heat of the day

Well it is super hot here at Bundanon and enjoyed wearing not much and sweating a whole lot in the studio and even when I suit to have a break or do some editing.

I think from now on, looking at the weather, it seems it will cool down a little which allow a little more comfort in delving deeper physically.

Today I have thought a lot about the purpose of this project and redefining in my head and on paper why it is interesting to me and why it should be for others too. Something every artist should consider but not an easy task but I must.

So after last nights revelation of a aim to locate the audience in the studio with me as well as into my journey of exploring the 365 environments and spaces, I have run with this.

After a beautiful flowy yoga session this morning I began compiling footage for a scene that encapsulates my experiences during the project with water. It has made me ask questions and realise the importance of water in our lives, culture and for survival. I played with some improvising then relearned some of the improv from a film in the pool. Quite hard to learn without the buoyancy of water!

I also played with the projector (thanks D-CAF! x), I found the light in the day too bright to make use of it effectively so stuck with editing some more scenes, audio and text, playing with both improv and repetition of phrase material.I created a scene called actually.. which draws text direct from this blog in 2012. It highlights the repetitive and monotonous yet fruitful process of this project, and that each day and each dance are completely unique and different even though starting often times with the same preparation.

Some ideas I am contemplating:
- utilising my recent work with verbatim text, interviewing the other artists here about their connection to place, and maybe even specifically this place.
- drawing the attention of the work to the importance of place/environment, bring the outside in, and take them outside!
- blogging live in the performance about how it is going, locating them inside my brain!

Today I was also suddenly and passionately motivated by my belief and interest in the body (and dance) as a mode of communication and thinking how the body and its relationships to space and place can conjure all kinds of memories, thoughts, possibilities, connections for the audience, even if they don't know where or haven't been there in the flesh, my aim is to locate them there!! 

Ok well as I sit here in the dark with bugs crawling all over me because of my computer screen, I might give it a rest!

More tomorrow. ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz

Bundanon adventure begins...

Well I arrived yesterday here at the beautiful Bundanon Residence in the Kangaroo Valley NSW as I enter a my creative process, I AM SCARED!!

I have been busily planning and switching my headspace from the chaotic couple of months I've had moving from one project to the next and slowly settling into what it is that I want to achieve, explore and experience in this important and somewhat of a luxury period of time. But now I think and feel content that I have landed!

I feel a sense of calm, anticipation, pressure, fear, vulnerability and excitement as I begin my solo development of 100,000 frames, a live performance component to accompany edited film from my year long site specific dance project.

It feels timely to re-engage with the content, subjects, ideas, and hours of video that I spent a whole year of my life dedicated to and also very daunting. And it has definitely brought up questions around revisiting old projects, Are they really old? Do I really think there is value in continuing to explore it?

Yes! Site specific practice is central to my work and my artistic interest. I am driven to dance and to create in spaces that provide possibility, spark creativity and engage with unknowing audiences. The question is why and how to I take, manipulate, arrange, play with footage from a year of site specific dance and create a theatre work?

A bit of a paradox I know. Im dealing with it - I've got 2 weeks to untangle this twist.

Aims for the two weeks:
- challenge, provoke, stimulate, test, laugh, cry, be, relax, work
- cataloguing my videos will be an ongoing process
- yoga, imagining that Janine Proost or Amelia McQueen are guiding me through an hour of power!!
- blog here each day
- mind maps, on ample butchers paper I stole accidentally from Joe Simons
- site specific dance here at Bundanon each day
- create 'a something' to be shown in Canberra or Bathurst over the next month or two
(- Read The HOBBIT again, before the next movie)

I have today worked on sifting through the footage from 100,000 frames and compiling the edits of which I uploaded during the process into one film of 58 mins!!!  It provided  me with a refresher of all the spaces I was inspired to move within and a canvas for me to GO from.

