and was suddenly beached on a shallow rocky patch: unfortunate. Bonnell and I freed ourselves and resumed capturing Connolly's and Cote's gesture sequences.
"Cut!" We got the boat to the river's edge, and portaged our way back to the swimming hole.
Take 2 had a similar snag and we lost an oar. Take 3 had the same problem, and we lost the other oar. It wouldn't have been safe to try another take up the river without a paddle, so-to-speak, so we packed up and went home. The river was the very last location for the filming process. It had been a long day in the wind, and the temperature had dropped considerably in the shade by the river. We were all exhausted. In the editing process, I was able to pull from the footage that I had, and edit the shots together to resemble my original image; however, I am still disappointed that we were unable to get a take that was all one shot.
Building a Hybrid Movement Vocabulary: Development Dualism
Upon returning home from filming in the Crowsnest Pass, I immediately began the editing process. The cast took a two-week rehearsal hiatus, so that I could focus on the footage. After it was labeled and organized, I started to build sequences based on the initial choreographic phrases. The initial video sequences were rough sketches with few effects. I was discovering what I had to work with, and making choices about the overall aesthetic of the editing. 65
Creating a hybrid movement vocabulary requires development of movement in both stage and screen sites. The process of composing a hybrid vocabulary requires time with the live dancers, and their digital selves, essentially all moving bodies, digital or visceral, put together. As previously discussed, I began with building initial movement phrases in both live and digital worlds; however, the further development of the phrases in bodies and cyborgs happened along parallel trajectories. I worked with the dancers in the studio physically developing the material, alongside working at home in Final Cut Pro to digitally develop the material. When I felt the sections were ready to be brought together,
I brought my computer, projector, and edited footage to rehearsals. Then, I experimented with the two sites together. Initially the parts were playing off each other only in my imagination. My imagination was the conduit between the two sites.
When the sites were brought together, I could explore the relationships between the dynamics, time, and space that existed between the sites (not just stage and screen, but also the multitude of screens and their location within the performance space). In the live presentation of Somnolence, there were four sites for video projections on the stage: video projections on the bodies (centre stage), video projection on the cyclorama, stage right video projection on the floor, and stage left video projection on the floor. This was orchestrated through the use of four projectors that were hung and focused specifically in the stage areas. There was one master video feed from DVD that was split between these 66 locations. The projector dowsers20 were cued to open and close at the appropriate times as a part of the lighting design of the work.
I chose the four projection sites to frame the live work on the stage. I chose to project on the floor because of the audience's perspective in the University Theatre's amphitheatre style seating. I chose to project onto the dancers bodies to give the effect of an internal landscape.
Building a hybrid vocabulary that intertwined all of the sites was a very time consuming process. In between rehearsals, I would make changes to the video sections based on the results of last rehearsal's experiments with an eye on juxtaposition. In rehearsals, I would ask the dancers to make specific changes to the material to clarify the relationship between the digital and corporeal movement.
Due to the nature of creating a hybrid vocabulary, it would be inorganic for me to discuss the live rehearsal process and the editing process separately. I will use the real time format of the live performance as a timeline for discussing specific sections of the work. For this analysis, I have chosen to highlight two sections of Somnolence: sections 5 and 6. For a timeline of the work, please see Appendix A. For detailed accounts of sections 1,2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9,10, and 11, please see Appendix B
Section 5
The cyclorama fades up to the digital 'storyteller' seemingly peering down into the stage space. This is the same clip from the sisters in section 2. The digital 'storyteller'
20 Metal doors that act as shutters for the projector, often on a remote control. The shutters can open and reveal the projected images, or close to ensure no light is emitted. 67 releases the pebbles from her hand. A rectangular light has faded up on the stage, downstage right. It resembles a bed. Caileen, one of the 'sisters', is lying on it as if she is sleeping. On the cyclorama, a small sequence plays and is repeated three times. It begins with the shot from the very first section where all the digital dancers are in the shot at the
'tree' location. There is a straight cut to all of the digital dancers standing on the rocks at the 'rock' location. This is followed by a series of four quick clips where the digital dancers seem to instantly teleport from rock to rock. Next are three clips at the 'stone house'. In the first of these clips, digital Chantal is on screen right of digital Liisa. In the second she is on the left. The next clip is of digital Liisa moving backwards across the screen. This clip is interrupted by a flash of a repeat clip from the 'rock' location, then continues with digital Liisa moving backwards. This jumps to a slow motion clip of digital Liisa and digital Caileen jumping forward with their arms out (material previously seen in their 'sisters' duet). The next clip leaps in for a closer view, and the last clip is a close-up of digital Caileen completing the jump by her self in slow motion.21 The screen cuts to black. This sequence is only four seconds long.
After the fourth time we see this sequence, I dropped the clips after the 'stone house', where digital Chantal moves from screen right to screen left. I repeat this shortened sequence three times, then add new footage from the 'structure' section. The first clip is a close-up of one of the digital dancers jumping into the shot and beginning the rolling sequence. Then, I cut to the rolling clip that we saw projected on the live
21 This particular 'jump' movement material is highlighted and analyzed in Chapter 5. 68 dancers in the 'dino' section. I add new footage from the structure section to the clips from the flash dream section, and scramble the order. This sequence culminates with digital Caileen completing that jump over and over again, many times, and the oval mask goes from very tight (like looking through a door peep hole) to full screen with no mask.
Once the full image is revealed, digital Caileen completes the jump and continues with the phrase until she drops out of the shot, and the video snaps to black.
This video section is approximately one minute in length. During this time, live
Caileen is on stage performing the tossing and turning movement material, as if she is dreaming. As the intensity builds in the video, the intensity builds in live Caileen's attack of the movement material.
I used the masking technique in this video to resemble the shape of an eye. To me, this is the audience's eye into Caileen's dream, and Caileen's eye within the dream. When the sequence starts the image fades up from black, resembling the eye opening. As the sequence finishes, it snaps to black, as if Caileen is quickly closing her eyes.
After this video section, while live Caileen is 'tossing and turning' downstage right, upstage is illuminated to reveal live Liisa, live Jessalyn, and live Chantal slowly rolling towards downstage. On the cyclorama are images of the digital 'sisters' flashing from the
'stone house'. Live Caileen's tossing and turning becomes more frantic as live Liisa joins her with an over-the-shoulder roll. Live Liisa covers live Caileen's eyes with her hands, and assists live Caileen in spiraling up. When Caileen is on her feet, both dancers perform 69 the jump that was recently highlighted in the video. Then, they continue the phrase with a spin to the ground.
Live Liisa and live Caileen are still. The cyclorama briefly fades to black, while live Jessalyn and live Chantal perform the tossing and turning phrase. The eye of the video comes up on the cyclorama. It is the rolling clip from the 'structure' location. All the clips in this sequence are from the 'structure' and 'tree' locations. The eye of the video closes.
Full screen video appears on the cyclorama. It quickly flashes between the 'rock' location and the 'stone house', then the digital 'storyteller' fades into the centre of the screen at the 'stone house' location. Simultaneously, the live 'storyteller' appears on stage by running backward from upstage right. The cyclorama fades to black, and the video pool appears downstage left. The live 'storyteller' does the stirring phrase around the edges of the pool. She stirs the pool with her legs. Live Caileen and live Liisa roll upstage. The live 'storyteller' runs backwards to upstage left between live Jessalyn and live Chantal. She continues to stir with her leg as live Liisa and live Caileen exit the stage.
Once the 'storyteller' passes Jessalyn and Chantal, they perform a phrase that we first saw from the sisters; however, the phrase has more of an attack quality. They fall to the floor and begin an army crawl to downstage left, to where the pool is located. The pool appears and they are joined by the 'storyteller' in the army crawl. They play the hand over hand game. The 'storyteller' wins. All run backwards into a shoulder roll. 70
Chantal and Jessalyn roll off opposite sides of the stage. The 'storyteller' begins to tell her story.
Section 6
In sections 6 and 8,1 designed three different modes of intermedial development for three separate sections of visceral and digital movement earlier in the rehearsal process. The first of these that appears is in section 6. This section features dancer Lauren
Cote who I envisioned as the 'storyteller' throughout the work.
The relationship of movement between Lauren's physical body and digitized body was developed with the intention of matching the dynamics of the movement between stage and screen at key moments, while referencing other vocabulary when the material is counterpointed. I envisioned this matching of the dynamics somewhat like the video editing process, creating the sensation of motion bridging the space between the sites. It is an illusion. Through editing, it would feel as if there was a straight cut between two clips where the movement is different, however, the motion and dynamics of the movement match. A synesthetic response from the viewer allows for this connection to be made. It is designed to evoke kinesthetic sympathy for the motion that travels from the mediated Lauren to physical Lauren, and vice versa. It is a duet between two mediums, and two dancers.
For example, during this section, live Lauren leading with her fingertips, stabs her right arm across her body towards downstage left with a staccato timing. Then, she immediately darts her left arm across her body with suspension to upstage right, leading 71 her body into a spiral to the ground and into a roll. At the same time as the staccato stab, digital Lauren is releasing gravel from her hand in a bowling motion along the same trajectory in space. Her movement is sustained, releasing the gravel, as live Lauren suspends at the top of the dart before she rolls to the ground. After the roll, live Lauren rolls back towards the audience as digital Lauren makes two chugs with her left leg pivoting around her right leg to face away from the audience/ camera. Shortly after, live
Lauren circles her left arm overhead like a lasso motion, then leading with her fingertips, darts her arm across her body to right diagonal front. On the cyclorama, in the video, digital Lauren is jumping in the air and lands when live Lauren darts her arm across.
