dance (246)
Photo: Amelia by LaLaLa Human Steps (c)
Where does your interest in technology come from in your life? You teach contact dance, yoga, zazen, but you are hooked up to computing, too… People usually have wrong perception that those two can not get along…MBS: I have a background in psychology and dance. I came from Venezuela to study psychology. And psychology was really drown to cognitive science. People told me: OK technology, but you should be a dance therapist! bla bla bla… and I said: NO. I kind of liked this interesting study of perceptions, minds, you know. I’m very drown by materialist paradox of understanding humans. And then I was at the same interested in understanding the complexity of cultures. As being a dancer for a long time, I was reflecting myself officially as a dancer, but what I wanted to do was psychology and at the same time dance.So, I met David Zambrano, who’s Venezuelan and he lives now in Amsterdam. He is improviser and he also developed his own techniques, etc. I’ve met him in Venezuela at the Festival de Danza Postmoderna – he founded that festival. He brought there dancers like Nancy Stark Smith, Lisa Nelson, you name it… Incredible people! Suddenly, I was then in my apartment, and these people were dancing in my country. And I had a facility to see some kind of kernel about this very interesting motions of embodiment. It was not just about how to dance; it was really a philosophical shift that was implying the new way of improvising, trying to compose the real meaning of improvising. They had to reformulate the common parallels of understanding their bodies. So, I kind of saw that and I was interested in this kind of informal research, trying to see what is a cognitive model.Cyber Girl by Fausto de Martini (c)
Then you moved to USA to study?MBS: So, for that reason I moved to New York in 1994. Then I started to really study improvisation, and I started to explore it from the same basis as people from virtual reality. I was interested in how people from virtual reality see the embodiment parallels. Then I start perceiving the same common theoretical lineage was practically between Lisa Nelson and people who developed the theoretical practice of contact improvisation; and people who were working with virtual reality.I started writing about this, and I was invited on psychology conference on consciousness in Tulsa. And there I met people from CaiA+STAR – Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts and Roy Ascott. He was this amazing person to me and he said to me: you know, there is actually a way of putting these things together as a research for people who want to work with dance and technology. It was in 1999, and then from this world of improvisation I started to study notions of real time, composition. And then computers and computation became very important part of the investigation. After that I applied and entered to The Advanced Computing Center for Arts and Design at the Ohio University.Photo: from Moebius Strip by Gilles Jobin (c)
And this is how a dancer and psychologist became tainted with virus called technology…MBS: Technology has always been the umbrella to understanding practically our minds in practices. Then I learned programming – BASIC, Actionscript, etc. After that it was a progression for me when I moved back to New York and started Dance-Tech. I’m normally teaching a lot abroad and I’m doing a lot seminars.You know, when I realized that websites are not static, that was for me the coolest thing in the world (laughs). They were beautiful and animated. I mean, you put something and then it started suddenly to move. That was for me: Wow! What we have been waiting?! It’s almost connected and self organized intelligence that is about an interaction itself, that creates a kind of social improvisation. And then, I practically switched and created this interest in social software. That is a little bit of a technological story, but I’m not an original native of the Internet (laughs)…Oh, I see… (laughs)Keyboard Bag by Joao Sabino (c)
I like the idea that we are all becoming rather multi-functional these days, we all have to be skilled in many disciplines…MBS: …or at least to have a literacy, because the notions of literacy are different now. For instance, if you have an internet native, that’s somebody younger then eighteen. I taught a workshop with teenagers in New York; and I was literally taught by some of the students. This literacy became a part of their set of social life. That is amazing, that move from text to real interaction. They can speak and they can take from these sets of knowledge. When we talk about gaming, that is a totally different involvement, then there are big changes in cognitive apparatus. Different understanding of different realities; faces that have previous faces, you know. It’s very interesting how artist use this Tech world.Then my interest evolved into this topical fields of dance and new media art. Now, I find very powerful researching how these technologies are allowing these generations of knowledge distribution in the world, in a way that is totally different from publishing generation.Photo: Ken Stelarc (c)
