Rise Up, Fallen Angel is an Integrated Media Performance that will involve live improvised music accompanying images projected on three large screens. The curator will group the images so they will be displayed to create a non-linear narrative relating to the theme. The exhibition will be different each time it is shown, but documentation of the event will be available for viewing. We are seeking images and video that do not contain text or language, but connect with the viewer on a primal, emotional level.
From artist and friend Keiko Uenishi (based in NYC) I share with you:
It's been quite long while.
I'm writing this because I'm a part of a friends group trying to do something for the people in Tohoku region in Japan.
We are going to visit Japanese restaurants, cafes, other stores to place donation boxes. We also just got an approval and official labels from Japan Society to make all the donations through their relief funds for Tohoku disaster.
So, we are to make bunch of the donation boxes a.s.a.p. but then, I thought about your craft night.
I'm wondering if some of NYCR people can help building the donation boxes with us on this Thurs?! More people can make more boxes!
It'd be very helpful - as we already noticed that it is effective to have a donation box for people who are not necessarily going to donate online but may consider if it is right there at their favorite restaurants/cafes etc.
Thank you so much if you'd approve such project brought in the craft night!
We've had alot of requests to extend the call for proposals to be included in our first Contemporary Performance network publication titled Contemporary Performance TXTS. So we have extended the deadline to March 21, 2011.
A little more about the book and how to apply:
This will be a network produced book about how we as contemporary performance makers prepare, road map, document, and archive our work. In essence, what does the contemporary script look like? This book will have bios, interviews and examples of performance creators and their performance TXTS. To propose your work, please log in to the network and post a blog. Then follow these directions
2. Write a very brief introduction to you and your work (i.e. where are you from, what kind of media do you work in, what are some of your performative concerns)
3. What are some of the mediums you use to prepare, road map, document, and archive your work. Why do you choose these mediums and what are their benefits to you and your work.
4. Copy/past an example of your performance txt. This can be text, images, embedded video or anything of your choosing. (Please try to limit it to 3 pages long)
5. !VERY IMPORTANT! In the TAGS section under the blog post type in "TXTS01". This is so we can find your blog using the search function.
6. Feel free to look around at the other proposals and comment.
DEADLINE for proposals is midnight EST March 21, 2011
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was a British writer whose criticism holds up over time. His depiction of "A Midsummer's Dream" reveals such a fresh perspective with an acute sense of how Shakespeare "catches the atmosphere of a dream. The personalities are well known to everyone who has dreamt of perpetually falling over precipices or perpetually missing trains. ... The author contrives to include every one of the main peculiarities of the exasperating dream. Here is
the pursuit of the man we cannot catch,
the flight from the man we cannot see,
here is the perpetual returning to the same place,
here is the crazy alteration in the very objects of our desire,
the substitution of one face for another face,
the putting of the wrong souls in the wrong bodies,
the fantastic disloyalties of the night, all this is as obvious as it important."
Chesterton continues "But yet by the spreading of an atmosphere as magic as the fog of Puck, Shakespeare contrives to make the whole matter mysteriously hilarious while it is palpably tragic, and mysteriously charitable, while it is in itself cynical. He contrives somehow to rob tragedy and treachery of their full sharpness, just as a toothache or a deadly danger from a tiger, or a precipice is robbed of its sharpness in a pleasant dream."
He writes of "the mysticism of happiness." ... " We cannot have a midsummer night's dream if our one object in life is to keep ourselves awake with the black coffee of criticism."
About Low Lives: Now entering its third year, Low Lives is an international exhibition of live performance-based works transmitted via the internet and projected in real time at multiple venues throughout the U.S. and around the world. Low Lives examines works that critically investigate, challenge, and extend the potential of performance practice presented live through online broadcasting networks. These networks provide a new alternative and efficient medium for presenting, viewing, and archiving performances. Low Lives is not simply about the presentation of performative gestures at a particular place and time but also about the transmission of these moments and what gets lost, conveyed, blurred, and reconfigured when utilizing this medium. Low Lives embraces works with a lo-fi aesthetic such as low pixel image and sound quality, contributing to a raw, DIY and sometimes voyeuristic quality in the transmission and reception of the work.