Twelve seconds later, live Lauren and digital Lauren are travelling on the same diagonal towards downstage right. Each makes two steps along the diagonal, although they have entered these steps from different material within the vocabulary. Here, digital
Lauren repeats the left leg double chug moving forward, pivoting on her right leg to face downstage left, while live Lauren makes one half turn backwards, pivoting on her right leg to face the opposite way from her digital self. Two seconds later live Lauren lassos her right arm, as her digital self swings her upper body and head into a suspension with open chest looking up. Live Lauren's arm mimics the exact directions and dynamics of digital Lauren's head. As live Lauren directs her arm to downstage left, digital Lauren exits the screen. Live Lauren does the 'pebble toss' movement towards stage left, and the rest of the cast rolls on stage right. The 'storyteller'joins them. 72
The dancers are rolling on stage. A video clip appears on the cyclorama of digital
Caileen turning and reaching out her right arm, while her left arm crosses her body and her left hand rests on her right elbow. She is lunging to the side, and her body is reaching forward. The clip fades to black. Live Caileen and live Liisa transition out of rolling and do the same movement. It is a call and response between the digital and live world.
Another image appears on the cyclorama, this time it is digital Jessalyn standing beside the tree. Live Jessalyn twists and spirals and suspends her timing into stillness.
She makes the shape of the tree with her body. Digital Chantal appears. She calls with a
'fisted wrist flick', and uses her arm to draw a circle overhead. The position ends with one arm in first position, the other in fifth position; however, both hands are in fists. She is spiraled towards her arm in fifth. Live Chantal responds by creating the same movement in the stage space.
Live Lauren finishes rolling before her digital incarnation appears. Live Lauren wipes the stage floor with her hand, and closes her hand as if she is holding pebbles. She opens her hand to the side, opening her fist. Her digital self appears drawing a large weighted circle with her head, suspending at the top. Then, she exits the shot.
Live Liisa and live Caileen reprise their 'call and response movement', they briefly continue the phrase, then run towards each other. Liisa lifts Caileen in a barrel roll jump. They land pulling in opposite directions while holding hands. Liisa flings Caileen downstage left into the pool (foreshadowed at the beginning of section 4). The rest of the 73 stage goes dim. Chantal and Jessalyn roll off, and the 'storyteller' sits upside down, upstage right.
After Lauren's duet, the rest of the section serves as a transition, but also an affirmation for the audience. In the transition, my intent was to mimic the 'river' scene from the video by using rolling bodies as a metaphor for waves of water. The dancers' call and response order mirrors the order and movement from the 'river' sequence. This section also serves to solidify for the audience the connections between the digital worlds and their live dreamers. It also clarifies that the 'storyteller' has a different relationship to the world than the other dreamers. I make this clarification by presenting the live
'storyteller' before her digital image, where the other dancers follow their digital images.
As previously mentioned, there are many more sections in Somnolence-, however,
I chose to highlight specific sections that offer strong evidence in support of my argument regarding hybridity and the creation of intermedia work. In Chapter 4,1 discuss my work
Fraction. In addition, I discuss the challenges that I faced in creating Somnolence and how those challenges shaped my process for Fraction. 74
Chapter 4: Fraction and the Learning Process
In this chapter, I will discuss my piece Fraction, a work that explores the concept of memory through dance and videodance in an abstract narrative. Additionally, I will delineate how I applied my acquired knowledge from the Somnolence process to my
Fraction process. This chapter also includes a reflective section where I discuss what I learned from the process of creating Somnolence and Fraction.
Fraction
My initial inspiration for Fraction came from looking at old family photographs, specifically from observing the facial expression of my great grandmother as an eleven- year old girl in a documentation photograph taken by the Bernardo Orphanage. As an orphan, my great grandmother was shipped from England to Canada. I could only imagine the complexity of her emotions and uneasiness about arriving in a new country with nothing or no one. I wanted to ask her so many things that the photograph was unable to tell me. I realized that all photographs suffer from this same limitation.
Like Somnolence, Fraction brings two worlds together; however, for Fraction the worlds are past and present, instead of dream worlds and waking life. This work is also intermedial in that the relationship between the movement on the screen and the stage are interdependent on one another to reveal the overall concept of the work. I used the idea of photographs as a point of reference for recorded memories, including the notion that a photo is a quick snapshot of a longer moment. The context of the snapshot is missing. In the work Fraction, I explore that missing context. 75
Fraction's creation process was very short in comparison to Somnolence. The work is ten minutes in length, and features solo performer Samantha Pink-Andersen. This
work was created during the last month leading up to my MFA concert, while I was still working in my Somnolence process. Fortunately, because of this timeline, I had the opportunity to apply what I learned through my process with Somnolence to my process
with Fraction.
In Fraction, I was on a very limited time schedule. As mentioned, I was simultaneously working on Somnolence, and preparing for our time in the theatre. In the
Fraction process, Pink-Andersen and I rehearsed between four and six hours a week
during the month leading up to the concert. Our filming process took place over five
locations in Calgary taking approximately six hours over two days to film. Due to
Fraction being a ten-minute piece, and because of the way I planned to film and edit for
the different sites, I was able to bring this work together much more efficiently.
There was no budget for this work. All of the props, time and energy came from
generous donations and my own pocket. This contributed to the simplicity of the filming
process. The locations for filming were in my neighborhood and home, and at the
University of Calgary. Samantha Pink-Andersen was well-rehearsed, and familiar with
how to work with the camera so our filming process was efficient and productive. 76
The Parts
Initial Movement Creation
The initial inspiration for the movement material came from a more personal approach to the vocabulary than Somnolence. At the time, I was struggling with my movement vocabulary in Somnolence due to a long process and physical limitations I was personally experiencing due to a car accident. At this point, beginning Fraction, I wanted a vocabulary that would excite me again. I took inspiration from the kinesthetic feeling of unbound energy and weight changes in West African dance22, and melded this with a contemporary movement style. I also paid special attention to the way the spine was engaged, and examined curious coordinations between body parts. Even though West
African dance aesthetics influenced the movement material, I avoided employing traditional West African dance vocabulary directly and focused instead on the aesthetics that I found intriguing within a contemporary dance context. Pink-Andersen was an inquisitive dancer and easy to work with. Our process together flowed easily and organically.
Videography
There were two different approaches to videography that I took in the filming process for Fraction: hand-held and tripod shots. I chose to approach filming in two
21 Connected to the earth and bursting with energy, West African dance is a cultural dance form from western Africa. Polyrhythmic, polycentric, circular, and rooted in traditional dances, West African dance requires coordination and stamina. Traditional dances have epistemic meaning that date back centuries; however, current practices incorporate traditional dances into concert dance and celebrations. Although strongly rooted in tradition, West African dances are ever evolving. For more information on West African dance, please refer to "Commonalities in Dance: An Aesthetic Foundation" by Kariamu Welsh-Asante. 77 different ways based on where the videodance sections would be located in the performance space. In the live performance, the two different approaches appear in two distinct sites: on the stage and on the cyclorama. These are broken down further into two televisions that are on the stage and five images projected on the cyclorama. Each of these locations
totaling seven different video sequences „ , , „ _ Figure 4.1: VideoT still from MFA concert in the performance space. performance, demonstrating the use of video
Even though the aesthetic of the images differs between cyclorama and television sites, I unified each site by using picture frames around the images. I masked each of the cyclorama sequences with a computer-generated picture frame, and I had two large wood frames constructed to frame the televisions. These television frames were made out of crown molding because of its texture and width. I had prop services miter and build the frames. Then I had a volunteer assist me with painting them to look antique.
Television Sequences
In the television sequences, I decided on a high shutter speed and a hand-held approach. I filmed with my Cannon HV20 with a wide-angle lens attached. I also had
weights attached to the camera so that the weights could help absorb my movements,
assisting in smoother footage. For the television montages, we filmed in the Doolittle 78
Theatre at the University of Calgaiy. It was a darkened space with a single spotlight from above. This created a blackbox effect for the location. I wanted this effect because the television video sequences acted as the live performer's memory and internal dialogue.
To achieve this, it was important that the space be ambiguous and intimate. This also gave me great control over the conditions of the location, such as the flooring and light
Because of the movement that is choreographed on the floor in this work, it was imperative that the location was safe for the performer to enact the movement. It was also extremely important to have complete control over the lighting because of the high shutter speed effect I planned to work with.
The development of the aesthetic in the television sequences led me to use a I hand-held approach in the filming p. process. I wanted the camera to interact with the movement. I wanted the viewer V to feel like they were there. I wanted Figure 4.2: Video still from videodance there to be a strong kinesthetic response. I section. achieved this by 'dancing the camera'. As the dancer, Samantha Pink-Andersen, performed the choreography, I danced with her, moving toward, away, against, and with the movement, all the while directing the eye of the camera. This created a duet between camera and performer. Some of the camera movements were choreographed to work with or against the movement material to get desired shots. Some shots were improvised, 79 responding to the movement and performer. I was in complete control of the camera at any given moment; therefore, I could move seamlessly between wide shots and close-ups.
I could employ varied angles and varied locations around the performer and accomplish this all in one take. Pink-Andersen and I were well-rehearsed so we could capture longer shots without stopping. Because we were able to get clear shots that were all in one take, there was less of an editing process when creating these sequences.
