immediacy / 1 hour rehearsal performance project
I miss rehearsal, I miss seeing people's mouths, I miss collaboration in the moment, I miss fellow humans, I miss connecting via creation, I miss live performing, and I miss seeing live performance.
Questions I am asking:
What is the essence of performance that I so miss? What are the elements of performance that give it the quality of live-ness, of excitement, of nervousness? Can it be simulated online? How can performance live as a means to more research, to process? Can the anxieties around performance shift to an exploration of good feelings?
Things I'm searching for:
Togetherness // community // collaboration:
Being with another human and practicing an open, listening dialogue
Resisting the paternalistic practice of choreographer holding all knowledge and absolute power
Resisting the white supremacy cultural norm of perfectionism and inadequacy
humor // joy // absurdism:
the radical act of imagining lightness and joy into reality
Resisting the practice of stunting growth via power hoarding
Following a pathway of emerging content rather than a prescribed correctness
Immediacy // yes and-ing // performing as process:
Celebrating the art of performing without perfection, creating without the supposition of lengthy process, joyfully sinking into a process that performs while it creates and highlights the aliveness of art-making as the product grows and develops while being generously given
Things I've discovered so far:
a necessary smoothness of transition and active listening to make sure the co-creator is ready to shift (everyone)
mental challenges of a performance are welcome and feeling good (Shannon Nash)
it can be comforting and lovely to be directed in your own space/ told what to do (Emily Pacilio)
scroll thru / immediacy
one hour rehearsal performance project 1: January 14, 2021
Emily p:
When I close my eyes I __breathe_____
I __breathe_____ three luminous __breaths________.
They __settle______
I sit with them and imagine.
We imagine swirls of _glitter______
I dream to envision _presence_________
Shannon:
When I close my eyes I _sway______
I __sing_____ three luminous ___swells_______.
They __fall______
I sit with them and imagine.
We imagine swirls of __thought_____
I dream to envision __a dream________
EMILY PACILIO AND SHANNON NASH
Movement phrase: breath, exhale a little more, see four things, let them resonate, yarn joints
Color/Landscape/Place: Shannon: blue-green / Emily: yellow
Where performing? Shan: inclined architecture / Em: the woods
Take-aways: Low stakes + mental challenge of grabbing onto material immediately / the mental challenge and attentiveness that is no longer a part of every day, Agency within someone directing / the ease of being told what to do, transitions that don’t feel like whiplash, easing into the steps
one hour rehearsal performance project 2: January 21, 2021
Em p:
Across the horizon, I saw __purple_______. Four magnificent __gulls_______ float in the distance. A feeling of __stillness_____ overcame me.
EMILY PACILIO
Driving into the city, “set self aside”
Creaky, sedentary, stretchy, crunchy
Using madLib imagery for warm-up // imagery of sand, water, breath, waves
Teach a small phrase (walk down the body phrase)
Place or landscape: Museum Gallery with a photo // portrait of nameless lady with gray hair
one hour rehearsal performance project 3: January 28, 2021
Em p
Oh! I am in this digital __world______. Sounds of __wind_______ fill the air. How _weird________! I still feel ___small________ amidst all of this.
Shannon:
Oh! I am in this digital __shift_____. Sounds of _life_______ fill the air. How _resounding_______! I still feel __a part________ amidst all of this.
EMILY PACILIO AND SHANNON NASH
Shan / poplar building, making a thing gorgeous.
Underwater with heavy feet, notice the sand, water’s sensation on your face, start to loop and bank the movement. What feels “correct” for you right now? Play with volume and dynamics
one hour rehearsal performance project 4: February 2, 2021
KATHRYN LOGAN
“balls in the air”, fragmented, somatics, social justice, back up and hold contradictions “endeavor longing” holding all of that ////
Place/Landscape: performing in a sphere, dark in there with patches of localized light. One-way glass, dark where you are
one hour rehearsal performance project 5: February 4, 2021
Emily Pacilio : I am here, here _upstairs________
Who else knew?
I _soften______ in time with the wind
The wind _flies_________ back at me.
Together, we __tumble__________
Shannon : I am here dying. Who else knew? I switch in time with the wind. The wind blows kisses back at me. Together we grow.