Low Lives is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with Chez Bushwick, an artist-run organization based in Brooklyn, New York dedicated to the advancement of interdisciplinary art and performance, with a strong focus on new choreography. Chez Bushwick is co-producing Low Lives 3 and is instrumental in extending the platform’s international reach. Low Lives 3 will feature a ‘spotlight’ on Contemporary Choreography throughout the exhibition program.
Artists working in any media are invited to submit proposals for live performance-based works.
Selection Process: Each Presenting Partner (see list below) will follow their curatorial process to select one performance to take place at their venue. In addition, 30 artists will be selected from artist proposals responding to this Call for Artists, and will be invited to present their work across the Low Lives network. These performances will be transmitted through the internet from a location of the artists’ choice. The Selections Committee will be comprised of Directors and Curators from each of the Presenting Partner institutions. A full-color catalog and companion DVD with information and an image for each participating artist will be produced for Low Lives 3 after the exhibition takes place.
Artists selected to participate in this exhibition will be instructed on how to transmit their performance through a live online broadcasting network. Performances will be projected in real time across the Low Lives 3 network of Presenting Partners and venues. The exhibit will also be available for online viewing, both in real time as it unfolds across political boundaries and time zones, and on the Low Lives website after the event.
The editor Daniel Kontz for THE CAMERA BETRAYS YOU submitted by Liz Staruch and Mark O'Maley from West Chester University is a young talent to follow. Daniel transformed the team's flip-book idea into a dynamic, graphically pleasing jaunt, taut with tension. Shot on the High Line in NYC, THE CAMERA BETRAYS YOU makes you grin and wonder, as it draws you into its go-go/freeze rhythm. The video was created with 10,000 photographs of action and celebrated by the High Line on their website. See http://www.thehighline.org/blog/2011/02/07/video-the-camera-betrays-you
The video was one of nine from six colleges submitted to American College Dance Festival's 2011 Northeast Regional Conference at Muhlenberg College. Joshua Phillip Gleason's black and white cinematography and editing for SPOTLIGHT submitted by Maria Claudia Jaen from Towson University is also astounding.
As is sadly so often the case, the choreography was the least notable aspect of these videos with the exception of BENCHMARK, an improvisation by Katie Fierro and Jeremy Arnold from Muhlenberg College. Katie and Jeremy slump, slide, and confront each other with an organic grace and wit making the viewer feel like a wistful voyeur. They had their moment, a sweet if fleetingly honest one, and we were the witness. If only the camera left its frontal position in the end to zoom into the bench, still warm from the heat of their encounter.
Hats off to Corrie Cowart, dance professor at Muhlenberg for giving dance on camera a strong presence in this year's conference. She featured an installation of Tiny Dance Series, which DFA had celebrated in its 2010 Festival at the Walter Reade Theatre, a video of Allen Fogelsanger's movement interactive installation CANVAS & TRIGGERS_ SUITE mounted at the Varmlands Museum in Karlstad, Sweden, a lecture and workshop by myself, a marketing workshop and 48 Hour Challenge judged by Anna Brady Nuse.
My name is Nadia Lesy. I currently work as a freelance videographer and editor in New York City. I often shoot dance performances at Dance New Amsterdam. I currently own professional High Definition video equipment and edit on Final Cut Pro.
I am available to shoot a your next dance performance or edit a reel showcasing your company's best work. I can also convert your old vhs or dvd copies into almost any format you wish.
My rates are reasonable and I also work as a dancer and choreographer. So unlike some media professionals, I understand the specific needs of dancers and choreographers.
Russian (Moscow-based) Dance Agency TsEKh started in 2000 when several Moscow independent dancers and choreographers created an artistic association "TsEKh" thus opening the space for experiment and innovation. The association launched the project "Saturdays in TsEKh" which for the first time was regularly presenting dance theatres' works to Moscow audiences.