In addition to the movement of the camera, I wanted to embellish the sense of motion further in these sequences. I did this by employing a high shutter speed. When in motion, the high shutter speed creates trails of movement behind the mover. These trails of motion give the sense that this site is not grounded in reality. This is because the human eye naturally does not experience vision in this way. This effect creates a warped sense of time and additional texture in the video space. It gives the video sequences a lucid and grainy texture, creating a quality within the raw footage that lends itself to the representation of memory.
Cyclorama Sequences
In the cyclorama sequences, I utilized five locations on the cyclorama. The video locations are all recognizable spaces such as a living room, a busy street, a hallway, and two locations that are reflections in a window (the same image, but flipped). With the exception of the busy street, and occasional movement in the hallway, these images appear as still images or photographs, until the climax of the work. The sequences are
masked by digital picture frames and arranged on the cyclorama like a family wall of 80 photos. I used a tripod for all of these sequences to reinforce the idea of a photograph.
However, I used the high shutter speed to create the quality of recalling a memory.
I found the filming process for Fraction extremely rewarding. I was able to get many shots of Pink-Andersen appearing and disappearing out of the darkness, and also entering and exiting the frame. I feel that these entry and exit points worked to my advantage for creating cuts in the editing process that did not feel like edits. I also used cross dissolves and fades to black to aid in the concept of memory, and supported this with the use of the high shutter speed.
Building a Hybrid Movement Vocabulary: Developmental Dualism
The process of knitting the dance and videodance mediums together followed a similar process to Somnolence. Once the live and video sections were ready, I brought them together in the rehearsal process. This happened almost immediately after filming the television sequences. Due to the similar nature of building a hybrid work, I will discuss Fraction in a similar format to my discussion of Somnolence, following the temporal trajectory of the performance. Unlike my discussion of Somnolence, I will discuss the whole of Fraction, because the work is only ten minutes in length.
Section 1
The lights fade up to reveal the live dancer downstage right, and a still image on a television downstage left. The dancer is doing a slow waltzing movement, and the still image depicts the dancer's waltzing, but frozen in a photograph. The dancer is moving through the position in which her digitized self is frozen. The live dancer continues with 81 the phrase, while three more still images appear in succession on the screen, each fading through black. The dancer moves through each image as it appears throughout the phrase.
The live dancer begins the phrase again with a different facing, as the first image from the downstage television appears again in the same location. This time, right before the image fades to black, the image begins to move. The image then reappears. The live dancer turns towards the screen, and the digital dancer begins to move, this time the digital dancer steps to look away from the screen, and the live dancer does the same. The next two still images also turn into video sequences. The next digital appearance is a movement sequence; however, the moving image arrives and rests on a still image. The still image is at the end of the sequence, instead of the beginning.
As the live dancer begins the phrase for a third time with yet another facing, the downstage television remains still with the last frozen image. Meanwhile, the upstage right television is illuminated with a sequence that we just saw on the downstage television. When the upstage television arrives and freezes at the image that is also on the downstage television, the downstage television fades to black, while the live performer moves through that position. Then the upstage image unfreezes and joins the live performer in unison movement. At this juncture, the live dancer and her digital self are facing each other, dancing in unison; they turn away, then towards each other in the movement phrase. Then, the digital dancer disappears.
I designed this opening section to reflect my inquiry in the work: the context of a snapshot. I chose to place the live moving dancer next to a digital, still dancer to make 82 the relationship between these ideas clear. I purposely used still images instead of video to have the audience anchor their eyes in these specific moments. The still images act as landmarks throughout the work. By introducing the images as stills, and then revealing how the performer arrived at and departed from this snapshot, I used the still images and moving images (both live and digital) as landmarks for the work.
In this section, Pink-Andersen's live body is framed between the two televisions and their images. I chose the spaces for the televisions because of how they framed the live body in the space: one upstage right, the other downstage left. The placement of the televisions also helped to define a smaller area of the stage to create an intimate feel to the beginning sections. I wanted an intimate feel because we are journeying through memories with the solo performer.
In this section, I begin layering the movement to create a dynamic and complex matrix. A specific example is when the 'open twisted retire' movement appears to move from live performer to the downstage digital performer, and then to the upstage digital performer. The timing of this short section is imperative. My intention is to alert the audience's senses to the movement between the movement sites. The movement moves in multiple bodies, and multiple sites. What is interesting is that the movement itself (not the bodies) is travelling around the stage and immediately juxtaposing itself. The ability to present movement this way stems from multiple movement sites, as well as editing techniques. Freezing the images as specific moments highlights their importance in the 83 section. Through this oscillation between movement and stillness, live and digital, I was able to create a dynamic tension that builds throughout the work.
The live performer is briefly alone on stage. The upstage television illuminates again and introduces a phrase of movement. The live dancer walks upstage and picks up the movement, as the television fades to black. She repeats the movement while traveling downstage. The performer begins a new phrase alone on the stage. It was my intention to have the kinesthetic sense transferred from the digital dancer to the live one. This is similar to section 6 in Somnolence.
Section 2
The next image to appear is on the cyclorama. It is an image of the performer in a long hallway. The live performer walks to the downstage television and back upstage towards the cyclorama. As she does this, four more photographs appear on the cyclorama:
On top screen left is the performer in a living-room, just below that is a reflection of the performer in a window looking into the stage area. At centre screen is the long hallway, but the performer has walked down the hallway to the forefront. Screen right top is the same reflection clip as on screen left, but flipped so that it also faces in towards the performance space. Below on screen right is a busy street that is moving, with the performer standing still in the foreground.
As the live performer begins a phrase, her digital incarnation appears on the upstage television and disappears, entering and exiting from the bottom of the screen. The live dancer continues with the phrase and two digital dancers appear, one on each television. 84
The digital dancers are introducing a phrase that the live performer has yet to do. At this point, the live dancer is performing a different phrase; therefore, there are two phrases juxtaposed to one another through the stage and screen sites. The screens are not in unison. They sometimes reveal the same sequences, but not in the same time. They also reveal different sequences, and different perspectives of the movement material. As the live dancer moves into the phrase foreshadowed by the digital dancers, the television sequences reflect back to images from the first phrase that the live dancer introduced. The live performer ends the phrase and waltzes back to the upstage television. She is joined by her cyborgian self, frozen in a still image of waltzing. The live performer continues the phrase, while the video sequences on the televisions depict different variations of the same phrase.
During a musical build at the end of the section, the live performer throws her arms back while her head and body are thrown forward and down. She briefly pauses, as the downstage image freezes in a different shape, but with the same energy. The live performer continues with the phrase canoned by the upstage television sequence. As the live performer moves through the frozen image on downstage left, the upstage television freezes in the 'head and body thrown forward and down, while the arms are thrown back' position. The live dancer continues the phrase by extending her right leg, and the downstage television digital dancer joins her in unison.
In this section a new idea is introduced in the projections on the cyclorama. They are there to reinforce the idea of the context surrounding a still image. I chose to reveal 85 the frames on the cyclorama as if they were a part of a staircase display of family photos.
This is a familiar display of photographs. It was my intention to pose the question of context to the audience by using a familiar visual structure for the cyclorama projections.
This addition changes the feel of the environment, yet the environment maintains the feel of intimacy with the performer because she is framed additionally by portraits of herself.
The use of two phrases juxtaposed with one another through stage and screen is a further development of the experiments I set up in the Somnolence process. Here, I used the images and their juxtapositions to draw on the memory of the audience. In this section, the phrases are danced almost identically in the video sequences and the live phrases. I wanted the movement to be easily recognizable for the audience.
At the end of the section I employ a technique similar to section 1. I have the movement travel from cyborg to human to cyborg through instant juxtaposition while freezing the video in key movements. This builds a dynamic tension that is immediately resolved as the live dancer and digital dancer continue the last movement in unison.
Section 3
The live performer begins a development of the second phrase of movement. The digital dancers on the televisions are recalling the phrase and images from the beginning of the work. The live dancer comes downstage and the lights go dim. All of the digital images are moving. It is a giant cacophony of movement, all in different video sequences, with no live movement. Essentially, all movement from the work is appearing simultaneously. 86
When the screen left image of the reflection fades to black, the performer begins to walk upstage. By the times she is upstage, the upstage television sequence and the living room sequence on the cyclorama have faded to black. On screen centre, the digital performer exits the hallway towards screen right, and the image fades to black, followed by the reflection sequence, and the busy street.
The live performer turns to walk towards the audience. Her digital self appears on the downstage television also walking towards the audience. As the live performer sees her digital self downstage, the image fades to black, and the live performer is once again alone in the space. The live dancer recalls images from all phrases and arrives back into a waltz where she began. The music finishes, and the stage fades to black.
In this section the dancer begins as a spectator of her own memories that are framed within the seven video locations. It is the climax of the work. The abundance of movement creates a chaotic feel. The performer walks alongside the images as they fade to black, as if she is collecting them back in her mind. She performs movements from each phrase and arrives at the beginning of where she started in both space and movement.
Reflecting Back
In this work, I found the filming process extremely rewarding. I was able to get many shots of Pink-Andersen appearing and disappearing out of the darkness, and also entering and exiting the frame. I felt that these entrance and exit points worked to my advantage for creating cuts in the editing process that didn't feel like edits. I also used 87 cross dissolves and fades to black in the editing process to aid in the concept of memory, and to support the use of the high shutter speed.
