Displacing non-places

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This dance study represents an early (2007) investigation for my AUT Masters in dance and video and is part of a wider exploration into activating places which one could term redundant spaces, or 'non-places' (Marc Augé - 'non-places introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity' Verso, London NY. This space is the Urban Bus Depot in Nelson, NZ Aotearoa. The aim is to move into and inhabit, through movement or activity which one would not normally expect to see or find, spaces which are tucked away on the edge or periphery of our everyday involvement with the city. In this case, while activating and displacing a non-space, my kinesthetic rolling is attempting to create a monologue in extreme contrast with the normality of the verbal dialogue shared by the two women talking on the bench. They ignore me, while I roll away into the potential path of bus-flow, crossing the yellow hazard line. I am occupying two liminal spaces simultaneously here: The ground space (not commonly occupied in a public street) and the interface between the pavement and road, both of which intimate zones of dis-comfort in public places. In my FCP editing, I minimised and extracted local colour to create a clinical, disassociated feel to the work.While we are involved in the doings of our own world, simultaneously, perhaps across the street quite different and contrasting activities may be taking place - many worlds meshing, but our focus usually remains narrowed to the one in front of us - only occasionally do we stumble across another concurrent reality and often only sample it briefly before moving on to our next task, meeting, destination - the trappings of our own reality. Incongruous or disassociated movement lends a certain surreal note to the place, activates it and encourages a question in the mind of the viewer - what is going on here? What was that? So our movement tracks and negotiates the space in a fresh way, hoping to instigate a different kind of energy and useage in these forgotten environments. Subliminal events half-noticed from a distance in the middle of a busy day. If you are interested to know more, please see my blog: http://hoststranger.blogspot.com

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