In 2001 with the support of the Ford Foundation the association developed into the non commercial partnership Dance Agency TsEKh. The agency is dedicated to establishing fertile artistic environments and an efficient infrastructure for contemporary dance in Russia. In the 10 years of its existence TsEKh has managed to develop high standards of professionalism, established national and international cultural links, and become an expert, and highly regarded consultant in the Russian contemporary dance field.
The agency is the member of a number of national and international networks. In 2002 TsEKh was an initiator of Russian Dance Theatres Network, listing cities such as Arkhangelsk, Ekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Kaliningrad, Novosibirsk, Saransk, S.-Petersburg, Yarolsavl and Moscow.
The agency TsEKh represents the interests of Russian dancers, choreographers and performers at local, regional and international levels. The activities run by TsEKh emphasise the independent and innovative character of Russian dance theatre today, an art form which is an important and integral part of Russian culture.
The agency has its own performing space at the outskirts of Moscow city historical center - Aktiviy Zal, where most of our projects take place. Aktoviy Zal is a unique place for Moscow-based and touring contemporary dance choreographers to rehears, to direct and to perform.
This edition of Test_Lab will showcase new technology-inspired modes of live musical performance that radically transform the performer’s relationship with the audience.
The lyrics to Daft Punk’s “Technologic” – “Touch it, bring it, pay it, watch it, turn it, leave it, start, format it” – allude to the omnipresence of technology in our daily lives and the many different ways in which we engage with it. At a Daft Punk live show, however, it’s predominantly the artists themselves that interact with technology, through musical interfaces. The audience, by contrast, passively observes or dances but rarely touches, brings, starts or formats any of the technology involved in the performance. Yet there are artists who explore technology’s potential to radically break with the traditional performer-audience relationship.
According to Chris Salter, the concert hall has shifted “from a passive arena of listening to an interactive zone of improvisation between sound-making technical apparatuses and their players” (Entangled, 2010). The exciting new modes of performance resulting from this shift have recently gained much attention in publications and conferences. Exactly how these new performance modes affect the performer-audience relationship has however hardly been explored. What does it mean to be an active listener in an “interactive zone of improvisation”? And what does the audience gain from it all?
This edition of Test_Lab will showcase new technology-inspired modes of live musical performance that radically transform the performer’s relationship with the audience. While some of these projects and performances, such as CrowdDJ - Tom Laan, and Nomadic Sound System - Ben Newland; turn the audience into co-performers, others, like Microscopic Opera -Matthijs Munnik, Evolving Spark Network - Edwin van der Heide and SPASM 2.0 - V2_Lab; give rise to entirely new modes of listening. As always at Test_Lab, you can touch it, bring it, pay it, watch it, turn it, leave it, start, format it…
This event will be streamed live on v2.nl from 20:00 to 23:00 CET.
Creation in Bonlieu - Scène Nationale d'Annecy on March 4th 2008
A journey is often the opportunity to revisit, the moment to take stock of one’s identity or rather one’s identities. Those we have inherited, those we embody in the eyes of others and those we project to ourselves, that we try to emancipate. Whether national, economic, ethnic, minority, cultural, sexual, psychological or affective, a journey brings into question all of these layers of identity, which form new configurations throughout our movements. The different faces we have often result from a negotiation between the legacy of the past and the identity that is being constructed in the present. It is during these movements that the feeling of being a FOREIGNER appears. Our assumed differences and our poor understanding of elsewhere create a place where we can rethink our perceptions. This crossroads of thought is the axis around which I have constructed this choreographic project. During a recent journey to Vietnam and to Cambodgia, I discovered a new way to explore this feeling of being a foreigner. In a discussion about the violence of the conflicts that have torn these countries apart, I remembered the pages of my father’s military papers; my father, who was made to crush this Indochina of earlier times. As the discussion progressed, because of my French nationality, I realized that I was considered the son of a colonialist, even though what linked my father to Indochina was the legacy of another colonisation, that to his country, Algeria. Once again during this conversation, it struck me that the upheavals and the devastation caused by the violence of armed conflict should lead us to reflect upon the image of the foreigner in many areas of th world. In what way does the violence of armed conflict make us foreign? What sensitivity is born out of this violence? These are the questions addressed in this itinerant project; a project that will trace the steps of a journey made more than 50 years ago.