In addition to using camera techniques and editing tools to create videodance sections that referred to memories of the performer, I also wanted to use the memories of the audience. I did this by setting up images that the spectators could recall when the images appeared on stage again. I played with different perspectives on the movement through live and digital bodies, as well as through facings and juxtapositions. I chose to minimally manipulate the movement, so that the movements would be recognizable to the audience when they reappeared in different sites and bodies.
Timing was also important in this work. The live dancer needed to arrive at synchronized moments with the video. Pink-Andersen and I spent a lot of time organizing sequences and phrases so that the timing of key moments would match up. It was also imperative that all of the footage be synchronized by the person running the video and sound. Although this sounds easy enough, this is one of the biggest challenges working with videodance within live performance.
The Learning Process
In addition to the daily challenges of creating the foundations for movement matrices, there were many other challenges along the way to making the works
Somnolence and Fraction. These challenges led to many discoveries. When I set out to make these works, I knew what I wanted to achieve; however, I was unsure of how to get 88 there. I needed to experiment with my process to get the result that I wanted, and I feel I am still experimenting with my process for building hybrid movement vocabularies (I will always be experimenting).
The biggest challenge I experienced in Somnolence was organization. I needed to coordinate five dancers, filming on location, creating video sequences, and getting video equipment to various rehearsal locations. This was a very laborious process on top of
MFA classes and teaching commitments. At the end of the day, in addition to scheduling five very busy dancers with various other commitments, I would go home and create/ rework sections so that they were prepared for the rehearsals with the live dancers.
Essentially, I was rehearsing with the digital dancers just as much (if not more at times) as the live dancers. It was an exhausting process of constant reorganization that lasted eight months.
Another challenge was the eight-month period of time that we worked on the process. If I was to do it again, I would cut the time in half. The dancers (both live and digital) and I would have had a more rewarding process over less time. During the process there were periods of plateaus and boredom from the dancers and myself. By the time the work was on stage, we were all very tired of the material. In this process, there was no opportunity to just stop and start another dance, because I was committed to the videodance movement material that was filmed in October. Essentially, by capturing the movement phrases on video, I committed myself to developing, rehashing, and connecting to that same material for eight months. 89
I overcame this challenge by. developing, rehashing, and connecting to the movement material. This challenge prompted me to find new ways of connecting the live and digital worlds, and this led me to create the movement foundations of the movement matrices. I was able to take the time to see what worked, and what did not. I had the time to make changes, then make more changes. I was able to play with the juxtaposition of movement through order and structure, and dig into the video material with many edits and effects.
Looking back, I chose to film in October because it was the earliest the cast could be ready to film, and the latest the weather would still be mild. In the future, I would base the timeline of my project and its presentation around when I needed to film, taking the seasons and weather into consideration. I would also make the choice to stay in the initial movement creation period longer so that the initial phrases were exactly what I wanted and well-rehearsed before I committed myself to them (I was able to do this in Fraction).
In this process, I was also under the timeline parameters of the academic school year, with a concert scheduled in April. In hindsight, creating an effective timeline can be difficult to gauge. It entirely depends on the movement's degree of difficulty, the experience of the cast, the filming process, and the desired outcome of the work.
By comparison, Fraction was a very easygoing process: I only had one dancer to organize, I chose to film almost all the footage inside, and the process was only one month long. These decisions came out of what I was learning through the Somnolence process. The time restrictions were welcome. This encouraged me to streamline the 90 process. Prior to the process, I had a lot of time to think about what I wanted for movement material, and I knew I needed controlled filming environments to conserve time. Where the videodance sections in Somnolence relied heavily on the editing process, the videodance sections of Fraction relied heavily on the filming process. This worked well with my overall concept for the work. By developing the videodance aesthetic through filming techniques I was able to create an editing process that was light and fast.
With both works, I found challenges when I got to the theatre. There was very little theatre time to set up the spacing for the beginning of Somnolence where I projected images onto the dancers' bodies. It was imperative that the dancers be in exact locations to be clear projection surfaces. In between hang and focus times, and lighting/ tech times,
I only had a couple of hours to pull this together. Unfortunately, due to limited resources,
I was only able to have a very limited time in the theatre relative to the technical choreography that needed to be orchestrated behind the scenes.
The theatre itself was not set up for such a technically heavy production. There were not enough cables, only one projector, and no professional DVD players. These items all had to be borrowed or rented. The crew was also not as familiar with working with the technical requirements for the show, and without the theatre time to test things out, the show became the test.
My biggest disappointment in the show was realizing in Somnolence that some of the videodance sections would not show up because of a weak signal from the DVD
player. For this work I set a master timeline on a DVD that was played from a single 91
DVD player. The signal from the player was sent to four different projectors. Because the signal was divided it was weaker. Neither technical team nor myself knew what this would look like until it was set up in the theatre, the day before the show.
Unfortunately, this did not work out like it played in my imagination. I made changes to the downstage left pool in the video sequences to alleviate confusion for the audience that would be able to somewhat see the video, but somewhat not. This would be a distraction, so I used the overdrive effect to create a watery looking pool, instead of a location site for video.
Another major issue was that there was no time to reposition the projectors after the initial hang and focus. I would have liked to reposition the projector on stage left on an angle to create the ideal throw for the videodance section at the beginning of section 10.
In the performance, it was very difficult to see the images projected on the dancers. For me, it served as a major distraction for the audience, and it weakened the overall work.
The other technical disappointment was in Fraction. Unfortunately, the television sequences were not always played in sync. The technical staff struggled with the right kind of DVD players, and how to press play on two of them at the same time. The timing of this was inconsistent; however, it was interesting to realize that no matter what happened, due to the way the work was structured, the digital movement was always in an interesting relationship to the other live and digital movement material. 92
Now that I have traced the historical lineage, contemporary context, and performance details of Somnolence and Fraction, it is important that I discuss my discoveries and their relevance. 93
Chapter 5: The Movement Matrix of Meaning
Somnolence and Fraction are both works that use videodance within a live dance performance; however, they are very different works. Each explores its own subject matter, and each work is the product of a different process. What is the same, is the method of building hybrid vocabularies. What is different, is everything else. In Chapters
3 and 4, I discuss the distinct parts of each work to understand the sum of all the components working together. In Chapter 5, I demonstrate how multiple movement perspectives made by different mediums can create a rich matrix of movement connections that communicate meaning. To do this, I will highlight two specific matrices in the work Somnolence and examine how they communicate through stage and screen sites. Additionally, I will discuss the relevance of the matrix as a theoretical foundation for intermedia works.
Creating movement matrices is quite natural when creating a dance. A movement matrix begins with a seed idea to which all of the movement in that specific matrix is related. The movement idea is the foundation, and the developments of that movement idea branch out from the root creating a set of movements that are related under a movement theme. The challenging part in my research was creating hybrid matrices that had an intermedial relationship. I wanted to avoid the multimedia approach (for example, a work where there were sections that were live dance, and then sections that were videodance). To avoid this, it was imperative to me that the works Somnolence and
Fraction existed as holistic intermedial entities. Through a meticulous structuring 94 process, each occurrence of themed movement (live and digital) built on the last. This careful structuring required an arduous rehearsal process where stage and screen sites were rehearsed together. The multiple developments of the movement combined with the amount of spaces for the movement to manifest, and the numbers and types of bodies
(visceral or virtual) in which the movement manifests, creates a multitude of ways for the audience to perceive and experience the movement. This web of related movement also creates connections between spaces and bodies over time. It is as if each movement occurrence leaves a trail to be built upon, intercepted, and revisited throughout the work.
During the creation process in Somnolence and Fraction I knew the kind of relationship I wanted between the live and digital movement and the visceral and virtual bodies. To build this, I was conscious of where I was placing specific movements from the movement themes. I was aware that I was building a web of connections between dance and videodance mediums. Early in the process, this stirred discourse regarding hybridity, so I created a fluid hybrid process that allowed me to build the movement connections throughout the work. Further thought on the bodies in this process led me to a conclusion about the bodies that I was working with: half of the bodies were real, the other half were counterfeit replicas. In the post-performance analysis of my work, I adopted the term "cyborg", having been introduced to the theory surrounding the technologized body. In the processes of Somnolence and Fraction, I focused on the relationships between the movement material; however, it was not until the post- 95 production analysis of the work that the overall theoretical discourse was fleshed out, tangible maps were created, and the term 'matrix' was applied.
A general definition of a matrix might read as follows: "an environment or material in which something develops." (matrix, 2010) In computing terms it is defined as, "a rectangular array of circuit elements usually used to generate one set of signals from another." (matrix, 2002) In medical terms, a matrix is defined as "a surrounding substance within which something else originates, develops, or is contained." (matrix,
2002, 2001, 1995) In intermedia terms, I argue that a matrix is a web of connections made between mediums that allows for the hybrid work to be perceived and experienced as a whole. To make this argument, I will examine two specific movement matrices in the work Somnolence: the 'jump' and 'pebble' movement matrices.
The first I will analyze is the jump movement matrix. This web of connections is created with all live and digital movement developed from a jump on two feet forward with the arms extended. The jump has the movement quality of a pounce: it is quick, and the accent of the jump is down instead of up. This initial jump was developed in the live body in two different ways. First is the 'twisty side jump', in which the jump maintains the same quality, but the hips twist and return to neutral in the air, before it lands. It is then immediately followed by a quick pounce. Second, the 'jump' movement is developed through going to the opposite extreme. The jump flies straight up into the air, legs tucked underneath, arms reaching for the sky.
