Blogs

Hi dance-tech community!

programmed theatre lights by Fred Nicais
6 dmx motors with 6 meter articulated origami mobile screen by Peter Maschke
5 video projectors
5 computers on network
max msp
Live and max msp and interactive sound by Fred Braye, recorded composition George de Decker
unity
syphon
madmapper
osc
dlight
specialized softs : EBA effects sequencer/editor, Video Malaxer by Yacine Sebti
2 custom 9 variable wireless motion bracelets with custom software by Vincent Paesmans
3 kinect cameras
IDQ photon detector
webcam
prepared animations, graphics and video files by Lucas Racasse and Unity 3D animations by Robin Yerles
costume by Heidi Erhardt
dance by Bud Blumenthal
and
a
candle

The Paris based interdisciplinary artist  and sustainability specialist Jeanne Bloch was awarded the dance-tech AIR Berlin for the month of FEBRUARY 2014.

Congratulations!

This is her page  in dance-tech.net

http://www.dance-tech.net/profile/JeanneBloch

During her residency she will work at the beautiful  Lake Studios Berlin next February she will work on her project Augmented Dance by light: A research on e-textile and dance

During her Dance-Tech/Lake Studio Residency, she will continue her research on e-textile and dance with the help of Pauline Vierne,http://www.dance-tech.net/profile/PAULINEVIERNE.

By using different techniques to light the body space, she creates a material that is neither light neither movement but can exist only by the combination of both.

"Work at the Lake Studios will help me create a vocabulary based on movement and light. As an outcome of this work, I will design a framework for a 4D dance/light class!!".

This research is part of TAFO#2 - The Temple Had Oblique Window. A dance performance that discuss today's role of climate change discourse.

http://jeannebloch.com/work-in-progress

Jeanne Bloch is an interdisciplinary artist using her mixed background as a choreographer-artist and sustainability specialist. Jeanne worked on issues such as fair trade, child labor, sustainable consumption and global warming…Issues that drive her artistic work as well.

In December 2009, she started at the occasion of the Copenhagen Summit an ongoing artistic project: “The Man with a Dove” and was also a member of the Climate Sustainability Platform at COP15. In the same time, she initiated Twice Out of Paradise, a research program integrating ecological experimentation and choreographic creation, which benefited from a residency “d’essai” at the Paris based cultural center,104. In 2012, she organized in collaboration with the artist Prue Lang a workshop on ecological experimentation in dance performance hosted by Théâtre de la Ville in Paris.  In 2013, she was selected to present her approach at FASTE#1 professional day on Arts and Sciences @ La Faïencerie, Théâtre de Creil.

She was an invited artist to Imagine 2020 (Art & Climate Change) Summer Lab #2 in Portugal.  Jeanne isIRCASE (International Research Chair in Art and Sustainable Enterprise) associate artist and a member of the AACORN Art & Business Network. She enjoyed being a student at Stanford Practice Based Research in the Arts MOOC/course from Leslie Hill, Associate Professor, Performance Making and Helen Paris, Associate Professor, Performance Making.

Jeanne lives in Paris and worked in Europe, the United States, South Korea, Republic of the Congo, Israel and El Salvador.

Por Sabela Mendoza Fernández para A cuerpo de Baile


 

Hoy es mi último día de Costa Contemporánea, el último día de la mejor inmersión en danza que he podido disfrutar en mucho tiempo. Tanto, que no he conseguido encontrar ni un segundo para actualizar el diario de danza, hasta hoy. Es difícil explicar la experiencia sin estar aquí. Pero lo voy a intentar.

Lejos, muy lejos de la vida cotidiana y de la rutina, llegando al parque natural de Cabo de Gata, en Níjar, Almería, existe un lugar donde disfrutar de la danza de la mañana a la noche. Un lugar que además es un paraíso natural y que en estos días está habitado de personas en movimiento, en transformación, en compañía y, en definitiva, en muy buen rollo.

Desde Madrid el viaje es un poco largo, pero todo se olvida y se deja atrás cuando se comienza a ver el paisaje desértico, montañoso, arenoso, casi lunar, de Almería. Y su línea azul en contraste al fondo. Hemos llegado al mar. Cinco días por delante para dedicarse en cuerpo y mente a la danza, sin olvidar el entorno, la naturaleza y toda la vida que nos rodea en este espacio maravilloso.