EMILY PACILIO AND SHANNON NASH
breathing, resting, moving slow, listening, digesting
one hour rehearsal performance project 6: February 9, 2021
JOHN CARTWRIGHT
Long day // Open, scratchy, droopy, floating
Trying out the four words, banking the movement that feels right / noticing your space, and pausing, finding stillness at reliving, recognizing your
Scratchy impetus for transition / open, floating, droopy
Score: start in light, inventory of what you see, floaty scratchy droopy scratchy open
“objects: chaotic mess of my things no time to focus on things and cleaning
Frenetic energy / timeline of your day and the energies within it represented by hands
Place/Landscape:
A museum of natural history / Chicago Field Museum /// by the T-Rex
one hour rehearsal performance project 7: February 11, 2021
When I close my eyes I dream
I _feel______ three luminous ___spirits_______.
They __share love______
I sit with them and imagine.
We imagine swirls of __joy_____
I dream to envision __peace________
QUIANNA SIMPSON
Happy, joy, anxiety
“what else do I feel around me? Comfort, serene, a sense of peace about the things that are not done”
Score: Whispered monologue, dreaming in your space, adjust the viewpoint, gestures, movement phrase from happy, joy, serene Find 3-4 objects in your space and breathe with them, play with chandelier light in the screen, feel the light on your face
Color/Vibe/Place/Landscape: out of body, stars, celestial, void, vast land out underneath the sky, Paris under the Eiffel Tower lights
one hour rehearsal performance project 8: February 13, 2021
When I close my eyes I __remember_____
I __feel_____ three luminous _suns_________.
They ___dance_____
I sit with them and imagine.
We imagine swirls of _healing______
I dream to envision ____tomorrow______
JACQUIE SOCHACKI
Slow but constant nice and refreshing, nervous, excited to share a story, does my story need to be told?
In-depth vulnerability, re-claiming your own version of a past self
“I remember what I remember”
Score: read the phrase, floor movement to standing, balance try to remember the phrase, finish phrase go into EmJacquie version, shadow arms, re-remember, whisper what you remember, back up
--the fight for the balance, re-remember, ghosting
one hour rehearsal performance project 9: February 18, 2021
EMILY PACILIO AND SHANNON NASH
tired, open, on he verge / cusping for a busting, stiff, stressed, overstretched/overextended, tired, smelly
Scores: mathermatical between the music and the body, close-up stiff stretch, circular, bouncey away and groove behind the bed, chill on bed, stretch on bed, angles on bed, confined in spaces, arms go crazy, come in close, here and not
one hour rehearsal performance project 12: February 23, 2021
LAURA NEESE
Cozy, wilted, yellow logging in the body, a day off for the first time in a while
Seeing things in the space that the viewer doesn’t get to / secrets to the furniture, yellow of the walls and curtains, shapes in the space, internal flexed positions,
See the traces
Score: blacked out with shirt sleeve, explode into yellow wall/tree phrase, let the remnants of your tracings linger in the space, watch them, let them dissolve, whisper your monologue to different parts of the room, taking you to the screen, read the mono internally, retrograde your whisper pathway, cozy, wilted, yellow movement into embodied internal monologue, when finished backward path through space as music fades
When I close my eyes I _fly
I ___paint____ three luminous __circles________.
They __sing______
I sit with them and imagine.
We imagine swirls of ___light____
I dream to envision _____daylight_____
one hour rehearsal performance project 13: February 25, 2021
When I close my eyes I __see red_____
I ___eat____ three luminous ___lights_______.
They ___burn in my belly_____
I sit with them and imagine.
We imagine swirls of ___fire____
I dream to envision ____cold icy water______
TARA BURNS
Post-teaching class feelings, bedtime for girls, excitement of bedtime / rituals at bedtime
Attentive, heavy, energized/alive (“I didn’t want to say two a words”)
Playing with switching between the qualities of movement, as if randomized, improvisational, immediate, mixing imagery with structured movement, letting the imagined space infiltrate the physical, how to turn off the “performance” feeling that takes away the sinking in of the movement?
Score: facing wall, small, marked version of shifting from attentive, heavy, alive, building it from wall, act out madLib internal monologue as much as can remember, drop it/walk to screen, read monologue internally, whisper it to Keith, back against all three walls, mark phrase, build to full phrase, to mark, with special importance to the hands
LANDSCAPE/PERFORMANCE SPACE: hallway covered in silver glitter
Audience?: maybe they’re watching from a ceiling grid
Costume: White Collar, Black jumpsuit