Several months ago Ray Baughman presented ‘a new type of muscle that dramatically outperforms biological ones in nearly every way’ as he says. What is your opinion on nanotechnology and its soon use in every day practice?MBS: I would say there would be degrees of experimentation, degrees of assimilation of the technology. You will see a stage of development. Now, you see it more practically: wires, connections, light. You need different people to connect all this. There are technologies that are progressive now in the medical establishment. It’s not a big deal if people are using Prosac, but to understand why Prosac works is literally the same principle to understand why caffeine works. When people are coming to Starbucks, there are these huge mechanism of drug distribution – caffeine. The principle is the same. Caffeine can be monitored as a certain trigger for certain mood changes, you know. Why I’m saying this?! We are evolving a really, really important ‘Know-How’ of who we are; and how we generate technologies and we have agencies in unthinkable areas of our existence, you know. From Botox and plastic surgeries to genetic engineering and laproscopic surgery. Everybody can use it. Even if dancers would injecting grow hormone in their muscles in order to pump them up, we are ready to increase hipper design, because we have increased agencies.I mean, when you see bodies from dancers in 1973 and dancers now. I mean the difference is incredible. Just because they use different knowledge to train their bodies. At the other hand, many different techniques for dancers are now practically regular in every gym.People are using even different chemical substances, and that’s a fact. I’m not moralistic about it. That’s a fact and it actually happens. Today we have even different metabolism, that’s also a medical fact. That’s dance and technology. In the level of research, I hope (laughs).Photo: Chunky Move (c)
This research aspect is a crucial part of your approaches to work…MBS: That is something very important to me, that dance and technology is not going to be just researching about what artist dressed or something. This field is actually about unstable embody humaness. Not only about actions and how we have these really intense performative scope that I hope we can actually research this field sometimes in a very, very ethnographic, anthropological way. That we can actually see important things, for instance in urban dances. Sometimes different from digital, we can see relation to popular culture, too. There are many performances now inspired by Manga comics. It doesn’t have to be obviously a dance with the video, you know. These differences, that’s what I would like to see.Sciam Special Robotics (c)
How the mind is changing in relation to digital? You connected in your work digital spheres with essential human body… All movements and motions are coming from our brain… We can ignore now the fact that digital world is making a sort of a aggression, but also it is the most ‘imaginative thing’ that happened till now in human history…MBS: Yeah! Digitality has allowed to render realities that have a real of plasticity. Our minds are the most plastic, and when we say our minds, we say our body minds. It’s interesting to see how our plasticity increased because we can imagine things. Literally, we need to investigate how humans imagine, how humans create reality. It doesn’t belong only to the realm of the digital. The digital is only one deployment of technological feedback. You know, some people say: Yeah, computers are damaging this and that… .But reading has a very specific embodiment and writing has very specific embodiment, too. You have to develop certain cognitive skills. I think we should observe human embodiment even in the church. Because people are in a very intensive environment that create very immerse experience with sound. At the same time we can go in the cage with all these virtual feedbacks. Those things are possible also because of the design of technology and because we have bodies that we have. Sometimes is good to see this side of digitality and experiences. Because we live in this world of creations facilitated by different kinds of textuality, renderings. It’s a hyper designed world. It’s not about purity of experience.William Forsythe: Synchronous Objects (c)
Now, let’s get back to Dance-Tech! What was the initial trigger for starting Dance-tech?MBS: I was a part of dance and technology community for eight years, and at the same time I was doing these development of interactive platforms for other organizations. I kind of said: Well, this is what we need! The interesting thing is that people, so many network based artists are distributing their art in the world. I thought that it would be great to have an internet based platform that will allow you to do a synchronize collaboration. You know, to post and publish. So, I proposed this to the network of dance and technology related community; and we started a discussion. We talked about that are we ready, and so. And then I thought: OK, let’s just do it!In 2007 we launched a community and social network. It has a quite specific interest, you know, dance and technology. But it is far from this ‘dance&tech’ only community. It’s an independent project, self funded and I have to say that this development was wonderful to look at, increasing members and activities. That was really needed. But then I started to include also visual artists and VJ’s. I have an idea of interviewing people, because I live in the most useful place, in New York. Now it’s a great platform and our members are increasing every day. It’s great to see so many people gathered around dance and technology.Marlon, thanks a lot!(Originally published on Personal Cyber Botanica: www.lomodeedee.com)Photo: Robert Hylton Urban Classicism (c)
