Tuesday, 20 February

Rehearsal

In a cold weather, six of my dancers and I, walked past the campus and found a big black industrial wall, ready to accommodate dancers’ “Body pressure”.

Facing and not the camera, the dancers were pushing in their way the wall while reciting the words of the text.

But why?

Marina Abramovic’s “Body pressure” included a glass wall and her body, when behind her there played a recording of her reciting the text.

I wanted to make something similar, but not the same. I wanted a one-sided wall, so that the audience would have to only take in what they see without approaching, going round or focus on the wall. I, also, wanted to give color to my video, so the dancers are wearing colors instead of one-color outfits. However, they all wear red lipstick; a reason for that will be later revealed. Lastly, they are reciting the text without recording but live. It is difficult to see who is reciting which line and that makes it more distant and difficult to connect the bodies to the voice. If we think more about it, this is what Marina Abramovic did: she removed her voice when she was performing, while adding it on her; not with her or in her or out of her.

The video that will be edited, will be projected during the first part of the final choreography in-progress I will make on “Body pressure”.

Find out more about the choreography and my ideas, that I base on Marina Abramovic’s performance and documentation on “Body pressure”,
the readings, the discussions with my tutor and classmate and my ideas by clicking here.

Lesson on performance

How can performance be every action that is being watched by an audience?

My in-the-box mind cannot even think about it.

Please follow this link to read my ideas on this.

Tuesday, 13 February

Today it was a very productive day.

I had my first rehearsal with my dancers on the piece “Body Pressure”, one of the Seven Easy Pieces of Marina Abramovic. Though it might seem really nothing, the dancers reached what I wanted them to understand: pushing against a wall can become easier, more exhaustive and more natural all in the same moment. As they told me, they felt good towards the end. This is good… Because they are going to be repeating it hundreds of times!

Also, afterwards we had an Examining Choreography class, where we performed our own scores inspired by the Seven Easy Pieces. I chose the “How to explain pictures to a dead hare”.

Jamie, my classmate, performed a piece inspired by “Conditioning” and it was interesting because we participated, too. I had to tape his feet on the wall. It was very creative for me and I was feeling I had to make many decisions, as to where to put the tape, if I hurt Jamie, how fast to do it… Because I was running out of time.

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In the end of the class, Kayla Bowtell, our teacher, gave us her score on “Body Pressure” and “Seedbed”. She gave us two eggs and was giving us tasks: tie the egg on your heal, move forward, find each other with your eyes closed, look at each other with your eyes closed, now look at each other at your own time, start using Body Pressure based on the text (where Jamie was pushing me with so much strength, I really feel my back ache!), then we had to rest on/in each other, create 3 poses for each other’s body and repeat 30 times and when we finish, sit down and look at each other, move the chairs towards or far from each other and then the Body Pressure text was on again. So exhausting…

But, I can feel so inspired today. It is amazing what bodies can do, if you don’t tell them to dance, but to just push or use their minds for their bodies! I, also, feel changed. Like I gave a fatal punch to a brick wall of limitations in my mind.