96
Figure 5.1 is a chart that maps out all of the movements within the jump movement matrix by placing them as dots in a timeline. Each dot represents a movement. To understand the movement that each dot represents, they are colour-coded. The vertical axis on the chart represents the stage space. The top portion of the chart has all of the digital occurrences, and the bottom part of the chart has all of the live occurrences. The exact locations on the stage are labeled on the left. I listed these locations vertically to represent (approximately) the distances between the sites on the stage. The horizontal axis on the chart represents the length of the work. The movement dots are placed in the chart according to when and where the movement occurred. The lines connecting the movements represent the intertextual relationship between the material over time and space, thus creating a visual representation of the movement matrix. I chose to connect each movement dot with these lines to visualize the abstract and ephemeral web that is created in the work: a concrete and tangible representation.
See Figure 5.1 Figure 5.1:
Jump Movement Matrix
SR
Bodies -
US
DS
Video Location # pounce See Appendix A for colour coded sections in the timeline. Legend: §twisty side jump •air jump Live Location 98
The 'jump' movement has a distinct style of digital development In section 5 of
Somnolence, the 'jump' movement appears on the cyclorama through three succeeding shots: a wide shot, a medium shot, and a half body shot. The movement is in slow motion then accelerates into the landing of the jump. The movement is dissected through time, using the specific shots to draw the audience in. The 'jump' finishes a small sequence of clips that is repeated five times in succession.
This small sequence is followed by the half body shot played in fast motion, spliced and repeated so that the jump happens over and over. The dancer's weight in this section never settles at the bottom of the jump like it would in live movement. Finally, the
'jump' happens as it had before. Even though it is the same clip as before, the resonance with the audience is more profound because the natural sense gravity and the weight of the body landing was withheld for a period of time. In this clip at this time, the body seems heavier. Because of this, the audience feels the weight of the jump's landing through their sympathetic kinesthetic response. This response is echoed when the 'jump' movement also happens on stage with the live body.
Essentially, when building a movement matrix, the movements become loaded.
The recognizable movements are introduced, developed, and then become symbolic for all the meaning that appeared earlier in the work. It is then set in a new context for further layers of meaning. The movement is charged with the significance of all its past renderings. Although a movement matrix can be created in any dance work, in my research, it is the juxtaposition of the live and digital occurrences in the movement matrix 99 that provide a plethora of perspectives on the same movement. It is these relationships that form the depth of the work.
The second matrix that I will examine is the pebble movement matrix. This web of connections is created containing all live and digital movements that developed out of the
'grab and reach' phrase. My interactions with the filming environment at the Frank Slide inspired this phrase. The phrase starts with the dancer crouching and picking up pebbles from the ground, then standing and holding the pebbles close to the chest. The dancer releases the pebbles back to the ground through the fingers as the arm opens reaching to the side of the body, parallel to the ground.
This initial movement idea is developed in many ways. The 'grab' movement (the first part of the original movement, when the dancers pick up the pebbles) is seen on its own in many different contexts (often in conjunction with the 'pebble drop', a movement where the pebbles are dropped in front of the dancer). The 'pebble toss' is the hand opening at the end of a bowling motion. When combined with the hand scooping up and diving down the front of the body the development is called the 'pebble toss and swallow*. When the hand presses to the ear, and pulls out of the other ear it is considered
'pebbles out of the mind'. The 'press' movement is related to the grab: however, it quickly places the hand on the ground, instead of picking up pebbles. The 'open hand tremor" stems from the absence of pebbles and the dancer is looking into an empty hand. The children's game, 'hand over hand' is when the dancers are grabbing for the pebbles in a group, with a competitive tone. The 'sister reach' movement developed out of the reach to 100 the side in the initial movement idea. Specifically, it is when the sisters reach with one arm extended, and the other arm bent parallel to the ground, grasping the elbow and extending through the fingers towards each other.
The pebbles themselves represent dreams. Throughout the work there are many circular elements that reinforce this idea. The downstage left 'pool' is a key image that makes this association. The 'orbs' of video that appear on the dancer's bodies and the
'orbs' on the floor in downstage right also reflect the idea of each pebble as its own world, dimension, or dream. Even though the 'pool' and 'orbs' are visual representations and not movements themselves (although they contain movement at times), they are an essential development out of the pebble movement matrix', therefore, the 'pool' and 'orbs' are included in the pebble movement matrix chart. Also included in the chart is the 'stirring' material. This material is considered a development because of the interaction with the video 'orbs' and 'pool'. The choreographic intent in this movement is that the dancer is stirring the contents of that individual dream world. This makes the connection for the audience that there is a presence of other dreamers within each dream, and that these dreamers are interloping through the dream worlds, changing the very nature of the dreams.
Figure 5.2 maps the whole pebble movement matrix, similarly to figure 5.1.
See Figure 5.2 Figure 5.2:
Pebble Movement Matrix
See Appendix A for colour coded sections in the timeline.
•hand over hand •grab/ grab and reach Video Location #pebbles out of the mind •video orbs Legend: Opebble toss •stirring material hands and feet •sister reach •pebble bowl and swallow Live Location •open hand tremor Opebble drop •press 102
The original 'grab and reach' movement was inspired at the Frank Slide, a location that is featured in section 6 of the work. In Figure 5.2, section 6 of Somnolence is represented in light blue colour. Within that section there are five pebble movement matrix developments: The 'grab and reach', 'pebbles out of the mind', 'pebble toss', 'pebble drop', and the 'sister reach'. In this section, the 'pebbles out of the mind' movement is introduced on the cyciorama through a solo dancer. It is juxtaposed with a live 'grab' that happens downstage and a 'pebble toss' also on the cyciorama, both performed by a solo dancer. Then, the 'pebbles out of the mind' material happens upstage in a live body, then it is seen again on the cyciorama; however, the movement is performed by five digital performers moving in unison.
The movement is seen again upstage and is followed by a 'pebble toss'. It is immediately juxtaposed by a 'pebble drop', then 'grab' on the cyciorama. The digital 'grab' is immediately followed by a live 'grab' upstage. Twenty seconds later, the live dancer performs a 'pebble toss' at centre stage. It is canoned by a digital 'sister reach' on the cyciorama, which is immediately followed by a 'sister reach', upstage. The section culminates with a 'grab and reach' downstage.
In figure 5.3 on the following page, I chart the movement matrices within section
6.1 include both the jump movement matrix and the pebble movement matrix in this one- minute and fifteen second excerpt of the section. Specifically in this figure, I connect individual movements with colour coded lines rather than connecting all the movements within a larger movement theme such as Figures 5.1 and 5.2. Because Figure 5.3 focuses 103 on a small section of the work, it allows me to provide a more detailed account of the web that is created in time and space. Following figure 5.3,1 have included figure 5.4 which includes corresponding photographs that depict each movement in this excerpt.
See Figures 5.3 and 5.4 Figure 5.3 Section 6 13:30-14:45
Bodies
Jump Movement Pebble Movement Matrix Matrix Video Location § pounce Legend: §twisty side jump •hand over hand •grab/ grab and reach •video orbs Live Location Oairjump #pebbles out of the mind Opebble toss •stirring material hands and feet •sister reach •pebble bowl and swallow •open hand tremor Opebble drop •press 2 Figure 5.4
\ <
A Figure 5.4.1 Figure 5.4.2 13:40 13:51 USR: Grab and reach CYC: Pebbles out of the mind
Figure 5.4.3 Figure 5.4.4 13:57 14:03 CYC: Pebble toss CYC: Air jump MnnKra"' -
t
Figure 5.4.5 Figure 5.4.6 14:06 14:09 DSR: Pebbles out of the mind DSR: Grab and reach Figure 5.4.7 Figure 5.4.8 14:14 14:18 DSR: Pebbles out of the mind CYC: Air jump
1 * Figure 5.4.9 Figure 5.4.10 14:23 14:30 CYC: Pebbles out of the mind USR: Pebbles out of the mind CYC: Pebble toss
* T
Figure 5.4.11 Figure 5.4.12 14:34 14:37 USR: Pebble toss CYC: Grab 107
Figure 5.4.13 Figure 5.4.14 14:39 14:45 CYC: Pebble drop DS: Air Jump CYC: Press
Through the mapping of the movement in figure 5.3 and through the photographs in figure 5.4, one can see how the movement travels between all of the sites. Here we can see the 'pebbles out of the mind1 movement introduced on the cyclorama, and then contextualized through the movement that exists before and after it. The movement then occurs live. Although it appears similar in the virtual and visceral mediums, it also appears mismatched due to the live and digital difference. Then, the movement is seen again in the digital world; however, it has changed because the movement is being seen in multiple digital bodies. Now, a variation of'pebbles out of the mind' occurs downstage, juxtaposed with a live 'pebble toss'. In this section, the 'pebbles out of the mind' material is placed in the greater context of the work when it is juxtaposed with the 'pebble drop' and 'grab' movements, both of which serve as anchors throughout the work. 108
Again, the movement becomes loaded. As it unfolds, it contains the viewer's previous interpretations of that specific movement. The movement becomes symbolic for the previous interpretations, and, in the moment, is subject to further interpretation within the new context. In section 6, the 'grab', 'pebble drop1, 'pebble toss', and 'sister reach' all carry with them previous interpretations from sections 1 through 5. Additionally, how the audience deciphers the movement's meaning within the new context of section 6 will extend into the subsequent sections, thus continuously enriching the audience's understanding of the movement meaning through the movement matrix.