As a very young artist he was a member of many street art crews, for instance Bamboozle; then he decided to blast himself to the next level by studying contemporary dance at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance.In 1999 he founded Robert Hylton Urban Classicism which could be considered as a dance company, production crew and a training platform within whose Robert ‘transmits’ his knowledge and artistic vision.As a real ‘gimme some tunes’ artist he often collaborates with respectable DJs, among them also with Billy Biznizz - UK’s well known DJ, producer and remix-maestro who did some stuff for the House of Pain, Jade, N.W.A, 4Hero and Mark Morrison.Robert Hylton performed at many international festivals either as a solo dancer either with his own crew. He was a member / guest performer of several dance companies, such as: Jonzi D, JazzXchange and Phoenix Dance. Hylton is also well known for his hip hop/art/educational movies: Urban Classicism South Side, Two Sugars with My Hip Hop please…, The Real Thing, Frames, Urban Classicism, Urban Voodoo, Jaffaman, Simmetry, etc.This spring he spent some time in Zagreb (Croatia) with b-girls and b-boys from the School for Contemporary Dance ‘Ana Maletic’ and the local company What Evaa in order to work with them… they successfully presented their skills almost two months ago where else but on the street…Photo: Robert Hylton Urban Classicism (c)
I took few minutes of his time to chat a little bit with him at Dance Week Festival, and here is some stuff on street art from Jaffaman, ops… Robert Hylton’s perspective…Yo, Robert! The blood in your veins is the blood of a street artist, somebody artistically raised on asphalt with urban background… those are your foundations… what sort of ‘switch’ has happened when you decided to accept other forms of expressiveness?R: I think I’m a dance junkie, you know. The challenge of learning to dance was good. Culturally, hip hop is in my heart and my brain. Contemporary as well, it’s just a part of dance and I found that I was able to learn it, so I kept it, but I always returned. I mean, I never left hip hop and it was always there. But I enjoy both paths and that’s why I bring to the next generations of contemporary dancers discipline and how to work in the studio. So, fortunate I’m able to kind of help other people. If they just wanna stay hip hop - often come straight hip hop dancers to work with me; but when you are in a rehearsal studio and you make them work, there has to be some rules.Photo: Robert Hylton Urban Classicism (c)
It’s obviously that you take care a lot about soundz in your artwork… not just ‘gimme some beatz and tunez’ attitude… but a lot of classics, down tempo, trip hop, ambient… you mix it all… seems like they are all equal in your choreographic language? Basically, how do you treat sounds in your work?R: If I like it, I’m drawn to it. I think, even with hip-hop music… when hip-hop first came through, it was an amalgamation of many many different sounds. There was no formula, it was whatever the DJ thought could work for the crowd and listen to. Now, it’s a formula. It’s a straight-forward beat, and it loses its reliance it has back then. So, specifically for this project, before I came, because I didn’t know anyone, I just put a lot of different types of music in my computer and then when I met everyone I just thought: Well, this music makes a language to particular people to keep them in the comfort zone. And I think the music ballet is an important part of dance. If I like it doesn’t matter what it sounds like as long we dance to the music, whether it’s classical or ambient, as long it helps to those textures more then anything else.Photo: Robert Hylton Urban Classicism (c)
How did you manage to get the street vibe in your choreographies to fit in your style to theatre stage? Do you even think about that? Does it concern you at all?R: I think it’s a part of a natural evolution. Hip hop is young, about 35 years in its growth from the first wave in the seventies, and then in the eighties it was like the big media hustle, now it’s defined like: who the body- architect is; what the vocabulary is; what the history is and I think that’s a rich culture. Self-expression, inventiveness and all this things. So, I think that now there are more tools and it’s a combat to any kind of cultural birocracy in a way of policy. So, like ballet was a peasant dance, was a folk dance when it started. Hip hop is now a folk dance that is changing. You know, it’s a stage of a natural evolution at the moment. Now teachers require knowing the name of every single move in hip hop like in ballet. When you know the name of every move, then you know what the vocabulary is. Therefore, you are building something. It becomes a dance that grows with a form and structure, now excuse to the old ways of thinking.Photo: Robert Hylton Urban Classicism (c)