Rachid Ouramdane
Credits:
Conception and performance : Rachid Ouramdane Music : Alexandre Meyer Video: Aldo Lee Lights : Pierre Leblanc Costume and make up: La Bourette Set : Sylvain Giraudeau Realisation assistant : Erell Melscoët
Stage management and sound : Sylvain Giraudeau Video management : Jacques Hoepffner Lighting management : Stéphane Graillot
Production L’A.
Coproduction Théâtre de la ville à Paris Bonlieu, scène nationale d’Annecy Biennale de la danse de Lyon With the help of Le Fanal, scène nationale de Saint-Nazaire for the residency of création With the support of Cultures France, Wonderful district à Hô-chi-minh – Vietnam, de L’Ambassade de France au Vietnam – L’Espace, Centre culturel à Hanoï et le service de coopération et d’action culturelle à Hô-Chi-Minh and the Théâtre de Gennevilliers.
Special thanks to : Fatima Ouramdane, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Tam Vo Phi, Tiffany Chung, Anna Tuyen Tran, Chong Dai Vo, Richard Streitmatter-Tran, Sandrine Llouquet, Tran Cong, Tran Luong, Dinh Q. Lê, Zoé Butt, for their memories, theirs words and their silences, Bertrand Peret for his warm welcome, Armando Menicacci, Jacques Hoepfner and Benjamin Furbacco for their precious advices, for her advices, Sylvaine Van Den Esch and Vanina Sopsaisana for their assistances.
Interviews with Rachid Ouramdane for dance-tech.net:
About FAR at Dance Theater Workshop New York, USA
Creation in Bonlieu - Scène Nationale d'Annecy on March 4th 2008
Creation in Bonlieu - Scène Nationale d'Annecy on May 27th 2009
Rachid Ouramdane, by Rosita Boisseau
« The choreographer Rachid Ouramdane likes to hide his face behind his masks. Whether under a clown’s make-up, behind a metallic sculpture or inside a motorbike crash helmet, the face, the mystery of the person, is concealed to focus the gaze elsewhere. According to the choreographer, though the mask is a way to display the myriad facets of his fragmented personality, he also maintains that one’s identity is a bottomless pit, an illusion to which the face gives a single interpretation. By altering the appearance, the mask enables the body to develop new strategies to exist in other ways and erases the contours that are too easy to read. Since the creation of the company ‘Association Fin Novembre’, cofounded with Julie Nioche, Rachid Ouramdane, who for many years interpreted the works of choreographers Odile Duboc, Hervé Robbe , Meg Stuart and Emmanelle Huynh, has tried to lift the veil of obviousness that covers everything. For this discreet man, the son of Algerians who sought refuge in silence, the words denied to his parents’ generation on the Algerian war of independence in an open wound that the stage allows him to soothe. In ‘Au bord des métaphores’ (2000), video was used to pulverize identities with the risk of becoming lost in surface effects. For ‘+ ou – là’ (2002), inspiration came from television and its icons, from the narcissism of the new media. Directly connected on the internet, in Les Morts pudiques (2004), a solo self-portrait fuelled by research on youth and death, life blood flowed through plastic tubes of pure medical beauty. The play on images, on signs, and on their ambivalence electrifies Rachid Ouramdane’s performances, often comparable to secret ceremonies for mutants who’ve broken free. For example, in Cover (2005), a precious monochrome created after a series of visits to Brazil, men painted from head to toe in gold paint circle the stage, contemporary idols sucked into the twilight with no return. » Panorama de la danse contemporaine, Editions Textuel, 2006
Prior to founding the L’A. association in 2007 – a site for artistic exploration of contemporary identity – choreographer Rachid Ouramdane had collaborated with artists such as Emmanuelle Huynh, Odile Duboc, Hervé Robbe, Meg Stuart, Catherine Contour, Christian Rizzo, Jeremy Nelson, Alain Buffard, and choreographer Julie Nioche, with whom he co-founded the Fin Novembre association in 1996. From the start, Rachid Ouramdane’s projects have exemplified the conceptual upheaval taking place in the realm of dance since the mid-90s. Following in Ouramdane’s footsteps, artists have been reassessing the definitions of “performer” and “choreographer”, and questioning modes of producing and circulating artwork. The nature of his work has led to collaboration with institutions that traditionally focus on the visual arts (the FRAC Champagne/Ardennes in 2001 within the framework of his residency at the Manège de Reims from 2000 to 2004), and to a residency from 2005 to 2007 at the Ménagerie de Verre in Paris, a multidisciplinary space dedicated to contemporary artistic output. Very quickly, Rachid Ouramdane’s shows integrated video as a springboard for thinking about body-memory. The key element of each show is a unique encounter, resulting in an original artistic approach. Founding L’A in 2007 was a turning point for his work, which now aims to blur the boundaries between dance and documentary. It was in this period that he began his residency at the Théâtre de Gennevilliers, in parallel to his ongoing association with the Bonlieu-Scène Nationale d’Annecy as of 2005 and become associated to Théâtre de la Ville de Paris in 2010.
