First Round of Prototyping, in 8 steps

1. DEFINE A SPECIFIC AUDIENCE: narrowed down the audience to a group of people who understand how to function and manipulate their body in accordance to sounds
Results: chose modern dancers, ages 18+

modern dance

2. RESEARCH MATERIAL: books, (Modern Dance, Music for the Modern Dance, Modern Dance in Relation to the Other Modern Arts) magazines… (Dance & Dance Spirit Magazine)
Results:

• modern dance emerged in Germany  as ‘gymnasttanz’ in the 1920s. also learned that modern dance is an integration of gymnastics and ballet, in addition to many similar poses in yoga… it essentially abandons all traditional thoughts of ballet and form and allows performers to be as expressive as possible.
• found precedents for ‘downtown dance’, a genre of dance that evolved from modern dance that engages new media art and installation pieces to create a dialogue between performer and environment/stage

Nudedescendance

3. CONTACTED PRECEDENTS
Results: a small exchange between Benoît Maubrey, and e-mailed mentioned “downtown dance” artists. What I enjoy most about Maubrey’s work are his interface variations. It seems that several of the pieces start off with the similar interface but emerge with stronger and stronger messages about the space of the environment on which they’re held. (i.e. Audio Ballerinas-Solar Ballerinas)

audio ballerinas

4. SIGNED UP FOR MODERN DANCE CLASSES
Results: was able to become an audience member, create contacts, observe & record a class

5. SURVEY
Results: asked dancers their favorite, least favorite, most compelling and difficult positions. paper doll was a failure. E-mailed instead, and found that integration of the entire body, or if in a group, the entire team is the hardest.

6. DATA VISUALIZATION
Results: revealed truths of the environment and gestural movements

hands

torso

feet

combination

7. COMBINED WII PATCH TO THE PATTERNS
Results: velcroed off shoulders and onto wrist and waist for results

8. NEXT STEPS
Results: incorporate the environment… relay a message about the space. think about the narrative

Democracy in America…

Of the several pieces I saw, the two that struck me as the most interesting were Sharon Hayes’ Revolutionary Love 1 & 2: I Am Your Worst Fear, I Am Your Best Fantasy and Clinton Lowe’s re-enactment of Stokely Charmichael’s speech (at a private performance held on Tuesday night). I think they were both powerful pieces because of their set design and their eloquent content.

With Sharon Hayes’ installation that was a visual and audio documentary of the mass readings on the politics of desire at the Republican and Democratic National Convention. The manner in which the sound and the space worked together to re-enact the speech so that the user felt they were a part of the speech, and the speech a part of the room was, in my opinion, absolutely clever.

Favorable ending: “So much has happend my love and we are just a the beginning.  We will evolve as we get ourselves together and we are only at the beginning. We’ll be gay until everyone has forgotten and then we’ll be gay again.”

photo from Revolutionary Love

Stokely Charmichael is an integral part of American history, as he was the man who coined the term, “Black Power” and “institutional racism”. To hear a speech only 40 years past, and to become aware of the fact that the relevance of the war and the issues of race (http://nymag.com/news/features/49138/) are still prevalent and are parallel to the present campaign is a shocking realization.

Favorite prop for Set Design: Paul Ramirez Jonas podium piece from 5 Props for a Speakers’ Corner

Paul Ramirez Jonas

Other projects that I felt were relative to classmates works:
Sandhya– Chu Yun’s Tape Recording, 1984
Carol– Sharon Hayes

change of heart.

I have been giving some thought to some of the suggestions Carol, Maze and Rishi made for my piece, which was to find a specific audience and mind, and I am really thinking about the complications of this. I fear if I leave it so open as I have with my first prototype, I will have such a random and incoherent gathering of stats and information, and an audience that may seem undefined. They mentioned if I turn to performers themselves, that that could be an interesting way to get people who really understand the stage, music and choreography much better, and can help define a more specific audience.

I think this is a great idea, and have thought about myself as well in this process. From my presentation, the ideas have been completely me, but the MC Hammer aspect of my piece has been a completely foreign aspect of my interests, other than just to add humor to my piece. In my past, I was a dancer for about 8 years and gave that up, and attempted to bring that back with a wearable project in Fashionable Technology by creating an LED tutu. This all leads me to believe that i should focus more on defining myself and my interests, and become a member of my audience.

I was reading a bit about modern dance and found that its sole definition is to “break grounds from traditional dance behaviors”, which I feel would be the perfect environment for experimentation. I got really excited, and signed up for a class (starts Monday evening), looked at books I would like to check out on choreography, music and kinds of modern dance, and have even read through The New School for Drama and have made a list of possible contacts I would like to refer to for interviews and research. I even bought Dance Magazine to be up-to-date on the subjects of interests in this niche that I have found.

I also thought more about a clear and concise ending to this thesis project, and I really would love to end the semester with a performance, instead of a random piece project. Ideally, I would love to have performers use my piece in a performance, or I wouldn’t mind also getting on stage with my wearable and showing off some new modern dance moves I’ve learned through the years.  I think that would make for an amazing thesis presentation, but also would be a fascinating process.

As for my prototyping this semester, I have decided to make a simple paper doll and have dancers position them in their favorite, least favorite, comfortable and uncomfortable positions. I also will be dressing the doll up and asking them to put on the costume with similar questions of which could be aesthetically pleasing and which could be most comfortable.