You run workshops and dance classes all around the planet. What do you want to accomplish with your dance classes?R: It’s an experience of teaching and developing. Again, wherever I was: New Zealand, Croatia, Indonesia, etc. going with the basic knowledge and vocabulary with the intention to get everyone to dance, to challenge everyone. It’s inside of me and it’s the challenge that I like and it’s always very successful. Then, this education challenge is here… And this is what it takes for me to get on stage, basically. When you come with the honesty, all the things you use are the fundamentals of dance and the experimentation. When people don’t know the fundamentals of dance I would teach them fundamentals of dance. I would challenge them with experimentation. My intention is, wherever they are, to try to push them further.You get the satisfaction from it…R: Yeah, I think I get the satisfaction from it because the more they push themselves forward the more environment in the culture grows, the more it looks to be growing up, the more looks to be organized and I think it just helps the general development of dance, whether it’s fusion, contemporary, hip hop or whatever is hip hop in it’s purest form.Photo: Robert Hylton Urban Classicism (c)
What do you think about Banksy, the graffiti artist… you probably know that some people are buying his artworks for a lot of bucks, an artwork that essentially belongs to the street and to all people?R: Yeah, I mean Banksy is a graffiti artist in a graffiti sense; he is not necessarily from hip hop background and all that stories. He is very clever, great political references and he does a great job. Banksy is definitely an outlaw, like the older graffiti artists were, when nobody knows who he is - in that sense is hip hop; and he takes big risks and gets away with it. But he is also a businessman. I know his manager; he is a good friend of mine.It’s a good marketing…R: Yeah, it’s a good marketing as long he keep that outlaw that it’s all business and that street artist can be on that level. I think, back again to dancers, that hip hop performers even when they know they wanna be b-boys, they have to learn some business; which is a part of organization when you are professional: contacts, business negotiating and all this. It takes them away from not just dancing on the street. Banksy was not just painting on the walls, he has books out, and his work is in art galleries. If his work is not in the gallery he will sneak by himself and put it there (laughs).Robert, TNX a lot!This interview was originally published on Personal Cyber Botanica: www.lomodeedee.com)
William Forsythe: Synchronous Objects (c)
Marlon Barrios Solano’s biography is fulfilled with collaborative artists, such as: Susan Marshal, Lynn Shapiro, Bill Young, Merian Soto, Dean Moos, Philip Glass, Eric Friedlander, John Zorn…At the moment he works as an instructor of interactive technology for performance, consultant on cognitive and new media architectures. Marlon holds MA in Dance and Technology (Ohio University), and regularly gives lectures and workshops internationally.He was also the main suspect for an amazing thing that happened recently in dance spheres, and that was promotion of William Forsythe’s data visualization project Synchronous Objects (I will blog about it soon, promise!). Marlon is now at residency programme in Gilles Jobin’s dance nest in Switzerland.The network is a great example what you can do with personal engagement, vibrant ideas and you can see how important is to understand the rules of social networking on the web these days. Since very recent I’ve became an associate blogger for this amazing community of artists and researchers…Photo: Chunky Move (c)
Therefore, he’s here today for a talk on dance… technology… new media art… scientific behavioral approaches to body and movements…Hi Marlon! What do you think how dance scene started to change in the context of technology. What are your thoughts on what was driving these changes?MBS: Well, I will tell you what my approach is. Someone asked me a week ago: Marlon, do you think you should change the name of Dance-tech as such, you know, dance and technology world is disappearing as such, right? I’m aware of a lot of changes that are happening in the field and in itself.I have a very grow understanding of the relationship of the embody practices with social technological environment meaning from science to technology. In that way, a part of the agenda of the project is trying to see, put forward or to figure these sometimes very obvious connections between dance approaches and practices with technologies of the time.And not only the technologies of the time; but also philosophical, epistemological and scientific world use that exist parallel in the spectrum in certain time.Where would you place new media in this relation with bodily aspects?MBS: With all this I said, I’ve tried to set and connect training practices, especially, how we understand the process, creative process. How we understand time and relationship with proposition and design. It has been always related with technological proportions…In that way, I think that dance and technology have always been related to digital technology. I believe that in most of the embody practices that we call dance, there is a substrata, there is normally this relation to technology of the time. I think it’s very important to be aware that dance and new media are, most recent, in interrelation that are trying to understand the relationship of bodies with technologies of the time. In this case we are using new media. But, perhaps the principles are the same; you know what I mean, because our body has been evolved with the practices. So, I think that it’s important to see what is a cognitive connection that we have – us, human creatures. And how it has allowed us to be, kind of, related with the tool making and technique making.So, Techne is for me the most important. Techne is a skill, you know, it translates the skills instead the tool. That is something really interesting for me. You know, I came from the tradition and I place myself in the tradition also: dance, influenced by productive movement, deconstruction on what movement is, what dance is.Photo: AP Photo Japan (c) taken from NG
