MASK MAKING

I usually get asked this question a lot: Why the masks?

Well, I started wearing the masks back in early 2014, I didn’t have the context as to the why but I had the feelings. Reading many great Chicano/a scholarships has enhanced my understanding of the masking culture that is alive and well today in Mexico and the Borderlands. This vein of studies also operates as a creative and productive outlet for my work as an artist. More so many of my abilities are navigating a world not meant for me usually–I feel.

Back in 2014, I was drawn to omitting my identity and obscuring the image of the body onstage. The mask work has added a layer of surrealism that I am researching from a feminist perspective and admire works from Frida Kahlo, Remedios Varo, and Dorthea Tanning. Masks in these studies stem from Luchador culture which came out of the Tejas Borderlands and is now a pop-culture Mexican staple, however, the use of masks is relevant in Dia De Los Muertos and other traditions.

Starting this semester with a Costume Practicum with Lindsay Simon for 6 hours a week was such an outlet for creativity and production, and gave me time to understand the process of making masks.

To get started, I create a storyboard and gather materials. I created an inspiration board (Pinterest) to gather ideas for the Lucha Libre, Animal designs, and LROD masks I was interested in producing. Since I had only made these masks by hand I was ready to produce a pattern so that I could easily make more on a sewing machine rather than hand-stitch. The goal was to experiment with many fabrics and styles to gain experience making the masks and practicing my sewing machine abilities. For the animal heads, what was the next level of design besides making, shaping, and coloring them?

Here are some previous masks I have made for my work:

Innominate Performance – LROD + Artists Dance Artists: Sierra Hendrix, Levi Ryan, Kince De Vera, Scotty Flores, Hannah Cavallaro, Becca Blackwell, Molly Levy Lighting: Meg Fox Photo: Devin Munoz

BORDERLANDS

LOS MUERTOS

RUPTURE

PUEBLA

PUEBLA

PUEBLA

PUEBLA

STAG FOR DAYS

BUNNY IN BLOOM

THE REVOLT

 Until next time – LROD

©LROD

ARTIST | Capture - Dimitris Papaioannou

Can we pause for a moment and take this in?…………. Ok…..Papaioannou has been living off my radar and I am excited to connect. I am inspired by this artist because of the range of skills he weaves together. He is in the vein of total dance theater. It would be freeing to have the ability (finances) to set my imagination free. I see this in Papaioannou’s work. All in all, the ability to imagine anything you want and see it come to fruition has to be life giving.

A quick backstory on Papaioannou who was born in Athens in 1964, Dimitris Papaioannou gained early recognition as a painter and comics artist, before his focus shifted to the performing arts, as director, choreographer, performer, and designer of sets, costumes, make up, and lighting.

Papaioannou’s work is visually captivating and in a way full of spectacle < but I sense intention and decision in the work which means it is not just for “art’s sake”. However, I enjoy how multi-talented the work is and at times simple. These worlds and movement aesthetics that Papaioannou is working with are aligned to the big dreams that live in my head. You know… The if you could make anything with unlimited resources and dancers – what does the result look like type dream. All in all, I am excited to see his work continue to unfold and continue to shift in the realms of imagination reality.

Also, I am very excited his New Work 1 will be shown and set on Pina Bausch’s dancers at Tanztheater Wuppertal May 2018.

©LROD

The Internal | Connecting | Creative Process

Date: October 26, 2017

Two levels in Creative Process v.210

Mapping out a creative process to connect two parts of my research resonating with Inside the Room and Outside the room branches. Inside the room’s design is led by the Experiment thread, while Outside the room reflects the Research thread. I was compiling this information from a word bank created in the Grad Composition class with Professor Susan Van Pelt Petry and peers. We then each took the word bank and made a visual map of our creative process.

For my challenge, I only used each word one time and practiced this assignment utilizing a present-moment embodiment. Meaning, that I only allowed myself one piece of paper with no option to have a do-over. Utilizing this assignment as a challenge I was aware of my devising boundaries. This project created a meditative space for me to sit with my pen to the paper, and process my process. Which usually feels meta, however, this project was calming while being informative. Most of my reflections have happened through a stream-of-consciousness or analytical essay, so it felt good to move towards a tangible medium to flush out information.

Further noting the attention and weight of each word resonating within my body I continue to let these words reconfigure inside my body. A digital roadway on the frontier of interconnectivity pulsing, sparking, and transferring connections that re-wires and retracts information before surging it back out again.

The system is operating. 

I recognize these maps are abundant within my body, and mind and are the containers to hold, organize, and connect information used to make co-creative spaces. They are roadways of information. Living knowledge intrigues me as I delve into the internal self of producing art. Maybe the cyborg self is emerging underneath the surface below my skin and responding to the familiarity of the motherboard. While the image below relates to this emerging, I examine the depths and intricacies that are possible in overriding.

