PERFORMACE ARCHIVE: On Friday, June 19th, La Pocha Nostra curated an international performance experiment to support Juneteenth, Black Lives Matter and essential artist workers. 12 artists, 8 countries, and 3 hours. This event was hosted remotely by Grace Exhibition Space in New York City. All proceeds directly to artists and Black Lives Matter. I was excited to have the opportunity to perform with LPN and be welcomed by the international performance art community! More soon! Adelante!
Choreographic Engagement
ARGotschild
Concept
My co-creator Tara Burns and I, aimed to create an Augmented Reality application used as an educational supplement to Laura Dixon Gottschild’s Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts.
Methodology
We chose ten pages that we would augment in the book. Each being accountable for five, we discussed ways that would most effectively visualize the textual content. We also were looking at different ways to activate our selected pages resulting in a blueprint containing a motion capture example of poly-rhythm, several reliefs of video examples of the pieces discussed in the book with sound and including the capability to stop and restart the video with a button, one relief picture of a definition with sound to clarify the pronunciation of the word ephebism and one relief of a black and white picture that changed to color. (burnsnation.wordpress.com)
ARGOTTSCHILD project demonstrates the various capacities in which augmented reality can be used to enhance the learning experience through text and connects our digital advances instantly in the classroom.
ARGOTTSCHILD makes possible the ability to connect with live video, 3D models, and word descriptions making learning more connected and efficient. The goal of this project is to have a prototype to share with departments, authors, and future scholars the possibilities of integrated technology.
ARGOTTSCHILD streamlines the learning experience for students and opens doors for future author’s inclusion of media components.
©LROD
©BURNS
Key Thoughts: Love + Ethics Manifesto
Archive Date: February 25, 2018
A response to my Research Studies course from bell hook’s All About Love.
bell hooks says “A love ethic presupposes that everyone has the right to be free, to live fully and well. To bring a love ethic to every dimension of our lives, our society would need to embrace change” (hooks 2000, 87) Freedom, revolution, and wellbeing are the three words that come to mind when I think of the love ethic – an action and – a doing. With the full force of my body, I am made aware of the grave injustice that divides our country and those who live in it. Just an example, coming from Seattle where the cost of living is rising so quickly that they now have the third largest homeless population in the country and where the median income is $80.000. When black and brown bodies are the major populations that make up our mass incarceration numbers. Where poverty, lack of education, starvation, and unemployment appear to be systemically put into motion. In an era of polarizing fear that films police brutality with no action to correct, high school bullies murder their peers in violent acts of hatred all while capturing on Facebook Live. When is enough? Where do we begin? Can I justify my work as an artist to the greater good?
I find myself questioning this love ethic in the middle of the Florida shooting that took 17 lives. If society as a whole cannot put down their daily lives to join together for society’s well-being to have our gun laws changed for the safety of our children’s futures, then we are farther away from functioning as a society or the “collective good” hooks speaks about (Hooks 98). I have three children so anytime a school is on lockdown or I witness another mother on TV crying, mourning, pleading for action, I am ready – ready to go. We have marched, petitioned, and continue to support groups for a cause – but at what point does the love ethic take hold to make radical change happen? When does change happen now for us? Do we have a combined voice to shake the foundation? Can we join together and find a pushback against the power’s neglect? Can we “awaken to love” as hooks suggests? Or are we blindfolded or desensitized by the power and domination our country endures with patriarchy, systemic racism, and capitalism?
In thinking about technology hooks says, “For example, revolutionary new technologies have led us all to accept computers. Our willingness to embrace this “unknown” shows that we are all capable of confronting fears of radical change, that we can cope.” I find this example to be a wonderful catalyst for why Humane Technology is important in transforming our society. Not only can we confront the fears of love in our society, but we can move (action) toward freedom, revolution, and well-being for all. Can we use technology to birth the love ethic movement? What does this look like? How does this collective work?
“To live our lives based on the principles of a love ethic (showing care, respect, knowledge, integrity, and the will to cooperate), we have to be courageous” (hooks 101).
Values Chapter: What are we doing already in our class to “organize around a love ethic” and what more could we do?
Norah does a wonderful job at implementing a love ethic into the class and has provided support platforms at many different levels. Again, it can be hard to understand the “love ethic” within peer-based situations since most of our interactions are graded on some level. However, our interactions, openness, and acceptance challenge the dominant structure and when encountering face-to-face interaction, I witness care and love demonstrated beautifully. I also enjoy the different voices that are brought in through the readings to inform our collective knowledge. Having more time to discuss together would be nice.