How would you relate this to the development that is happening in robotics, Artificial Intelligence…MBS: I think that one of the most interesting thing that is happening now is in robotics. There is a certain kind of lineage of robotics science, and mostly certain lineage of the Artificial Intelligence that is not so ’social architecture oriented’, but is investigating intelligence of the biological systems. So, it creates totally different parallels of understanding the intelligence. I think that ‘digital’ is in a recursive loop to influence dance practices.I would say for so many instances, what we call new media or technology, that if we have to think about it – the actual manifestation of behavioural media, which is dance in a way, is there in robotics too. Or, I would say, like I called ‘Dance-Tech – interdisciplinary explorations on the performance in motion’, it would be really interesting to understand the phenomena of motion.In dance we can think, you know, that there is a motion; then a motion picture – there is motion in the media, there is motion in robotic device… At the same time we have to understand a lot ourselves, to understand how we perceive motion. We have agencies for a certain kinds of motion. I think that digital technology is allowing a lot of really interesting simulations, really interesting feedbacks.Dance scene is now using gadgets for playing in order to express themselves…MBS: The one that made practically big WOW in the nineties was the gestural console media. Let’s say, someone or a performer were able to perform a certain kind of movement and immediately were able to map certain consequences or certain repercussions, or reactions of the media. So, that is right now practically given, we have kids playing, there are a lot of video games with video tracking, etc. Yeah, I think that is very interesting what artists are doing itself or as result of interesting collaborations. But at the same time these extremely forces are emerging jobs because technologies are available to practically everybody.…and it’s free!MB: Yeah, that is also very important factor, affordability of technology right now. They are creating autonomies of landscape. Affordability and accessibility of modern tools and then open source.Something that you were able to do with maps in eight years ago now you have more approachable tools and software that can literally get to the community and accessing it, or make a processing simpler. Also development of Macintosh computers, I mean at the beginning they were expensive, they still are. But it created a completely new landscape for experimentators that were reserved only for certain formal institutions.That’s how dance technologies started, from the field of universities. Because universities were getting these big grants and they were the only one able to have these labs. ‘Motion capture’ is something that is still developing within this complex. You know, motion capture still belong to the ground of formalized researchers and organizations that have resources. Video tracking and the use of movement tracking or multi-tracking recognition are much more available and affordable technologies.IMCT Projects, The Dance Technology Project (1999)
But the comprehension of new media art also helped a bit to this situation…MBS: So, there are all these factors, you know, I think that media art is now much more understood, it’s a well understanding form, I think. Now is practically a common place to have a video in many performances, so no one is thinking that it’s such odd thing to have a virtual character or so. You know, even interactivity as such has lost interest for some people. But, there are people who are doing interesting researches in the field.So, it’s a different landscape now, and there is a lot of choreographers not being specific on the dance floor which are doing technological experiments and they are calling themselves in terms of ‘dance and technology’. They are just inspired by these kind of technologies and tools. And that is very interesting thing, because it’s mostly self-reflective. For years technologies were divided, and now they are existing and co-relating parallel. Now, we can say easily: Yeah, we can do that!Read the second part: Interview with Marlon Barrios Solano: On Dance-Tech and dance embodiment, part ll(Originally published on Personal Cyber Botanica: www.lomodeedee.com)Photo: originally uploaded by skipling (c)