Later I entered the studio and began to cut together some ideas/phrases from my previous blogs post texts as well as edit some film working from strong sounds from another clip. I really want to stretch how far I can push this filmic material, responding to it in multitude of ways and explore how far my process, my experience and my skills will allow me to take it - to a new place - that's it! -  I want the audience to feel specifically located with me. And by that I mean, as though they have experienced this project/process with me. The site specific nature of this solo is here with me in my process and in performance.

We'll see how this sits with me in studio tomorrow, but for now this seems to have given me a sense of clarity and direction.

Attached are some pics of my beautiful surrounds and some creatures greeting me along the way. Sublime!

Until tomorrow. x

"its a dangerous business Frodo, stepping out your door. You never know where you might be swept off to."
- Bilbo Baggins

 

the dotty dress..

As my final post for this epic project, I decided to add some music and break the rules a little. This film was made for showing at the Canberra Short + Sweet Dance season as I knew I wasn't able to perform live this year, but thought it relevant to post here as a final hurrah!!

I had such a ball whipping this up in about a day, using the rhythm/score of the music and in a way telling of the process, the beginning and ending of this whole project as I walk away and towards the camera, setting it up in all these weird and wonderful places.

I had chosen for this final leg of the project to wear the same dress to create some consistency to the subject as I move from space to space. This made it really fun to edit, especially close ups of the dress. I noticed how similar each filmed dance was, from set up to finish, but loved the variety of the space which made them also so markedly different.

I have added a contrast/brightness filter to this film, something a bit new to me, which gives it a sharper, 'arty' touch, why not...

I have recently been excited and motivated by questions of: what's next for 100,000 frames? where to now??? (ideas welcome) I have been granted a 10 day Bundanon residency for November 2013 and I am eager I think to develop a live performance element and complete reworking or organisation of the footage I have collected during this residency. Can't wait!

Feeling a little sad yet mostly satisfied with this project, and see that undertaking it has allowed me to learn a lot about myself and where my interests lie. It has been challenging, frustrating, joyous, fulfilling, surprising, burdensome, trivial, revealing...and I am definitely considering undertaking another project of this nature in the future, to cure some of my withdrawal symptoms...

Thanks for supporting and watching...enjoy!

catching up to the end...

...the period of filming for the project has finished!! pheww.

But I regrettably I have had some catch up editing to do, and have finally arrived on top of it all. It has been refreshing to look back over the footage, some of which I had forgotten about, watching films in their entireity and noticing what I find interesting having had that time removed from them.

The first of the two excerpts is a collection of footage from across the year that have somehow gone astray and are therefore not in a chronological order of when they happened. Which I kind of like for a change gives some variety to the environments that I encounter. It has made it interesting when it comes to editing them next to each other and triggers thoughts as I try to remember where I am, what I was doing, and how I am feeling at the time in each new space.

The second excerpt is the nearing the end of the project and sees me visit some of my favourite spaces as I travel between my work engagements in regional NSW. One that sticks in my mind and body is the experience of performing in a sea of yellow canola in Cowra, especially fun as I could disappear and reappear and feel so insignificant amidst the varsity of it all, (and of course yellow happens to be my favourite colour). I notice, which I have pointed out before, that I am drawn to film in outdoor spaces and the natural environment, and I love this tendency, it forces something beyond myself and my own movement exploration extending into the essence of the surrounds.

I have one more film to post which is a bit of fun and has a running theme that kind of breaks the boundaries of the way that I have been in filming and editing for the majority of the project.
So stay tuned...

almost there...

Yes, I have been a little absent from posting these past months, but nearing the end I thought I better get my act together and put my editing hat on.

With this excerpt I have consciously tried to capture unusual spaces, varied my shot depth and frame composition to really try to mix up and provide contrast with each new clip.

The sites still follow my patterns of everyday work life - car trips in the countryside and studio time, and play life - with shots for example on the Manly Ferry, one of my favourite spaces I have done to date. A lovely helpful gentleman held the camera as I flounced around on the deck, wind blowing my hair, much to the delight of onlookers.