Citizen artist platform: I wish to seek out the how or action of our projects to get away from naval-gazing assessments. How does our project impact society? What does our project do? What community is involved? If we could implement “love ethic” from a technological lens as a changed society what does this look like? Where does it begin? Where does it end? How do we work as a small collective to radically change the structure and find a collective voice? These questions would be worked at in a roundtable as opposed to one-by-one delivery.
I am thinking is there a collective charge to our work that we might not recognize yet?
What does living a love ethic mean to you in your daily life as an artist and student? What new commitments might we make together?
I struggle to find the love ethic within the institution, while I am a part of movements to change and bring in the love ethic – there are areas of the space that feel alienating or isolating. There are things I am aware of that are not noticed by the collective and I feel my otherness. How do you move through institutions as a “marked” body? How does the work interact with and inform the communities? “Whose voices are in the room?” – Norah.
The love ethic has been a major part of my life since a young person, maybe this is the culture (action) I was brought up in to do twice the work, as a citizen, artist, and teacher. Maybe this is from the losses I encountered in my upbringing as a young person. May be a combination – not sure. My focus has been on the community of dancers, artists, and collaborators I work with not only to radically change space, ideas, and hearts but to put forth the challenge of doing the work while bringing in the “audience” or “potential collaborators”. The more I can dig into the work with other human beings the more connected energy of goodness surfaces. I felt this the other day during Grad movement practice and Climate Lecture spaces this is an active feeling – drawn to it. I believe there is something very healing about the love ethic that saturates the space and invades our bodies. I enjoyed how hooks closed this chapter so I will bring it back, “Those of us who have already chosen to embrace a love ethic, allowing it to govern and inform how we think and act, know that when we let our light shine, we draw to us and are drawn to other bearers of light. We are not alone” (hooks 101).
Commitments:
Radicalize the space.
Listen actively.
Love accepts.
The challenge to think collectively.
Think more about equality and equity.
Who are the love ethic heroes?
We are not alone.
Citation Station:
hooks, bell. 2000. All about love: new visions. New York: Harper Perennial.
©LROD
Bebe Miller Company: In a Rhythm
Date: December 5, 2017
After watching the premiere of In a Rhythm on Thursday night, I went home eager to read Miller’s program suggestion here. The link takes you to David Foster Wallace’s “Incarnations of Burned Children” Please take a moment to read it….. I will wait. Miller’s program says this about Wallace, “He moves you through a devastating experience moment by moment, in time parallel to the most mundane” (Miller 2017). I realized as the piece started to unfold I was witnessing a consciously aware choreographic work. The mundane is interjected with the experience, while the syntax demonstrates seamless transmission to the reader, the clear distillation of the syntax is what makes the work. In a Rhythm was one of the best works I had seen in a long time because of this clarity in content that was supported strongly by the movement structuring.
Miller also uses the interview excerpt of Toni Morrison and Charlie Rose in the work, and you can watch the full interview here. The interview digs into writing about race, dismantling the white gaze, and discovering the stakes in her book Paradise (Morrison 1998). A book I will add to my list and I am looking forward to reading it during my winter break.
In a Rhythm deep dives into the syntax of movement, and looks at language as choreography in space and time. The choreography not only drew me in but kept me active within the work. The layers of the sections are seamless in their delivery unpacking nightmares of racism subtly sinking below the surface. I did question if I was cross-viewing the work since I was picking up on subtle movements that depict the narratives of racism, and the content of the text, and I shifted many times emotionally in this work. It wasn’t until Miller connected her personal story of seeing Emmett Till’s body on the cover of a magazine that I realized the state of deep sadness in my body, I was curious how long these feelings had been and was left in a profound state after the show ended. This state will take me a moment longer to process. Being in this moment allows me to travel down to the foundation of what I with art as an artist. Overall In a Rhythm seamlessly incorporates a movement language whose syntax was produced with the care of its writer – Bebe Miller.
If you get a chance to see this work I highly recommend it. You can find more on the Bebe Miller Company here and here.
I also recommend you read through Bebe Miller’s Ebook How Dancing is Built: The Making of In A Rhythm here. Bebe Miller has collected and described much of how the making of In a Rhythm came to be. This is a fascinating archive which appears to be written for the audience. On a larger scale, artists documenting and archiving their process is a strategy one can use to preserve the work. With the use of media, video, and blogging an artist can be in conversation with all parties that want to be involved in the work.
Miller, Bebe. 2017. In a Rythm. Wexner Center for the Arts. (Program). Columbus OH.
Morrison, Toni. 1998. Paradise . New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
©LROD