Jan Fabre introduced his latest dance piece Another Sleepy Dusty Delta Day with remarkable Croatian performer Ivana Jozic at the World Theatre Festival in Zagreb. It’s created as a solo piece which was inspired by a classic and cult song from the sixties ‘Ode to Billy Joe’ by Bobby Gentry.As Theatre Troubleyn announces it with the following wordz: ‘Ode to Billy Joe tells the tale of a suicide. A teenage girl is having dinner with her family. Her mother announces that Billy Joe jumped off a bridge to his death. While the family members dish up memories of Billy Joe, discuss day-to-day worries and pass the food, the mother happens to notice that her daughter has lost her appetite. Gradually, and against this backdrop, curiosity about the untold part of the story gets the upper hand. What did the young teenage girl and Billy Joe throw off the bridge together? Were they secretly seeing one another?Photo: Theatre Troubleyn (c)
A swelteringly hot, dusty kind of day. A story about loving and letting go, about jumping into the endless unknown.Jan Fabre opted to write “Another Sleepy Dusty Delta Day” in the form of a letter from a man to his beloved. The outcome is a truly personal text, which emphasizes the right to dispose of one’s own life, specifically the end of one’s life. A text that bears witness to empathy and respect for live, love and death.’Mr. Fabre kindly gave me rather comprehensive interview on Sunday, fulfilled with his thoughts on arts… ideas… processes…Your two last dance pieces ‘Requiem für eine Metamorphose’ and ‘Another Sleepy Dusty Delta Day’ are dealing very directly with the issue of death? It is a kind of a brutal but poetic voyage based on your personal artistic and life journey? Death as real and surreal fact… What have you learned from the whole process?JF: As an artist: visual artist, writer and director being busy with this work that I’m doing, being busy with the beauty is always a preparation for saying goodbye; it’s always a preparation for dying. So, it’s an ongoing process I think…. You know, the reason I create is, because probably I do not understand well the outside world. Because I’m curios to understand the outside world, I’m researching and creating, asking questions and sometimes giving to myself answers.Photo: JP Stoop (c)
You have an organic relation with artists you collaborate with… You have explained your technique in the book. There is no question that you always try to explore the edges of human physical endurance, but never only as a technique but as a specific theatre language? How did you achieve such devotion from your performers? They are vulnerable and strong at the same time…JF: It also came out over the thirty years that I’m busy. It’s worth to read ‘Corpus’, a book with my working methods and exercises. I’ve developed a kind of guiding line for actors and dancers through different exercises. So, let’s say it’s about the experience that I know what people have to go through, to reach something… what I call biological acting. It’s a combination of classical acting and the idea of what performers have to be; and this creates a kind of biological acting. It’s a research of knowing how your body works in different ways, particularly in a biological way: to know how the blood is pumping, how the heart is pumping, how the livers are reacting, how the kidneys are reacting. Because, sometimes we think it’s emotions, but it’s only about a chemical reactions. By being aware of these chemical reactions and by being an actor or dancer we can play with it.They interfere and it’s strange that people don’t except it as something logical…JF: Yes, it’s basically logical, but many people, maybe 99% of all people are not aware of this. They are not busy with it. (laughs)Unfortunately, yeah. (laughs)JF: They think that emotions are something from the outside world. No, emotions are happening inside of you, not outside of you.Photo: andrefromont/fernardomort (cc)
Your fascination with insects was the initial drive for many of your sculptures and choreographies. I like your idea that insects are the oldest computers on the planet. Can you please tell me what lies behind the whole story?JF: I mean, look as for example a scarab beetle and look human beings: in the 40 thousand millions of years we have developed and changed a lot; and scarab beetles almost didn’t change. So, it means that they had a kind of intelligence long before us. They were, for example, first warriors; the first chemical warriors in the world were the scarab beetles. They contain an old knowledge that we have even lost in our development. So, that’s the reason why I call them the oldest computers, the oldest memory in the world. Don’t forget we are in that sense quite vulnerable; because we live in our inner skeleton and scarab beetles live in their outer skeleton. Scarab beetles survived a lot of catastrophes on the planet that we could not survive. I think animals are the best doctors and philosophers in the world. We still have to study them well to give ourselves again progress.The idea of the metamorphosis takes a significant place in your work… either your personal metamorphosis… performers’ metamorphosis … and the audience feels like being a part of an essentially changing process…JF: I hope so! Only what you can wish as an artist is that your work triggers ones mind, ones brain and by triggering the mind and brain a person or individual spectator changes. I mean, I hope that we artist, we can cure the wounds in the minds of the spectators. At the same time I hope I can do that. The spectator is sometimes like an animal, it is like an awaking its instincts, because through civilisation sometimes insects are very under control. Yes, as artist you hope that you can change people, you are looking their behaviour, their thinking, the way they feel their body. Yes, it’s a wish of me, yes! And I think it’s also an essentially strong wish of beauty.Photo: Iguana Jo (cc)