Essentially in this work, the movement meaning is embedded in, and parallel to, the concept of a movement matrix. Through the movement connections, lines between dreamworlds were created. The interconnected web of movements represents the interconnected web of dreams that I entertain in this work.
Additionally, I explore the notion of reality within a dream. Dreams often feel real. It is only once we are awake that we realize the truly bizarre nature of the dreamworld that was accepted as reality only moments ago. I explore this notion by using time and space in a way that would not be possible in reality. I reveal digital perspectives that would be impossible for live bodies on the stage, and juxtapose the digital bodies with live bodies, creating an eerie mood and dynamic tension. I utilize the 'pebble' movement theme as grounding gestures throughout the work, drawing the audience's attention to the pebbles being something more than just rocks. Furthermore, I weave an 109 abstract narrative through these esoteric ideas revealing the interconnected dreamworlds through the eyes and experiences of the main dreamer, performed by Caileen Bennett.
Analysis
As I define earlier in the chapter, a matrix is "a web of connections made between mediums that allows for the hybrid work to be perceived and experienced as a whole."
Inherently, the matrix is what unites all the elements of a theme within the work. Matrices are created from the basic building blocks that are interlaced at the foundation of the process. A matrix is the substratum, the crux that provides infrastructure for the mediums and their intertextuality.
Through my processes and analysis, I suggest that for a work to be intermedia, it must have a hybrid process. Through my reflection and analysis of my hybrid process, I have also come to the realization that there is something even more foundational embedded in the process: the overlapping matrices that give rise to a network of connections across the mediums.
In figure 5.5,1 provide a chart that maps the entire work's multitude of overlapping movement connections existing in the jump movement matrix aild the pebble movement matrix. If all the movement themes within the work were mapped, the chart would resemble a complicated and densely woven web. In this chart I chose to represent both movement matrices as I did in figure 5.1 and 5.2. As this chart maps all thirty-minutes of the work, I group the movement themes together. All of the 'pebble' movements are connected with black lines, whereas the 'jump' movements are connected by the blue in o a s.
n & Figure 5.5: Ul £ L/i 8 9 Jump Movement Matrix and Pebble Movement Matrix o ar
Bodies
See Appendix A for colour coded sections in the timeline. •handover hand •grab/ grab and reach Video Location § pounce •pebbles out of the mind •video orbs Opebble toss •sturing material hands and feet Legend: ttwisty side jump •pebble bowl and swallow fair jump •sister reach Live Location •open hand tremor Opebble drop •press I5' Ill
A matrix contains the evidence of a developed and identifiably interwoven process.
It is the demonstration of a work that is greater than the sum of its parts. It transforms the collaboration of individual art forms into one voice, thus rendering the work inextricably intermedia.
Overlapping matrices can provide a theoretical foundation for scholarly analysis, or can prove useful as a tool for inquiry during a work's process. Through the recognition of the matrix, artists have a vehicle for processing and analyzing their intermedia work on a foundational level. Through this, they can create maps of the connections between the mediums, granting a tangible account of connections for further exploration (particularly in time-based work). This reveals empirical evidence of the work's degree of hybridity.
In the broader context, the degree of a work's hybridity has a scientifically-minded visual representation: a matrix. Matrices may prove to be a useful tool for analysis of intermedia work, offering a tangible documentation of connections across the mediums.
Matrices may also provide a framework for further dialogue, one that allows artists and scholars to readily focus on the 'how1 of a work, rather than the 'what*. With such visual evidence, the larger artist/ scholar community can have a documented dialogue that digs deeper into the crux of intermedia. Much like Maya Deren's quest to stir deeper investigations in dance for the camera (an intermedial hybrid form of its own), I am appealing to artists and scholars for further discourse surrounding the how of intermedia work, rather than the what. This deeper investigation will reveal practices and methodologies that can benefit and deepen future intermedia efforts. With a scholarly eye 112 turned to intermedia process rather than performance, we stand to gain a profound awareness of hybrid processes intrinsic to the relationship of their mediums, developing an intertextual dialogue that reflects the hybridity embedded in intermedia work.
Moving forward
Through the intermedia works that I have created for, and since, my Graduate
Concert, I have deepened my understanding of the intermedia potential of dance and videodance. In both Somnolence and Fraction, through trial and error, I discovered a way of building a hybrid movement vocabulary though creating a process of knitting movement into a hybrid movement matrix consisting of many smaller themed matrices.
Since creating these processes and performances, I have been able to apply what I have learned to numerous works. Some of these works include ThreeSixTwo (2010), Sanheim
(2010), and Twice (2011).
In these works, I also built hybrid movement vocabularies that fostered movement matrices through stage and screen sites. In ThreeSixTwo, I focused on further examining the timing between digital sequences and live phrases. I played with how to hold dramatic tension in the live world while revealing the subtext for that world through videodance. I experimented a lot with the timing of the live and digital worlds. In the work Sanheim, I focused on the live body as a site for movement, but also the live body as a projection surface for its digital dancing replica. In this work, the solo performer was often submersed in video, chasing her own image on the floor and cyclorama. When she
'caughf her image, she became the surface for that image. 113
In Twice, I introduced a moving projector that was controlled by the dancers. The projector was on a disc with wheels a couple inches off the ground. The dancers were able to roll the projector to different locations on the stage, and pick it up to focus it on bodies as projection surfaces. In this work there were two live bodies, two plaster bodies, and two cyborg bodies. The plaster bodies were made from casts of the live dancers' bodies. They were freestanding, life size, and made of plaster, wood and chicken wire. I decided not to include their heads in the sculpture so that when the live dancers held the plaster replicas we could see their live heads on their plaster bodies. I projected the videodance sequences onto the live bodies and the sculpture bodies. In this work I also played with a dancer moving with the projector in her hands, directing the eye of the projector onto a moving dancer. In this section there was a moving projector, moving images, and a moving projection Figure 5.6: Photo from 'Twice, Feb. 2011. surface.
Essentially, through the works Somnolence and Fraction, I rediscovered my choreographic voice as a cyborgian voice: I discovered my preference to work with both live and digital material. I am fascinated with what each medium has to offer movement, and what each medium has to offer the other. Through creating movement vocabularies 114 on both human and cyborg bodies, in both living and digital worlds, I discovered a choreographic voice that is both humanistic and mechanical.23
Upon reflection, I have considered that perhaps my life long interaction with technology, and my cyborgian interfaces with the world, have shaped my interest in this work. Perhaps the hybridity of the work reflects the compounding explosion of technological advancements and gadgets that I have assimilated with in my day-to-day life, rendering myself a cyborg at times. Even the process of writing this thesis document has utilized the digital mediation of my thoughts through a computer, into a digital document. Perhaps my interest in technology and the body is indicative of the technological advancements that my generation has experienced and now generates.
Conclusion
To answer the questions I pose in the introduction, a matrix of movement connections is woven between stage and screen sites when the mediated body shares a performance space with its living self. This offers a cross-medium matrix of perspectives through moving bodies in time and space, thus creating a hybrid work able to communicate meaning through multiple sites. The dance lives in the bodies, both human and cyborg. The movement communicates through all of the bodies in both stage and screen sites.
23 Recently I was a collaborator in a Telematic project, which peaked my curiosity in the integration of dance and interactive technologies in future works. 115
The matrix is the foundation for the work, uniting the mediums throughout the process. Through layering, the matrices of movement are intricately knit together through an intense process that requires simultaneous development in stage and screen sites. This requires the sites to be rehearsed together, so the connections between the live and digital movements can be as organic as any other holistic process. When the process organically braids the mediums together, the result is a product that is inextricably intertwined: a sum that cannot be reduced to its parts.