Nearing the end of this project I am beginning to realise how much I enjoy site specific performance and am definitely interested to pursue it further as a part of my practice. One of the main reasons I think this is, is because I can give myself permission to dance anywhere anytime, without specific audience, purpose....etc. another reason is that I think dancing outside opens up a whole new world of physical stimulus beyond the closed box/blank canvas if you like of a studio, there are so many variables and therefore responses to an outdoor uncontrolled space.

I recently performed a new work at BEAMS Festival 'construct-her' in which I plant a garden in the middle of the road, a comment on the way we construct nature in an ever increasing concrete world. The way people seemed to engage with it was really rewarding, people were actually compelled to come up and tell me how much they enjoyed it, how unexpected it was, which was awesome to hear because all the while I have been doing this film project for me, which realistically is a selfish thing I guess, so it is great to see that when placed in an artistic context like a festival that this kind of performance goes beyond me and can affect others too.

Ok well take 14...

momentum in the moment

This upload documents my activities over the past few weeks, settling back into work after some adventures in the outback. The spaces are contrastingly man-made and stark in comparison to the silence, beauty and rarity of the landscapes that I managed to capture in the last post. But to notice and record this diversity of my geographical and physical movements is pretty awesome too. I did miss the tactile and vast nature of the spaces from outback, getting down and dirty in the red sand for example and rolling on the incredibly smooth stones, was juxtaposed in my mind with the cleanliness and rigidity of the constructed spaces that I tend to explore here.

With these performances, I consciously chose to take my camera with me on more work, leisure and errand activities to find something interesting within unlikely and unconventional times and spaces. I found that when I made this choice I consciously made the effort to perform somewhere on that outing and they proved to be quite unique, which was fun... particularly enjoyed performing the table at a restaurant (subtle though it was).

I also realised that I love playing with light, finding spaces that use strong pools or strips of light from a window, door, car lights which seem to naturally create a double frame almost and a focus for the movement in the space.

Editing this film I noticed strong patterns of movement, repeated from day to day, and a nervous and continuous energy that I found hard to shake. Perhaps with the momentum of life speeding up again my brain and body have become a little consumed by this. Similarly I noticed I began to choose similar angles of shots, like a default mode, so I am looking to break these habits for the next post. Shifting the framing and proximity of body to the camera.

 So here is excerpt 13. Woah!!! Its getting closer to the end (October).... but I secretly don't want it to end!!!

All around the place

So I started this excerpt of video in the midst of creative devlopment project in Canberra and have since been involved in two others, which has been incredible, lucky me!! One was in Bathurst an amazing group of performers and the other 70ks from Alice Springs, in the outback.
Experimenting in the different places and contexts has been a real artistic wake up for me over the past month, looking forward to making decisions about where would be the most interesting space to perform/film as each day unfolded. the more foreign the better. I loved immersing myself in a space that seems to have, from my perspective, undetermined potential or unchartered territory, the unknown is exciting!!!

Being out in the bush, amidst a diversity of different natural landscapes was particularly revitalising, from river stones, to the muddy river bed, to thick grass land, a red sand hill...etc and words cannot describe how awesome it was to be in these spaces, the silence and peacefulness of the environment is striking. And as we noted on our trip, it just is. It is when we are there in it, and it is when we are not.

Something I considered quite a bit when on my bush theatre adventures was who was the audience? Was I performing for nature or for myself? I tried to play between these and realised that for me I find it much easier with an audience, ie. people, so it did become a little challenging when it literally was just me moving in vast space. But ultimately, at least for this project, each filming experiment is an exploration of space, and my relationship to it, and that was what kept my interest.

Favourite moments during this post include performing in 'No Place' showing, at the airport, the red sand hill, and up the tree. The sense of play for me is a big part of it, and in spaces I felt free to go with that instinct..fun..fun.

ok well here it is...