En esta IV ediciónde Costa Contemporánea nos acompañan Jordi Cortés y Cobosmika, la compañía creada por Olga Cobos y Peter Mika. Aquí van unos trocitos de lo que hemos estado construyendo estos días:

Sigue leyendo en el Blog A cuerpo de baile de Sabela.

The israeli dancer and choreographer Shai Faran, was awarded the first dance-tech AIR Berlin for the month of January 2014. Congratulations!

Visit her page on dance-tech.net

During her residency she will work at the beautiful  Lake Studios Berlin on her new creation WE (working title) where she explores with a group of 6 dancers ...

The subtle changes in the way that we position ourselves, in space and in time, the forms and the relations between different body parts, changes in the way that we use the space and the location where we decide to do things, the relations between different bodies and different kinds of interactions, the relation to music, the way that we touch someone and where, where do we look, how do we breath. Those changes have a huge affect on the EXPRESSION of the body and on the way that the spectator perceive things. It can take us from the small detail back to the whole body image and more then this- the image of the whole space. 

How much of the way that we perceive and translate things is decided by the way that we are used to see things around us, and how much can we actually stay open and let ourselves see new things in what we think that is obvious. (text from proposal)

Shai Faran is an Israeli dancer, teacher and choreographer, based in Europe.

 After studying in the dance department at the Misgav High School, she continued her studies at the Haifa dance workshop for dancers and choreographers. She danced for the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company II,  the Sigma Ensemble, the Dafi Altabab Dance Group and then moved to Europe, where she has worked with different choreographers such as Matej Kejzer, Maya M.Caroll, Zoe Knights, Michael Miler, Yuval Pick, Shumpei Nemoto, Maura Morales Alessandro Sciarroni and more, and performed around Europe. 

She created several works which won scholarships from the America- Israel Cultural Foundation and the foundation named after Ehud Manor.

For two years she went through the teachers’ training for GAGA - the movement language developed by Ohad Naharin at the Batsheva Dance Company.

In the last few years she has been teaching contemporary dance and improvisation classes and workshops around Europe while developing her own work and working as a free lance dancer, teacher and choreographer.

Due to an unexpected big number of applications we decided to separate residencies per month and give opportunities to more artists.

February 2014 Artist in residency will be announced no later than December 8th

Image by Bart Grietens

In May 2011, Tina Tarpgaard published this article in one of the modul-dance newsletters. How does she work as an independent artist in Denmark?

In the fall 2011 I will start the first residency as part of the modul-dance project. Together with my group of dancers and software artists (recoil performance group) I am invited to spend two weeks in the excellent facilities at the Tanzhaus NRW in Düsseldorf. Later we will travel to Ljubljana to spend a week researching in collaboration with the innovative dance house Kino Siska. Both giving us a great opportunity to work focused with the concept we have developed as a base for our new production Living-Room. The performance will be produced at Dansehallerne in Copenhagen with the premiere on March 10th 2012.

The advantages of moving yourself and the group you are working with, to a place "away from home" are many. I think most people know the feeling of the intensity that can buil within a group when you not only work together, but also have a mutual experience of new sorroundings, finding your way together, get lost together, dining together. etc.

It amplifies that feeling of a journey and ties connections that are priceless in a working process - at least to me.

But of course you don't move yourself just for the comfort and team building. The challenges and inspirations are equally important. So the prospect of meeting professionals from different arts communities is exciting, both professionals I usually work with but also to meet different approaches.

For example: The way our support system in Denmark is put together (as well as the habits and traditions I suppose) makes it quite rare that choreographers have the means for close collaboration with dramaturges. I believe that this can be unfortunate for the artistic processes and eventually for the performance that is presented to the audience. I am therefore excited to have the chance to meet and collaborate with with dramaturgical professionals at Tanzhaus NRW. In Ljubjana I will have the chance to meet and collaborate with local dancers, a great source of inspiration for me and the group.

Recoil performance group, with whom I usually work and create performances, has a quite specific interest in the collaboration between dance and software art. The amount of work that goes in to this collaboration is usually quite substantial and of high significance to our productions. Therefore I am hoping, that besides meeting dancers, choreographers and dramaturges, I will have the chance to meet professionals from the visual art, video and software art communities. More over I hope to get the artist from the different ways of creating performing arts, to meet each other. This could be in showings, roundtable meetings or other situations that could facilitate dialog, exchange of experience and ideas etc.

