One more meeting with Morgan, on the record.
We talked about my plan for Berlin. I want to take my practice into an unfamiliar territory, and take advantage of being away from home. Because the content of my performances are saturated by their preparation (what I do that day, what I read, what’s tainting my mental space), I’d like to experiment in situating myself in unfamiliar parts of Berlin. Maybe I sign up for a class I don’t understand (taught in German?). Whatever it is, I want to see what it does to the performance, and what language comes out.
I mentioned missing the voice when I did my editing performances in April. Morgan suggested working with a musician, and connecting my voice to a pedal to alter the sound of SCHPANDO more dramatically. I’m giving this a try. I’ll use a toggle switch to go back and forth, and maintain a dialogue between myself and SCHPANDO.
Morgan offered some editing notes on my thesis paper. She asked: ‘who is Heather?’ Heather is an audience member that came to one of the editing performances, but it’s not clear from the formatting of my document that Heather isn’t another voice of mine. I need to make this clearer, and be careful about bringing in other voices as I might mess up the narrative. Be consistent. And be careful when you’re too close to the thing (the thesis, the project, etc). Don’t overcomplicate it, don’t mess with it, use what works, and don’t throw in anything gratuitous. Try to draw clean lines in it. Remember, you’re not summarizing your entire life. Just make a piece.
Follow your intuition, and if you’re afraid, just watch it, but don’t stop, observe it.
A few references for moving forward:
- Jane Lei, Macau choreographer
- Volker Straebel: musicologist, head of electronic music department at Akademie der Kunst Berlin
- Bill Forsythe One Flat Thing video on vimeo (I drew it when it was in rehearsal and was called Tables. (Also look at his notation system and pedagogy DVD’s)
- Simone Forti – the News Series
- Danspace Project Inc
- Kelly Kivland dance curator for DIA Foundation
- Otto Rank, psychologist: Art and Artist