The architecture of space plays an important role in your installations and theatre artworkz…JF: People usually miss use the terms theatrical and theatre today. Theatrical is the point where you look things from. Theatrical can be used in installation or the way you present your sculptures, because you make public to look from an uptill distance or uptill points. Of course, in my theatre, I’m very aware about the theatrical aspects on how the public looks at things, the lines of looking and the definition of space. And of course, I do the same as visual artist, in the same way I create an exhibition. There is always a kind of mizanscene that I’m making. This is the link, but they are at the same time two different things, two different mediums.They each have their own dramaturgy and narration…JF: Yes, of course.Your carrier started in the fields of visual arts and performance art. You had a successful collaboration with Marina Abramovic at Palais de Tokyo in Paris four years ago. Abramovic is a performer also known for pushing the social boundaries … what was the initial hint for your collaboration?JF: It was her wish to work with me for a long time, it was her dream to do with me a kind of a duo performance; and it took me a couple of years to say yes, because she is a very strong artist, very good artist and I respect her. It needed time; we had met regularly in different cities: Antwerp, Amsterdam, Rome… So, it took us several years to really develop it. And it was nice because when I was a young artist I was influenced by her work, what she did in her performances. Later she came to see my stage works and she said that I influenced her. So, it was beautiful in a sense because we belong to two different generations, two different backgrounds. Different cultural backgrounds. But at the same time we made something beautiful. Because, I think we are two virgin warriors who believe in beauty. We do not believe in destruction of art. We believe in the force of art and the vulnerability of art. I think we are two artists who like warriors are trying to defend art. So, that connects us, I think. That was a topic of the performance we did.Photo: Gerard Rancinan (c)
You find drawings and dreams essential for the process of creating…JF: Yes! I’m working on different drawing projects for years. More then 25 years I’m putting my dreams on paper, but also for more then 25 years I’m making drawings from my blood. More then fifty years I’m making drawings of my own tears. I’m making drawings from my own sperm for more then ten years. So, it’s an ongoing research in drawing and research of human body.Read the rest of the interview on Personal Cyber Botanica: www.lomodeedee.comPhoto: Compagnie Jasmina (c)
Along with this line Hubert Pichot designed an experimental wearable sound device for dancer in order to give her a tool for generating soundz connected with her movements via bending wires and pick ups through accelerometers to computer and mixer at the end.Jasmina Prolic dances 'tuned on' with minimal, transcendental movements at the beginning, which grows up as the dramaturgical structures are growing too, into rhythmically more completed textures…Photo: Compagnie Jasmina (c)
The piece is fragmented into smaller parts which are developed through wordz / dialogues with a man ‘behind’ the ‘technological wall’ emanating himself through video installation and complex DIY electronic sound device letting different sounds to come out depending on dancer’s moves. It’s a kind of a sound mapping of their virtual communication based on practical physics (more precisely micro-kinetics) - her dancing.Photo: Compagnie Jasmina (c)
Although, the use of such devices could be constraining for the performer, seems like Hubert did a great job with his real-time sound device, Jasmina Prolic accepted it superbly as part of her body, mainly because it’s a communication tool between human being and entity of electronic nature, if you understand it banally.Prolic deploys a sort of micro-inquiring within her body narration and technique creating an artwork of emotional depth… She is questioning the issues of being emotional and physical attached via technology to another person, and the possibilities of having the same relation as if this person would be made of flash and blood…Because of choreographer’s intention to go further the whole story is not finishing with a pair of lovers running through the meadow into each others arms… But seems like this whole ‘wired’ love is functioning with some boundaries… which leads you to the point where, as a viewer, you can realize that lots of thingz in our lives turned out in some direction because of our previous expectations… Can we accept relations with ‘entities’ and being emotionally involved with… well, actually we already live this life without even perceiving it, or maybe we all like to live in certain oblivion…Photo: Compagnie Jasmina (c)