Alongside his creative projects, Rachid Ouramdane is actively involved in dialogue and pedagogy. He is regularly invited in France and abroad to lead artistic workshops and to moderate international encounters with artists (Russia, Romania, Holland, Brazil, the U.S...).
What can dance do that history books can’t?
"History books may supply documents and facts, but this has nothing to do with our experience." Rachid Ouramdane hears this statement time and again when pursuing the traces of military violence. What is the nature of the gap between personal experience and official history? What can dance do that history books can’t?
These questions are pivotal for someone bent on conveying the collective by way of the individual. They are questions that have been kindling Rachid Ouramdane’s choreography over the past 13 years and spanning 15 shows. The same questions propelled the association Fin Novembre, co-founded with Julie Nioche in 1996, and are now being developed through the company L’A., founded in 2007. Whether dealing with recent geographic upheaval, population movements or changes triggered by new technologies, the focal point of Ouramdane’s work is contemporary identity. He creates onstage transformation of live testimonials, for the most part gathered beyond the confines of dance studios: such as in the 2001 show De Arbitre à Zébra with the community of wrestlers and boxers from the city of Reims, or in the 2007 show Surface de réparation with 12 young athletes from the city of Gennevilliers. Ouramdane concocts series of “choreographic portraits” that delve into the undercurrents between individuals and their practices. The aim is not to beautify the practice at hand, but rather to “dancify” it by offering a new “montage”.
The term “montage” aptly describes an approach to dance that encompasses sound-space, lighting design and video tools. The show Au bord des métaphores (1999) launched this onstage friction between bodies and their video-captures. Next came + ou – Là (2002), which questioned “TV grammar”, followed by Les morts pudiques (2004), which explored youth and death based on history fragments culled from the Net. All of his shows share similar underpinnings: depiction of a body pierced by other people’s history, bodies that bear the imprint of history’s spasms and the living memory of adjacent tremors. Each of these bodies grapples with space by way of video screens, much like windows onto the outer world, bodily extensions or glimmers of absence. Rachid Ouramdane probes the polyphony of body-archives, where bodies are often faceless – via helmets, hoods, clown makeup and other sorts of identity-blurring masks. The recurrence of the identity issue - whether social, geographical or cultural - echoes the second-generation immigrant experience. Ouramdane’s Algerian born parents immigrated to France, and this “third identity” imbues his work and has yielded the 2008 semi-autobiographical solo Loin...
In his recent projects, Rachid Ouramdane has been joining forces with documentary-makers, and radicalizing his examination of the boundaries between dance and documentary.