Through the processes of Somnolence and Fraction, I discovered that the true depth of videodance within live performance is in the layers of movement connections that are between the live and digital sites. These connections offer a multitude of perspectives on the same movements, thus further developing the vocabulary in each site and across both sites. The movement relationship that develops between stage and screen sites and between the live and cyborg bodies creates layers of meaning through the juxtaposition of live and digital perspectives. As matrix is layered over matrix, what we discover is a powerful web of revelations that guides the viewer through the work as a holistic entity, rendering the true medium of the intermedial whole: movement. 116
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Somnolence Timeline
Section 3 Section 7 Section 9
Section 4 Section 6 122
Appendix B Section 1 The lights dim, and we hear the sound of pebbles. Suddenly, all five cast members burst onto the stage space and discover each other there. The 'sisters' are wearing the frontier dresses (their costumes from the 'stone house' video sections). Everyone else is dressed in all white. The dancers' attention is immediately drawn to the first video section as it appears downstage left, manifesting as a small circular pool. The dancers look into the pool, and the 'sisters' disrobe revealing white costumes underneath their frontier dresses. They place the dresses into the pool of video. The inside-out dresses serve as a white projection surface. The pool consists of footage from all of the locations as well as moving blue light. This video section was made using many effects or filters during the editing process. The first filter was the mask that I used to contain the image within the screen space. Masking is a video filter process that reveals the screen space differently than the typical rectangle. It is most often a shape, such as the circle mask that I employed for this section of the work. This effect helped me to tailor and refine the projection. Throughout Somnolence, I often used masking to reveal the screen space differently than the traditional box. To achieve the look of a pool of water, I used such effects as, 'overdrive', 'fisheye', and 'pond ripple'. With 'overdrive', I created an animated blue light effect that looks like glowing water and included options for both inner and outer glow colours. I used the inner glow of green and outer glow of blue to get a colour that would resemble water. In addition to overdrive, I used a 'fisheye' filter that is designed to resemble a fisheye lens on the camera. This gives the effect that the image is bulging out in the middle. I feel this made the image appear three-dimensional, like there was depth to the water. I also used 'pond ripple' to animate the pool, creating the look of moving water. The dancers crouch down to the pool, and as each dancer touches the pool, the movement of the water enters their bodies. They ripple and wave away as the 'storyteller' wipes the dresses away with her arm as she rolls, and the pool disappears. The next video in this section appears as all five dancers arrive in a straight line facing the audience. In this video sequence there is no mask. The dancers create a rectangle combining their bodies to become the screen surface. After three clips revealing the 'structure', 'tree', and 'rockslide' locations (containing their respective digital dancer), the living dancers spiral and turn towards stage left. Three dancers remain as a surface to reveal half of the image that contains the 'sisters' at the 'stone house', while the other two begin the next section of live movement. The live dancers walk on all fours moving through their spines. We named this movement the 'dino walk'. The dancers pause and roll up through their spines. Projected onto their live bodies are their respective digital selves. The projection is a clip of the entire cast at the tree location. To achieve 123 this, I positioned the live dancers in very specific places on the stage to fill that part of the screen. The dancers return to the 'dino walk'. They position themselves to roll in a single file line towards the audience. Projected onto the dancers is a clip of the same rolling movement at the 'structure' location. The live dancers change directions and roll away from each other, except the live 'sisters' who return to sit in the path of the projection. The digital Caileen is projected on to the live Caileen, and the digital Liisa is projected onto the live Liisa. Digital Liisa fades into a digital carnation of the 'storyteller', then back to digital Liisa. The live 'sisters' roll back and all dancers come together again in a line rolling up stage. Projected on them is the rolling clip from moments before, but the clip is in reverse. The live dancers roll and 'dino walk' to a straight line facing the audience and roll through their spines to be a surface for their virtual selves in the next sequence. This video sequence is located at the 'structure'. The sequence reveals all cast members walking and changing directions. The eye of the camera/dreamer shifts from blurred to an in-focus shot. There are many quick cuts that splice the images of the dancers standing and walking; however, the clips are not in their natural order. Therefore, this sequence appears as a jumbled puzzle. The sequence explores an impossible reality of time and a play between textures. It exploits the unreality of the dream world. I shot all of the footage for this sequence on a tripod knowing that I wanted to splice it together; thus, the structure and location appear unchanged with the dancers rapidly moving impossible distances in an instant. They appear in and out of focus, capturing the disorientated sensation of a dream. I was able to create this sensation by placing very short clips that have no movement continuity next to one another. The video fades to black, and the live dancers melt into a 'dino walk'. The video fades up through black as each live dancer pauses and rolls up through their spine to reveal a circular projection on each of their torsos. Each live dancer is a projection surface for their respective digitation and location. To create this sequence, I made five separate sequences. I masked each sequence with an oval shape, and blurred the edges of the mask through another filter called 'mask feather'. Then, I reduced the size of each sequence so that all of the sequences could fit into one image projection. I arranged the orbs of video for where I wanted the dancers to stand. This was particularly difficult because I needed to calculate the throw of light from the projector to its surfaces. The focus of the projector also plays an important role in this decision. If the dancers are too close to the projector, or too far away, the image that is projected on them will be out of focus (and not a stylistic choice). In addition, the image is a two-dimensional throw of light. I only wanted to draw out the digital dancers in this projection, not the full image. The projector was aimed on the floor on a diagonal trajectory from the the top of the vomitorium at the University Theatre. The dancers intersect the trajectory of this projection at a 90 degree angle to the floor. They become the surfaces for the amount of 124 screen space that their bodies take up, and the rest of the image falls to the floor. This took a lot of trial and error in rehearsal, and wasn't completely set until we were able to space the work in the theatre with all the projectors set, two days before the show. When the video images on their torsos fade, the dancers exit the stage leaving the live 'sisters' behind.
Section 2 There is no video in the 'sisters' section. I do bring back the pool of blue light, which is technically video, however I used it more as a device for lighting and referencing that particular space on stage. I draw on an aesthetic that I discovered while filming at the 'stone house': a singular shadow. In the lighting design, there is a light downstage left that throws a large shadow of Liisa on the cyclorama. It creates three layers, Liisa in the foreground, Caileen mid-ground, and in the background a representation of Liisa (her very large shadow). I use the shadow to emphasize the other worldly aspect of the dance. Liisa's character dances in the defined pool of light. Caileen's character dances upstage right. The movement in this section makes reference to and is the development of the first movements all the dancers make at the beginning of the work. They are interacting through the pool. To me, the pool of light is a portal that the 'sisters' are able to communicate through. I reinforce this image with the use of Liisa's shadow. Each dancer covers half her face, traces up the back of her skull, and reaches into the air. Liisa's focus remains through the pool, Caileen's focus is up. It looks as if Liisa's shadow and Caileen are looking at each other. Liisa stirs the pool, and Caileen turns. The dancers join in unison movement together. Liisa stirs the pool with her foot and Caileen stirs the sky with her hand. Liisa continues with the stirring phrase. Caileen make an inside turn spiraling to the floor initiated with her hand that was just stirring the sky while Liisa initiates an outside attitude turn with her leg that she just used to stir the pool. Liisa does a fuerte to the ground. Caileen is in an inverted siting position, and Liisa is sitting. Liisa grabs from the pool and throws towards Caileen. Caileen does the same, at the same time. The sound of gravel being tossed plays at the same time. Caileen and Liisa join together again in unison. The 'storyteller' appears on the cyclorama, and drops gravel. As the rocks drop from her hands Caileen and Liisa drop to the floor, making the connection that each little world is like one of those little rocks. Caileen and Liisa roll off the stage.
Section 3 This section is live only, and begins with Chantal and Jessalyn. Chantal enters the stage introducing her phrase from the 'structure' location. Jessalyn soon chases after her using her material from the 'tree' location. They are improvising with the material. They are having a conversation using movement as their means of communication. The 125 conversation's intensity increases. The 'storyteller' walks from stage left to stage right, between Chantal and Jessalyn. Chantal exits the stage behind the 'storyteller'. Jessalyn continues with the tree movement. She spirals and twist against herself. The movement in this solo is about struggling to be free from the spiral. Jessalyn finishes upstage left and slowly spirals up. All cast members run on stage into a deep lunge. They look at each other, then run to another deep lunge. AH run off stage except the 'sisters'. This is their second duet.
Section 4 The movement is playful. Caileen lifts Liisa in a barrel roll jump into the pair holding hands while pulling in opposite directions. Then Caileen releases Liisa's hand ,sending her towards downstage left. Caileen covers Liisa's eyes with both hands. Liisa turns, so that she is behind Caileen who is running to downstage right. Liisa catches Caileen by the hips, then covers her eyes. Caileen turns and catches Liisa by the hips. Caileen does a vertical jump using Liisa's shoulders for support, then covers her eyes. Both dancers turn, and introduce the 'pounce' phrase. There is increasing intensity in the movement. Caileen leads in a canon. She is facing downstage, while Liisa is facing upstage. Liisa's movement cycles back to repeat a portion of the phrase, while Caileen continues to the floor. Then Caileen canons Liisa. Caileen's movement cycles back again to repeat a different portion of the phrase. Caileen, then Liisa rolls to the floor. The 'sisters' introduce the 'hand over hand' children's game that is seen throughout the work. It takes place where the downstage pool appears; however, there is no pool in this section. Caileen's character wins the game, but they both do the 'pebble toss' to downstage left. The 'pebble toss' is a gestural movement seen throughout the work where the dancer does a bowling movement into reaching their arm up over head, then their arm dives down through the centre of their body, as the dancer ripples through their spine. It is as if they are digesting what is in their hands. The 'sisters' perform the 'pounce' phrase in unison, and are joined by the rest of the cast running onto the stage. All the cast members run to their deep lunges (vocabulary introduced at the end of section three); however this time they all melt to the floor. The dancers roll to make a small circle upstage. All play 'hand over hand', but this time the 'storyteller' wins. She bowls the pebbles downstage right, and four orbs of video appear on the floor. The other dancers roll to their digitations, while the 'storyteller' stirs with her leg, and repeats the first part of the stirring phrase. As the orbs of video fade away, the dancers stand and walk past the 'storyteller'. The 'storyteller' rolls on the ground and grabs at the floor. The stage fades to black.