Cyborg Self Reflection | Awakening

In trying to navigate my cyborg self-relationship I am drawn to this quote by Donna Haraway a professor, consciousness, and feminist scholar, “Cyborg writing is about the power to survive, not based on original innocence, but based on seizing the tools to mark the world that marked them as other” (Haraway 2016, 55). My journey over the past five years has sent me plunging into words, writing, and language – preparing me for my conversations, arguments, and discourse today. Sometimes my consciousness rejects my impulse to respond, and my unconsciousness delivers connectors to reconnect broken bridges of thought. Tracing the map above throughout my creative process enables me to redirect how I am thinking, feeling, and exploring the material.

Responding to a recent visit by Vida Midgelow who presented at the DSA inaugural Scholarly Conference and is a Professor in Dance and Choreographic Studies at Middlesex University London says, “Coming into language is a significant process through which experiential, material and emergent forms of knowledge can be foregrounded, processed and shared” (Midgelow 1994). Previously, I rarely spoke my stance or dared to share the perspectives that ran rampant in my mind.

The information comes to me as this digital space allows me to write about these developing curiosities that are awakening. Identifying as an “other,” I do claim the tools to unearth my potential as a choreographic researcher, scholar, and free-thinker to engage in practices that move humanity towards change. Structures, rules, and traditions can be broken and reconfigured to make manifest new ways of operating that enhance artistic ability, connect technology and humanity, and revolutionize the central core of art-making.

Free Motherboard Vector Art

The above image is how I imagine the framework for my discourse of choreographic research operating–or what it looks like to strategically choreograph, basically my mind on paper. The motherboard vector art is part – object – abstract – micro-processing –  unit –  internet integrated – modern – non-binary projects – future technological advances – daydreams.

Works Cited

Haraway, Donna J. and Cary Wolfe. 2016. Manifestly Haraway. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed October 25, 2017).

Midgelow, Vida. and Jane Bacon. 2014. “Creative Articulation Practice (CAP).”                                      Forthcoming in Choreographic Practices. 5[2]                                                                                  https://www.academia.edu/9956868/Creative_Articulations_Process_CAP_  (accessed October 25, 2017)

©LROD

Intermedia || Merging Reflection

Archive Date: December 14, 2017

In collaboration with my colleagues, we set out to produce a digital double investigation. Our goals included examining the Double as Reflection, suggested by Steve Dixon’s “The Digital Double” (2004) essay which I reflected previously on here. From this project, we realized that we were attracted to textures, and themes, and discovered multiple ways to find a reflection at different levels of technological entanglement. Take a moment to skip through.

One challenge that we encountered was in using the video feedback loop, top-down camera, projection, and lighting to gain different perspectives of the space, it appeared that the movement we created needed to shift per examination. Incorporating The Isadora program, live sound, and lighting to bring these portraits together merged with the movement and use of the material was essential and grounding components to this project.

The digital double in the sense of reflection draws me to the consciousness that the real body maintains throughout the performance. I found it interesting that most of the time the real-life performer needs to witness the digital in reflection. Dixon notes, “This has been exacerbated by paradoxical rhetoric of disembodiment and virtual bodies, which have turned ideas of corporeal reality full circle by the claim that the digital body has equal status and (authenticity) to the biological one” (Dixon 2004, 24). During this study, the concept did cross my mind of the equality of images, and I found myself drawn to both bodies at different times. I begin to speak about this on this page with Agent Ruby and the sense of awareness of consciousness through AI that has developed.

For this project, I appreciated this viewing:

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s Fase (1982) is so simple from a current technological standpoint but is still so mesmerizing to watch. Here light, shadow, film, and movement create the dance – enhance the dance. One of the parts that most interests me is at 7:18 of this film. Noting that from the first half of the film space transforms and they are now performing on their shadows in a fully saturated blue space.

Glancing into the future I was struck by this digital double. While the concept is simple seems simple what transpires is exhilarating.

This is CO: LATERAL (2016) by Joao Martinho Moura

Moura’s work with the digital double here is literally electrifying itself. I appreciate how in this work the dancer is in the dark while the emphasis is put on the double.  The bold lighting against the blackened stage gives a stark contrast platform for the double to stand out.  In a sense this double take on a dominant force on stage and provides a strong presence in the work following along with Dixon’s models.

The most important experience I had from this study is the merger of technology and body with intention. Questioning why /how we implement technology into the work was at the forefront of this study to think about as a group. The question: How we collaborate with technology? Continued forward into our next studies.

Sources:

De Keersmaeker, Anne Teresa, and Michele Anne de Mey. 1982. “Fase.” (Film) Director Thierry de Mey. Music Robert Reich.

Dixon. Steve. 2004. “The Digital Double.” New Visions in Performance: The Impact of Digital Technologies. Ed. Gavin Carver. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger. Print

©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