Jasmina Prolic is a Sarajevo ex-ballet girl on her ‘movable’ life journey, heavily ‘spiced’ with contemporary dance, in France… At the beginning of 90’s Jasmina was already an award winning ballet dancer and member of Sarajevo’s National Ballet Ensemble … but due to terrible thingz which started to happen in Bosnia at that time, she first found refuge in Zagreb, and then she entered at The National Superior Conservatoire of Dance and Music of Paris in order to study Contemporary Dance.Her graduation dance piece was her first solo work ‘Sarajevo, 25th of April 10 o’clock in the morning or Why?’. Jasmina Prolic has received Award for French Young Choreographers in 1999; she was a member of the Junior Ballet of the CNSMDP from 1996-97, which followed the residency - danceweber at DanceWeb Project within ImpulsTanz in Vienna in 1998. Artists she had collaborated with are: Jean Claude Gallota, Maguy Marin, Joachim Schlomer, Palle Granhoj, Gildas Zepffel, Gildas Bourdet, Balazs Gera, Maja Pavlovska, Szilard Mezei, Albert Markos, Henrik Jaspersen et Ko de Regt (Duo Resonante), Jérome Poret etc.Photo: Compagnie Jasmina (c)
Lucid choreographer Joseph Nadj invited her in 2002 to base her very own dance company in Orléans (France), which was initially a new trigger in her carrier, not just for her solo artworkz but for promoting younf dancers and companies from South Eastern Region… Jasmina Prolic is spending a lot of time on givin’ dance workshops and classes in this region…From 2007 she is an art consultant for Nomad Dance Academy regional network presenting the Bosnian organisation for contemporary dance Tanzelarija; and she have an active participating role in the Balkan Dance Network and IETM. She’s the organizer of ‘Choreographic Meetings of the Balkans’ dance event with the National Choreographic Centre of Orléans and National Scene of Orléans in France. Jasmina is artistic director of the First Bosnian Contemporary Dance Festival ZVRK in Sarajevo.Photo: Compagnie Jasmina (c)
After such a technical complex dance piece ‘Julie(t)- duet in absentia’ with a dancer immersed deeply in the theme, I couldn’t resist not inviting Jasmina for a small talk on her solo work… technology… about her challenges…about ZVRK … and all that stuff…Hi, Jasmina! Could you please tell me something about that how did you first get involved with technology? Something that actually can’t be controlled in a way you can control your own body and expressiveness…J: Hubert Pichot and I met while working together on the theatre production in February 2006. Then he introduced me with his technological stuff and expressed a wish to work with a dancer in order to create a live instrument!!! He said he would like to work on Romeo and Juliet by Prokofjev, but I replied that Romeo and Juliet that I think off are written by Shakespeare. In that sense I was ready to enter the adventure of exploration for a live instrument, not being interested in the love story, but in the conflict and all that destroyed love.Photo: Compagnie Jasmina (c)
Are you planning to work or develop the same working process within ‘Julie(t)- duet in absentia’ or some other future performance?J: The work with Juliet isn’t finished yet; we’re still developing and rethinking this piece. Maybe, if I will feel the urge, I’ll provoke something similar in some other project.In your opinion, what is the perspective of a human moveable body through dance in the context of technology?J: Well, there are so many things in that context that need to be discovered. It also depends a lot on what you want to express, in what direction you want to develop and what kind of message to send.Do you think that you can expand your possibilities as a dancer by using experimental performing devices, DIY tools, data sensors and so?J: These devices push you in some very different ways to use your body and to develop conscience about some still undiscovered parts and possibilities. But, they influence your style also.Photo: Compagnie Jasmina (c)
Josef Nadj has inspirited you with invitation to work and base your dance company in Orleans…J: I can only thank him for everything.What do you give to dancers on one side and learn from them on other side in your international classes?J: When I teach, first of all I give respect and get human quality. Sometimes, I learn everything from the beginning…What could you tell me about the development of dance scene at the moment in South Eastern Europe, in the European context?J: Although I am not completely familiar with the whole South-East European scene; dancers and choreographers that I do know can with confidence stand side by side in the European context.Photo: Compagnie Jasmina (c)
The first Bosnian Festival for Contemporary Dance took place in September in Sarajevo… That’s great news for young people willing to expand their experiences in the field of contemporary dance, but also for society and the city of Sarajevo in general… How do you see the future of the scene that will certainly emerge from it in ten, twenty years from now?J: Who could know how the scene will look like tomorrow, not to say in ten or twenty years! (laughs).I only hope that something has finally been moved. This first edition convinced us of the great need for this kind of events in the contemporary societies; so we can’t give up. Dance makes you free and gives you a chance for interaction. There are no limits and that is what we really need.In any case, it won’t be easy, but it never is in Bosnia and Herzegovina! ‘Nice and easy’ approach. And maybe the standing tomb-stones will revive through our bodies; they’ll become off petrified and therefore even nicer and stronger.Jasmina, thanks!p.s. Bosnia and Herzegovina is well known for archaeological sites of medieval tomb-stones.(This blog post was originally posted on Personal Cyber Botanica at www.lomodeedee.com)
