One Month Recap..... I can barely breath and full of breath!

One month in and I can't believe it! I still keep thinking that this is a creative retreat that will end soon, much like my previous recent patterns for professional development, but instead 15 more amazing months await me.

I am taking 26 credit hours this semester, that's 9 courses plus my teaching on top of that. I am visiting two campuses a day for a total of 4 campuses per week. I didn't realize how a la carte my course selection could be and I am really taking advantage of the  Five Colleges Dance Department set-up.

Good thing I brought my car. There is a free bus service between all the campuses that range from 10-20 mins away from each other , but instead I have been using my car to get to my teaching load on time and for a chance to listen to my CBC podcasts!!  Can't live without my daily CBC hit, I might lose my Canadian edge. My schedule is definitely full, but luckily even more inspiring.

My theory courses consist of two grad seminar classes:

• Literature and History of Dance -a research methods and writing course in preparation for my summer paper and end thesis.

• Music and Dance- a theory and studio based course led by Mike Vargas. In this class we draw from the text Audio Culture- Readings in Modern Music. The text is full of inspiring readings about music trends, movements, and composition theory. We then take the base of each text and apply it too the body and dance composition. This Friday morning class is an excellent way to end my week, so far we've had pots and pants in the room, tied ourselves all together, and had guest artist Janet Feder who plays and composes for "prepared guitar."

In the studio, on my feet running, I am taking two technique classes and one creation/repertory class, dancing minimum three hours a day plus my teaching days.

Crew House Dance Studio

Gardens at Smith

I am taking technique from the lovely Angie Hauser, faculty member at Smith, who also dances for Bebe Miller. Angie is premiering a big piece with Bebe Miller called "Tracing History" this weekend at Ohio State University. Even in her busy schedule she took a few moments to skype into our class and introduce us to the production team!

On the Amherst campus I am taking technique with Paul Matteson and his repertory class on the Mount Hoyloke campus. Paul danced with Bill T Jones for many years and now holds a joint faculty position with Amherst and MHC. I am really enjoying his class, Paul has really soft, spongy and buoyant joints and way of moving. I am beginning to feel the effects on my plie and release in my ankle joints. The piece we are working on is investigating soft collisions and layering gestures and people. Some days I think I should be wearing a hockey helmet (in true Canadian fashion) for the amount of times someone is jumping over my head, but we magically bounce around and through each other like in bouncy castle or on the clouds.

Scott Dance Studio

Scott Dance Studio Entrance

Later on in the semester I am taking part in the creative residency with guest artist Colleen Thomas. Colleen is a New York based dancer/chroeographer and performing artist. She too also danced with Bebe Miller and Bill T Jones, along with Nina Wiener Dance, Donald Byrd and Kevin Wynn and now directs her own company Colleen Thomas Dance.

My other courses are:
1st Year Performance, Crew Assignment, Creative Process (where I am making a solo).
More to come on these later..... :)

Grad Office in the Green Box

In the teaching department, I am teaching contact improvisation at Hampshire College and am the TA for Intermediate Composition with Angie Hauser on the Smith campus.  I am really enjoying the teaching aspect and love the groups of students that I am working with. Contact has been particularly enriching and I have gained a lot from developing an arc for the class, quantifying my shared weight knowledge (in this formal manner but keeping creativity and process at the forefront,) and delivering interesting readings for the students to learn more about the CI form.

I could say more, and more, and more, and this has only been month one!

I am surrounded by so many inspiring improvisors (Chris Aiken, Angie and Mike Vargas, etc.) that my creative edge and the creative edge of the room is always being tested, tapped and tweaked. The many readings and amazing performing arts library complete with rich video and audio streaming resources, the landscape and the people. I am truly blessed to be here and looking forward to the months ahead!

Smith starts and away I go

Young and old, excited and bewildered, relieved and uncertain.... I am back in school. 

An empty studio awaits me,

 

 The work of many inspiring artists around me infuses my blood stream and gets my pulse going,

 

It begins and here is where I will share my stories, thoughts, and fears.....

A conversastion to be had: is it the medium or the message?

As an artist using technology in my choreographic practice, I am curious about the puzzled duality present in the Sunday Nov 6th posting of Arts East.

In my years of collaborating with multi-media artists, I am often faced with the same curiosity and skepticism found in this blog posting, a reaction that is quite synonymous with the phrase “dance and technology.”

The dichotomy is of interest to me, especially when the skepticism is coming from the public, who themselves don’t even acknowledge their own level of dependency and possible addiction to technology that exists in their own lives. Whereas the curiosity may emerge from a deeper level, that subconscious guilt knowing that we are all users which gives the public permission to carry the “ok… well show me what you got” attitude.

As an artist, I don’t feel limited at all by my use of technology or feel that I have to sacrifice my vision, otherwise why would I use it? An arabesque found in the ballet vocabulary doesn’t serve my message, so I choose not to dedicate my time to this particular use of form. The body can only do so much, just as a painter only has so many colours.