Partners L’A. / Rachid Ouramdane receives the support of Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication / DRAC Île-de-France, of Conseil Régional d’Île-de-France and of ’Institut français for its international projects
The main theaters in which we perform... Théâtre de la Ville - Paris, Bonlieu-Scène Nationale - Annecy, Festival d’Avignon, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Théâtre de Gennevilliers, Festival d’Athènes, Biennale de la danse de Lyon, Festival Montpellier Danse, Tanz im August - Berlin, Kaaitheater - Bruxelles, Halles de Schaerbeeck - Bruxelles, Festival Panorama - Rio de Janeiro, Centre National de la Danse, MC2 Grenoble, Southbank Center Londres, Centre Georges Pompidou, Festival de Liège, Opéra de Lyon, Festival Latitudes Contemporaines, Pôle Sud - Strasbourg, Théâtre Forum - Meyrin, Teatro Central - Séville, Festival Crossing the Line - New York, DTW - New York, TBA - Portland, Springdance Festival - Utrecht, Tanzquartier - Vienne, Theater der Welt, Dublin Dance Festival, TU Nantes, Sadler’s Well - Londres, Wexner Center for The Arts - Colombus, Le Quai - Angers
Association and residency France: Association with Théâtre de la Ville de Paris since September 2010 (first choreographer associated to Théâtre de la Ville since 1991).
Ménagerie de Verre à Paris from 2005 to 2007.
Residency in Théâtre de Gennevilliers from 2007 to 2010 (first choreographr in residency in a "Centre dramatique national").
Association with Bonlieu, Scène nationale d’Annecy since 2005.
Residency in Scène nationale - Le Manège de Reims from 2000 to 2004.
International :
Participation in the frame of Intradance, Europe-Russie collaboration programm : creation in situ in Kirov (Russia).
Participation in the frame of «Colaboratorio» international residency in Rio de Janeiro - Brazil.
Regular participation in internationals events of french dance (FranceDanse Nouvelle Zélande, FranceDanse Europe, FranceDanse Asie 2007, Focus Danse 2008, French Move 2005, La Francia si muovo 2004...).
Artist associated to Festival Klapstuk in Belgium in 2005.
As part of my program in Israel with Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, last week, we had a three-day workshop with Eldad Ben Sasson, who is an indescribably genius choreographer/dancer. He danced with Batsheva for many years, and his class is heavily informed by Ohad's technique. After a Gaga-warmup (If you are new to this blog and don't know what Gaga is, see here), he then led us through movement exercises and eventually a long combination based on the principals of William Forsythe. I have read in detail about Forsythe's ideas of space and dimensions, but I have never had a class that utilizes them. Pretty much...it was awesome. Eldad talked us through the combination, not by naming the movements or using ballet terminology, but in terms of the physics--the points in space we touch, the lines we create with our energy and direction, and through which dimensions (including time, and ones undiscovered) we are traveling. He kept talking about how movement is full of infinite possibilities, and we should never cut a movement short, or stop in our tracks when we mess up, because then we just closed ourselves to the possibilities. The class was so different from anything I had ever experienced before, and the movement was a completely different quality. I really enjoyed the challenge of learning in this new way. On Monday evening, a number of us met with him for coffee and asked questions about his experiences and philosophy. We asked him about how he creates choreography, and he said he often starts by writing, which is influenced by books and films on quantum physics and simply observing the world around him. Well, I admit I'm a bit of a nerd about physics, so this whole experience was fascinating and illuminating for me, and I hope to integrate these ideas with my dancing. Read more…
Don't miss the Cie Gilles Jobin's new creation, SPIDER GALAXIES, on March 15 till 17, at Bonlieu Scène nationale in Annecy!
After the heady Black Swan he created in 2009, Gilles Jobin commits himself further into movement with this new piece. Accompanied by 4 iconographer dancers, he conceives elaborate generators of figurative abstraction, while Cristian Vogel and Carla Scaletti invoke the particles and Daniel Demont disperses the spectrum. Protean, infinitely large or infinitesimal, such are the Spider Galaxies…
UOVO AN UNDISCIPLINED PROJECT ON THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD
Uovo is an international and undisciplined project that promotes contemporary creativity in its diverse declinations and expressive formats, going beyond the traditional division of genres and places of representation and favoring a cross between diverse disciplines of art and of communication.