Section 7 126
In this section, live Caileen begins in the pool recalling the shadow material from section two, however the movement material also includes a section of the 'jump' phrase that was featured live and digitally in section five. Spatially live Caileen is where live Liisa was in section two, and the live 'storyteller' is where live Caileen was in section two. The 'storyteller' stands and begins the 'stirring' phrase; Caileen joins her. The 'storyteller' walks closer to the pool and joins Caileen in the movement material. They perform the phrase in unison, until they are both crouched on the outside of the pool looking in. Caileen sees the 'storyteller', and the 'storyteller' swipes her hand into the pool, clasps something and tosses it in a bowling motion, like she did in section four when the video orbs appeared downstage right. This time, live Chantal and Jessalyn appear upstage right. The 'storyteller' backs away and exits upstage left. This is the fist time live Caileen meets the 'storyteller'. Live Jessalyn and Chantal are quoting movement material from their entrance in section three. They are quoting the material associated with their video locations. Again, it appears as a conversation. Caileen acknowledges these dreamers in the stage space for the first time. Caileen frantically begins quoting material from the 'sisters' section and the 'jump' phrase in a random order. She finishes sitting upside down. Live Liisa and the live 'storyteller' enter and join live Jessalyn and Chantal in a semi-circle around the upside down Caileen. They dance in unison, retrograding a phrase. They all end with the reaching arm first seen from the 'storyteller'. The rolling clip appears on the cyclorama. Live Liisa grabs upside down Caileen's foot, assisting her in a shoulder roll to get into a rolling line (like from section one). All roll off the vomitorium, except Chantal, who rolls upstage to begin her duet with her digital self.
Section 8 This is the second section specifically designed in the rehearsal process to pull the viewer's eye in and out of the stage and screen sites. The rolling clip that has been observed may times throughout the work so far, introduces the 'structure' location. Live Chantal is introduced as the soloist in this section, by rolling the opposite way as the rest of the cast. Live Chantal begins in unison with her digital self. They carve and slice with their hands travelling towards downstage left. They pause and do two shift jumps. They turn to face upstage right by doing a fisted wrist flick arm reach (in a circle). Live Chantal pauses here, as digital Chantal continues with the phrase. Live Chantal does the fisted wrist flick arm reach (in a circle) to face downstage left, and digital Chantal canons her in time. Live Chantal recalls the first carving movement from the phrase to the weight shifts, then slides to the floor. Digital Chantal is canoning the live Chantal. There is a straight cut in the video sequence to Chantal's twitchy walk, but in reverse. Live Chantal rolls across the stage. In unison, both live and digital Chantal reach out their right hand and immediately switch to their left to see that both are empty. 127
Specifically at this moment, I was interested in the two Chantals following opposite temporal trajectories to arrive at the same movement. This section is like the 'hand over hand' game. It is designed to feel like each Chantal is trying to catch the other. Live Chantal rolls across the stage. The video fades to black. Live Chantal starts the twitehy walk from upstage right, like in sections 3 and 7; however, live Jessalyn joins her by entering from stage left. This time, she is also joined by the rest of the cast They all repeat the retrograded phrase from section 7, but upstage and including live Caileen. The live cast arrives at the reaching arm, while video appears on the cyclorama of the cast, except Jessalyn, at the 'tree' location. As live Jessalyn bursts away from the live group, the video sequence quick cuts to digital Jessalyn doing the same movement. They arrive together at the tree spiral suspended movement, and continue in unison. The live cast remains on stage and quotes the forward curve swinging and turning movement from the video sequence. They arrive standing in stillness as live Jessalyn does a double pounce to look at the cyclorama. There is a straight cut to the 'structure' location. All the digital dancers are doing the twitehy walk. Live Jessalyn joins them. There is another quick cut in the video sequence to digital Jessalyn at the 'tree' location also doing the twitehy walk movement. Live Jessalyn begins her twisting struggle while curving around the other dancers on stage, that have arrived in stillness. On the cyclorama, the digital cast appears standing at the 'tree' location facing away from the audience. Live Jessalyn arrives into the tree spiral. The video fades to black, and the live cast all fall to rolling. All roll off, except the 'storyteller', and live Liisa. In this section with Jessalyn, I experimented with keeping the others on stage. The roll of the live cast in this section serves as topography to frame live Jessalyn. I used clips that either had digital Jessalyn, OR the digital cast with the tree, to make the connection that digital Jessalyn IS the tree. The design of the movement between the mediums was very simple: unison. I tried to use as much unison as possible between the Jessalyns. I felt that with the other cast members on stage, the movement connection between the two Jessalyns might be lost if it was too complicated.
Section 9 Live Lauren introduces the storytelling phrase. This is a very gestural phrase. It is designed to look like all the hand gestures in the work are developed from this phrase; however, it is this phrase that is developed from the hand gestures, that were developed from the 'rockslide' original phrase that we filmed on location. Live Liisa stands from rolling, and live Caileen runs on from stage left passing downstage of Liisa. Lauren is opening her arms above her head on stage right, as Caileen runs in front of her. Lauren passes between the 'sisters' to revisit the storyteller phrase downstage left. Liisa and Caileen dance a development of the 'sisters' duet from sections 128 two and four, the jump phrase originally seen in the video sections, and the barrel roll jump to hand pull movement. Lauren finishes the storytelling phrase, and begins a slow log roll from upstage right to downstage right. The 'sisters' run backwards and continue their movement on stage left. Lauren finishes her roll, runs to upstage right and begins the roll again. This time she is joined on stage by Chantal and Jessalyn. As the three approach downstage, they change the trajectory of the roll so that they travel towards stage left. Caileen and Liisa move into the downstage right space and do the half face cover/stirring phrase next to each other (from section two). Liisa is kneeling, and Caileen is standing. The lights fade to a blackout.
Section 10 Live Lauren, Chantal, and Jessalyn roll into a rectangle of video downstage left. They are followed closely by Liisa and Caileen. A video projection appears. They lie like they are sleeping under the blanket of video projection. The sequence isn't masked; therefore, the projection is rectangular. The live dancers quote from the restless sleep material from section five, and combine with occasional moments of 'dino walk', but on the spot. The live dancers come to rest in child's pose. The clip of rolling from the 'structure' is playing on their backs, and the video fades to black. At this particular juncture, I was layering (figuratively and literally) salient concepts from the work. I wanted to reiterate and remind the audience of the nature of the world. I wanted the live 'restless sleep' movement material to reference the very literal image of dreaming from section five; I wanted the location of the projection to reference the dream pool which has served as a tangible portal between the waking and dreaming worlds; I wanted to reference the video footage in the video sequence to recall moments (some multiple moments) within the work. I was summing up the work thus far to build to the climax. Unfortunately, this was the most disappointing part of the work for me. The video was difficult to see for the audience; therefore, one layer of this brief culmination didn't come to fruition. The restless sleep movement material was not enough to hold the section on its own. I will discuss these challenges further in Chapter 4. A sequence containing the 'river' location comes up on the cyclorama. The live dancers are doing the 'dino walk'. Caileen returns to restless sleep downstage left. The rest of the cast returns to rolling and does a brief reprise of the call and response section in six. The 'storyteller' finishes the call and response by grasping at the floor, and dropping from her hand (like she does in the video with the pebbles). The 'storyteller1 rolls off stage left, while the rest of the cast rolls off stage right. Caileen wakes to see them exit, and watch her dream on the cyclorama. The sequence begins with the jump phrase, then reveals key shots from each location previously seen in the work. Live Caileen walks towards the cyclorama as the dream plays out in front of her. Now, she knows she is dreaming. The cyclorama fades to black through a series of cross dissolved 129 masked ovals over the last image. The eye of the dream closes. Live Caileen is alone on the stage. Live Jessalyn and Chantal roll onto the stage through the vomitorium. They both quote their solo phrases similar to their conversation material; however, the tone is gentle. Caileen exits the stage. Both Jessalyn and Chantal arrive in a tree spiral. The 'storyteller' enters from stage left. Liisa enters from stage right Caileen enters from stage left. Chantal and Jessalyn quote the retrograde phrase in cannon, but arrive at the 'reach' together. They finish the phrase in unison.
Section 11 The beginning of this section includes all of the phrases from the video locations in various repeating and quoting patterns, but also in shifting patterns of solos, duets, trios, and quartets. It seamlessly transitions between groupings and facing. There is always just one dancer standing. This references Caileen's pedestrian walking towards the cyclorama when she realized that she was in a dream. All five dancers arrive in unison together with a reaching arm. They do a pebble toss to downstage right, then continue with the mishmash of material in their own timing. They arrive in unison and perform the pebble grab and reach material again. Lauren, Chantal, and Jessalyn run to the lunge. Caileen and Liisa maintain the reach. All dancers run for a second lunge, but instead of lunging, the 'sisters' turn and repeat the reach. Everyone runs, Lauren returns to a lunge, Jessalyn and Chantal exit stage right and stage left. Caileen and Liisa do the barrel roll jump lift from their sisters material. Lauren performs her material from the 'rock' location on stage left, while the 'sisters' dance their 'stone house' location material in unison on stage right. Jessalyn and Chantal return to the stage and join the 'sisters' to create a square around the 'stoiyteller' at centre stage. The 'storyteller' does the storytelling gesture phrase. Chantal and Jessalyn exit. The 'sisters' and 'storyteller' continue with their respective phrases as if taken out of pause mode. Liisa turns and runs to the 'storyteller' who grabs her hand and spins her back to Caileen. Caileen grabs Liisa's hand, and the 'sisters' pull spin until Caileen is released towards the 'storyteller'. Caileen and the 'storyteller' do one pull spin, and Caileen is flung back to Liisa She walks past Liisa, and walks into an orb of video downstage right. The stage and video fade to black. This is the end of the work. I purposely didn't include any video projections (except for the very last moments) because I didn't need them to tell the story. The oscillation between the digital and live worlds throughout the work made it possible to arrive at this live section where the reality of the video world was accepted; however, this couldn't be achieved without the intermedial codependency of the mediums. The final moment with Caileen standing inside the video projection signify that she knows it is a dream, but we don't see her make a choice about whether to stay dreaming, or to wake up. This is left unsaid.