I am not dependent on a computer programmer, I collaborate with multi-media artist, electronic-acoustic composers, and with sculpture and installation artists because I don’t expect to be an expert of it all. And in fact it is the true essences of collaboration that leads my art practice to be rich and full of possibility. I choose to dialogue, exchange vocabulary and question the task at hand. This exchange of intellectual thought and human-to-human contact is where the richness of my work is developed. Especially when apposed to the alternative -being in the dance studio alone creating some moves to do.

In a have-based society the medium can easily become the message, and in fact is often the case in our daily life. We post, we update, we email, we share links, the list is endless but what are we really saying?

It is true and undeniable that technology is the way of the world right now. Data bytes of the information age, is the new industrial steam.

So isn’t my job as an artist to ensure that the medium is serving the message? and isn’t this what you the audience should be asking as well?


Photo Credit: Chris Randle, Taking your Experience for Mine by Sara Coffin

your experience is now mine and my experience is yours to ponder

The international dance day message by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker is quite relevant to the questions I have been researching:

"People have always danced to celebrate the crucial moments of life and our bodies carry the memory of all the possible human experiences.

We carry the world in our bodies"



I fully believe, live and understand this statement. I fear the shift in living further and further away from our body will have greater impact than we can ever actually measure. It is this measure we should not look for, but instead fight to stay in the lived and shared experience.

Happy International Dance Day, make sure you skip, jump and leap tomorrow... I know I will be.


taking your experience for mine,
opens Friday April 29th, International Dance Day
at the Scotiabank Dance Centre at 8pm. Tickets available on Ticketstonight.ca
Join Me!




Photos top to bottom by Chris Randle, Chris Randle, Andrew Hawryshkewich, Andrew Hawryshkewich

Lights Camera Action

Finding Balance

If you push something far enough, something will have to give.

Here was our day in the theatre today:

Meghan and Jacinte got their tongues tied for the beginning and their eyes crossed trying to figure out their spacing for the ending.

Sock Talk on Friday will have a punctuation.

Jacinte and I wished we had a make-up app for our impromptu squeezed in interview with Radio CBC.

Andrew ran across town with a projector on his back, trying to find the right cord.

In lieu of throwing a projector out the window, I threw myself around the studio.

When I left the theatre today, nature pulled me out of my narrow focus with a double rainbow. Thank-you Nature.

Check, Check, Check - can you get through your list?

This is the 1 week count down!! Yikes and Yahoo!!

Much like life we are sorting it all out and ready to move into the big black server box.

In this process I have been experimenting with task-base choreography, structures and scores. Pictured above are Jacinte Armstrong, Julia Carr and Meghan Goodman busy sorting out their score (Amanda Sheather is rocking it along side, just outside the frame). Each of the dancers have created a specific list of actions to get through and worlds to express them in. It is a trip to watch their minds and movements sync. The mind-body connection is the greatest machine to celebrate!

Thanks to my multimedia designer Andrew Hawryshkewich, who can run 3 laptops, 3 projectors, and a shit load of cables and find the time to take pictures to capture it all! Designer extraordinaire has invented is own choreography!

Dirty Data

"...If the Internet was a country, it would rank fifth in the amount of energy consumed, just behind Japan and Russia, according to the report...."

The longer I avert my eyes from the keys, the deeper the truth on consequence is revealed. Not only does digital over-use have social impact, that in my opinion is silently alerting our behavior and ability to connect. The opposite of the products main selling feature, but our digital debris has environmental ramifications as well.

An activity that is considered fun and games or attempts to make our lives easier is more complicated than we think.


Read the full article from CNN Tech here

Adding more data files to the pot!

I love my job and the funny little details that creep up! Even within the pressure of getting the show ready for production week I learned a new word.... well 3 actually, including the series of ramifications that go with them. Never a dull moment.

Unfortunately I can't share my new little jewel of knowledge with you, its a secret. However, you will defiantly see it in the piece, it has found its way in. Really the little data set was already built into the structure but today it surfaced to my attention!

Let's just hope it doesn't become a virus and turn into a whole other organism....

Give me your minute by minute....for a lifetime.

Obituaries are a thing of the past. Now, when we leave this earth the 50 words in the local paper seems insignificant. Strangely, our impact is now measured in the number of Google hits and digital traces we leave behind.

We all know the real reason facebook exists is that it fulfills our desire to snoop and attach meaning. How many times did you face-creep a photo album and attach your own narrative to your "friend's" life?

The first date is usually preceded by the google snoop, just to find out a bit more before going face to face.

Is our reassurance for existence shifting from accumulation of experience and memory into the number digital artifacts we can attach to our name.

me in numbers: 2,010,000 search results, 165,000 images, 103 videos and 168 tagged face book photos.



Photos here: Julia Carr and Amanda Sheather (primary focus) at 7mins in with Jacinte Armstrong in-crouching at 11mins.