hmm. lots of things i want to write about but not sure what's an organizationally comprehensible order (is that completely redundant?) for it all.
well, let's start with adf stuff.
first, maguy marin. she's awesome. born in 1951 (funny she looks more than two years older than my parents, but maybe that's cuz my parents look younger to me--i don't think i really notice the difference in appearance from say when my mom was 40 to now) in toulouse to an andalousian father and madrilan mother who fled to france after the spanish war (the little i know about this war i learned from hemingway), so says my platinum silver program for the adf/scripps award.
these are my notes while watching the main piece they performed here on thursday and friday night. they also performed a piece tonight with four women in red to beethoven's grosse fugue op. 133, but first about the other piece.
beautiful curtains--long plastic ribbons from way high up down to the floor, of orange, yellow, grey, peet, mauve, pink, violet, salmon, beige, taupe...so nice to see people against these colors--they both stand out and blend in. like in those paintings of chuck close when he uses all the different colored dots to create real looking skin tones. guys in neat but worn pants, reminded me of poland guys or, what they were going for, latin american. button-downed shirts tucked in. leather shoes. girls in similar outfits but feminine style. one girl in red skirt and blouse with a little keyhole loop closure at the back of the neck. they enter and exit the stage through these curtains, creating all sorts of different movement patterns in the strands. the soundtrack was electronic droning feedback with variation of volume and quality of layering, for an hour. relentless yet very affecting. maguy told us afterwards that they actually created the dance without music, getting their very precise rhythm from a watch and each other. the core movement material of the dance is very natural walking, running, falling, rolling. it's extremely impressive and fascinating to watch, though, because of the in-tune-ness of the ensemble to each other, their shared rhythm, and the tension and separateness between each person while simultaneously being joined in this rhythm.
people not smiling, not laughing. with their emotions frozen, movement is highlighted as a manifestation of energy being used up, released, and for what? (in the movie about maguy's work that we saw tonight she talked about her most famous dance theater piece, based on the writings of samuel beckett, the meaning of his vision of the absurdity in human life--"we are here, and we are alive, without any apparent reason. we are born to continue living") but SURROUNDED BY BEAUTIFUL COLORS. beauty at the cost of? dragging off limp bodies. showers of light/ line-ups/ limp bodies. (at the talkback at the end of thursday's performance, maguy said "as human beings, as matter, what can we do? dance is a means to express what we have in us).
man walks in, jacket slung over his shoulder. goes out through center of "curtains."
two different men stand side by side--their eye contact arrests their movement.
2 men watch 1 woman--1 man leaves.
Person falls through curtains dead. and gets pulled out.
a girl falls through.
a guy falls through.
woman in red. she has a very strong almost masculine face.
running with gravity, using it for acceleration.
falling with gravity--a smooth splat.
the quick tick in the head/eyes when you notice someone.
how do you come through the curtains/ enter the social space?
aggression of 3 men on 1 woman. sound changes and she's allowed to walk out.
a group. a line of people walks directly in an arc and out the curtains with a swoosh.
a bunch of people come squiggling in/out on their butts, their backs to us.
simply, gently going through the curtains (solid blackness outside)
the tension in the standing body. verticality.
meditation in motion.
silent people dying. waste of lives. resisting impulse, holding back, not expressing.
women draped on the men. manipulating bodies--crushing them from standing to lying down. suspicion. stymied desire.
**metaphoric possibilities of the real-time momentum in movement to represent/understand something about time of social processes**
notes from video 'geological strata':
creating is like an endless excavation of layers like geologic strata--everything already exists--discover, uncover, reinvent.
using voice without using words--sounds, archaic language.
trying to create ensemble--a group living together.
speak about oneself without speaking about oneself--place your life in the wake of the lives of all the other people.
crossings. shared presences. try to reinvent social relationships.
these are my notes from the speech she gave tonight to accept the award:
she's been creating for 25 years. at the beginning of that time, dance was just gaining equal footing with the other arts. liberating dance from ties of submission to other arts. calling into question conventions that frame and order human life. not limiting particular peoples/ classes by conventions that dictate only certain limited ways of speaking or being. france for awhile was unwilling to look towards german expressionist art. following the faces of oppression in the world, not excepting the world being made for us. i don't want to be appeased. we must take responsibility for what occurs on the stage--it's a social space, not entertainment. how can one describe and confront the horror that takes place between people?
Maguy's masterclass (i watched because my name didn't get picked in the lottery):
(the box fans in open windows of the ark are turned off but they pick up the wind like pinwheels)
everyone sitting in a circle. one at a time, in order, turn to the person next to you and say 'my name is ___. what's your name?' really listen and really ask.
then, speak and ask across the circle, to someone who you've made eye contact with. make sure you've made a connection, that you both know.
everyone standing in a circle. say your name, but not at the same time as anyone else. if there is an overlap, begin again.
in partners, one person turns the other one over on the ground, allowing the rolling person to really feel their full relaxed weight--person on the floor, don't help--let the other person take care of you and find how your body wants to go.
when relaxed, then you can find your body's natural sequencing--what moves first (pelvis), second etc. , when you don't have lots of tension in the joints.
heaviest part the pelvis. move the pelvis and the knee drags after the back/chest. try to find how the body goes by itself.
Roll by yourself from center/pelvis. try to find a reason--just falling.
clapping rhythms, then walking on those rhythms across the room.
then, enter the circle in groups of four. as a group, try to establish your rhythm and improvise within it. you have to feel from inside the pulse that makes you be together, and be in tune to how the pulse shifts as the group continues.
one person at a time, walk in the door, to the center of the room, say 'my name is ___" to the people watching, and walk out the other side. neta pulvermacher's son, who is probably 9 or 10, walked across last.
hmm. i guess i only got to maguy. soon, eric franklin. everyone should get these little green swiss massage balls! they make all your muscles, organs, joints gurgle, oo, ee, ah.
one last thing. who needs stars when you've got lightning bugs? i was walking on a very dark road last night (i got lost getting back to my car) and it looked like stars were birthing and dying in split seconds all around me.
posted by Liza 22.6.03