A nomadic and undisciplined path that reflects on identity and creativity in the contemporary city, promoting the search of new forms of expression related to generational trends. With a particular attention to young creativity, uovo very often presents, for the first time in Italy, famous artists and emerging realities that are not recognized in a rigid way within the traditions disciplines (theatre, dance, visual and plastic arts) but work across all of them.
Uovo cooperates with public institutions and private companies to devise, plan and advise on a wide variety of artistic and cultural projects.
The Watermill Center: Accepting Applications for The 2011 International Summer Program Application deadline: March 31, 2011
Image courtesy of Lovis Dengler
The Watermill Center is currently looking for artists of all disciplines between the ages of 18 and 40 to apply for The 2011 International Summer Program running from July 18 – August 21, 2011. The program is looking for emerging and mid‐career artists including architects, visual artists, directors, actors, dancers, choreographers, costume/scenic/lighting designers, performance artists, graphic designers, archivists, landscape artists, dramaturgs, and writers.
About the International Summer Program For the past 17 years, The Watermill Center has hosted an International Summer Program led by Artistic Director, Robert Wilson. Each summer, approximately 65 artists from over 30 countries gather at Watermill’s Long Island, NY six‐acre campus. Selected participants spend two to five weeks in intense creative exploration which provides a unique opportunity to learn from established professionals, particularly the development and performance methodologies of Robert Wilson and his peers; forge lasting relationships with other artists from a broad range of experience levels and disciplinaryspecificity; develop networks of US and international professional contacts; focus on new work, and embody what it means to be a “global artist.”
Participants receive access to an extensive collection of resources central to the Watermill experience: ongoing apprenticeships and daily workshops with Robert Wilson and his collaborators; lectures on various subjects from theatre and opera innovation, installation, design, and science led by international cultural luminaries, established artists, and scientists; opportunities to develop new work for public presentation during the annual Watermill Summer Benefit and Discover Watermill Day; access to 20,000 square feet of rehearsal/performance/design spaces; a theater production archive; a 6,000 volume library; outdoor stages; the Watermill Art Collection; and the Center’s landscaped grounds.
In addition to workshops, all participants share in the responsibilities of daily life: housekeeping, cooking, cleaning, and maintaining the Watermill grounds and gardens. Daily physical labor, including landscaping and the construction of site‐specific installations is an integral part of the Summer Program. This live/work environment reflects the Watermill idea that an artist works differently in an environment that he or she has helped to create and maintain.
All participants are lodged in shared rooms in either the Center's dormitory or rented summer houses. Shared vans are provided for transport to and from the Center. All participants spend the entire day (from 9am to 10pm, seven days a week) at the Center. All meals are prepared with trained chefs and served at the Center.
If you are having difficulty understanding a problem, try drawing a picture.
If you can't find a solution, try assuming that you have a solution and
seeing what you can derive from that ("working backward").
If the problem is abstract, try examining a concrete example.
All good advice for dance filmmakers. The importance of envisioning the final film,
the experience of the viewer, beginning at the end desired result is paramount.
Each of the pioneer dance filmmakers from George Melies to Maya Deren, dancer/choreographers working in commercial films Gene Kelly to Michael Jackson, concert
choreographers Jerome Robbins to Edouard Lock had their specific intention and goal.
George Melies wanted to entertain and dazzle his audience with his magic tricks of superimposition.
Maya Deren, the daughter of a Russian Psychologist, drew from her studies of Voodoo wanted to
hypnotise her viewer. Gene Kelly wanted to stretch beyond his known success as a macho
physical dancer to being referred as an innovator who could use the frame of a story to experiment.
Michael Jackson worked with choreographer Vincent Patterson to pay homage to the Film Noir in
"Smooth Criminal." Both Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, and Edouard Lock analyzed their own choreography to
discover what would be the exact camera angle, at the right moment, to reveal the unique
thrust of their movement and what it could trigger in the viewer.
The Australian born choreographer Lloyd Newson of the British based company DV8 was trained
in the field of psychology. His stage and film adaptations know just how much prodding and provoking he can do before he pulls back to take a pause.
He is a master manipulator but he ingeniously stays within the world of dance without letting
all his toolbox show as obviously as in BLACK SWAN.