Already being part of the initial meeting in Lyon, late summer 2010, it struck me (not surprisingly) that the production habits, economical support structures, level of intervention/collaboration between dance houses and artists etc., are significantly different in between the European countries represented in the modul-dance project. I hope that by visiting both Tanzhaus NRW and Kino Šiška I get at chance to get a deeper understanding of the structures there and how it affects the work of the artists, the audience building and the general working and presentation frame of performing arts.

Working as an independent artist in Denmark has caused me to raise a number of questions to how our structure is put together. For me the participation in the modul-dance project is a great opportunity to seek inspiration and exchange experiences with houses and artist communities on both the creative process as well as the structures that we as independent artist are surrounded by. Especially as the project spans over all the different steps of creation: research, residency and production/presentation. I find this very valuable and hope to exchange constructive ideas that can facilitate the development of artist communities as well as personal development as a performing artist.

Picture: © Søren Meisner

The Italian artist Alessandro Sciarroni was selected for the modul-dance project after being proposed by Centro per la Scena Contemporanea Bassano del Grappa. Here, an interview with him during the research process of his project: UNTITLED_I will be there when you die.

Interview with Alessandro Sciarroni from Modul-dance on Vimeo.

SÂLMON< festival starts its second edition. Mercat de les Flors and Graner remain committed to talent, to creators with new proposals, artists with fresh ideas, European and, sometimes, going against the current. A look at local and international artists in the framework of the artistic residencies offered by Graner, centre for dance creation and the European modul-dance project. A busy programme of events lasting two weeks, with different formats and diverse approaches to the body and movement.

The festival, that will take place from October the 19th to November the 3rd, offers a look at international creations linked to the modul-dance project. The Loose Collective will open the festival with a concert-performance about the Old Testament. Other artists who were in residence at Graner while creating their shows will be presented during SÂLMON

SÂLMON< aims to consolidate itself as a space that gives visibility to different ways of understanding choreography. The festival includes shows, laboratories for professionals, spaces for reflection and spaces for meetings with the public.

More information: www.salmon-dance.com

In September 2011 Anne Juren and Roland Rauschmeier wrote the following text regarding their experience within the modul-dance project. They have developed the project entitled Tableaux Vivants, where the art forms interweave and allow hybrid relations to develop between the paintings, sculptures and videos and the bodies of the performers.

Within the frame of the modul-dance project, we worked in three different locations (Faro/Portugal, Poznań/Poland and Ljubljana/Slovenia) on the conceptualisation, ideal configuration and technical translation of our idea for Tableaux Vivants.

During our stay in Faro, the composer Johannes Maria Staud gave us a compilation of his works based on the suite Berenice so that we could take some initial decisions on the choice of music. We also developed a comprehensive mind map that included socio-historic facts, artists and relevant eras for our performance. The southern atmosphere and some very pleasant and spacious studios made Faro an ideal place to work and make an in-depth study of concepts and ideas in a relaxed way.

In Poznań we analysed our artistic stance in the context of plastic and performance arts so that we could establish the underlying structure of the piece. We decided to develop five thematic groups on Europe’s cultural development, using an approach that spanned several, bringing them together in terms of space and performance set-up.

To do so, we stuck to the time sequence of the themes, starting with the wall paintings of Lascaux caves and moving on to the origins of central perspective in the Renaissance and the optimistic abundance of the Baroque. In the fourth part of our artistic research we hit upon the idea of reinterpreting the Oskar Schlemmer and Bauhaus Triadic ballet. The last part tackles the problems of giving today’s artistic output validity and meaning in relation to the media cannons and their inherent evaluation. The choice of each cultural era is tied to personal experiences, such as a trip to Lascaux or extensive research into the influence that Bauhaus has had on the artistic development of Juren and Rauschmeier.

In Ljubljana, during a relatively initial stage of the project’s conception, we were able to work on the lighting for the definitive performance. This allowed us to dedicate more time to experiment with the inclusion of several media and genres with our performers.

We also made the final musical selection, by this point Staud had already made four versions. We would like to emphasise Johannes Maria Staud’s openness and interest in our work and how he adapted to our – ever changing – way of creating. From a musical perspective he accompanied and complemented the development of the piece. In the woodlands around Ljubljana we organised a photographic session in which we researched the "Bauhaus party” of 1924. This session also led to a number of videos and important ideological considerations for future projects.

In short, without the modul-dance project, we wouldn’t have had access to the conditions and resources necessary to create Tableaux Vivants. We hope to be able to bring our performance to as many project participants as possible!

Picture: © Angela Bedekovic