and the difference is?
Art vs. Porn
On Orientations | one place after
On Orientations | one place after
An Kaler
24.2.2013
Studio 5 Uferstudios, Berlin
A little Q & A –
Why were there the evenly space strings attached to the floor upstage and the ceiling downstage? To create an upward trajectory from upstage to downstage for the eye, maybe. The angle of the strings relative to the front of the stage also creates a sense of movement.
Why to horizontal fluorescent tubes upstage? Maybe to emphasis low upstage horizontality, a strong theme in the piece. A Flavin reference, maybe. Or are fluorescent tubes are just the current electromagnetic trend?
Why wear pants that are the same color and tone as the floor? An attempt to make the legs blend in with the floor to negate verticality, perhaps.
***
The idea of this piece and the concept of the series – to explore “different notions of orientation” is one I enjoy. I have often wondered about dance terminology (at least in English) in relation to the human form in space. The term floor work, for example. Floor work tends to be when the body is not vertical and the pelvis is close to or on the floor. But unless the dancer is levitating all dancing is floor work. Except for jumping. But it’s impossible to jump and land without the floor. So maybe everything is floor work except for what happens in the air.
I also appreciate that the performer never came to standing. What percentage of dances consist of vertical or mostly vertical dancers? 90%? 95%? Probably more. What I found disappointing was the lack of interrogation of what the body can do in a primarily horizontal position. She didn’t explore the body itself and how it moves through its kinesphere and through space enough to challenge the idea of verticality. Maybe this is what the phrase in the program “…conceiving of stillness as motion/emotion.” was referring to. But then, here again, the performer wasn’t still enough long enough to generate an emotion in me. Attempting something that is normally seen vertically in the horizontal plane would have more strongly challenge the normative spatial orientation of verticality. This, though, might come across as too “compare and contrast” and not poetic/artistic enough.
One statement in the program I am curious about – “Linking spatiality with temporality On Orientations | one place after…” This piece can’t link two things that are already linked. Space and time are inexorably linked. Maybe that statement is meant to indicate a problematizing of the space-time relationship. This I did not see. The stretches of stillness and the low verticality might have been Kaler’s attempt to question the space-time relationship. Since space and time are linked, questioning one means the other is being questioned. But the stretches of stillness in the Berlin dance scene are standard. Unlinking space and time would be something to see!
Granted it has been almost a year since I saw Kaler’s trio at Uferstudios last summer and a while since I saw this solo, but I think both pieces have a very similar spatial trajectory. Both pieces started downstage left, curved upstage to stage right, came downstage, back upstage and then moved towards center stage. Is this an intentional choreographic decision to create a spatial theme for several pieces? Is this a somatic spatial response to performing front of an audience? I prefer the former to the latter. I didn’t see the third piece in the series so didn’t get that data to help me understand Kaler’s spatial proclivities. I wish I had been able to see it.
Energetic Charge
“With an acute sense for the inherent potential contained within ordinary objects and natural materials as well as for the placement of objects within a space, both artists manage to give their arrangements an energetic charge.”
The above quote is from the description of an exhibit currently at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. I hope to see the exhibit. I quite like the art in the picture.
What caught my eye in the text is “inherent potential” and “both artists manage”. I do not dispute that ordinary objects have inherent potential. Some more than others. (a fully charged capacitor, for example. Or a tub of water atop a large hill. ha!)
Funnin’ aside, I understand that phrase and the drama of space – placement of objects. What I don’t understand is pairing that phrase with “both artists manage to give their arrangements an energetic charge”.
If the objects have inherent potential, then it should be impossible to not give their arrangements an energetic charge. Just throw them out there, and boom! you’re done. The problem lies with the word “managed”. To me it signals some kind of skill, or ability that imbued the arrangements with energetic charge. Maybe it’s a translation issue. Maybe the artists unleashed the potential energy creating a static, yet kinetic, arrangement.
It would be more impressive if the artists had used objects and space that have no potential and managed to create energetic charge.
But…what spaces have no potential?
What objects have no potential?
Or maybe used objects and spaces of great potential and created arrangements of absolutely no charge.
I’d go see that!
Compare and Contrast
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pqhks1Q41g]
and
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/62056892 w=560&h=315]
granted, it could be said that we are looking at apples and oranges as one performance has audience on three sides, live music, and video. But I would say that these two performances are more alike than they are different. I am most interested in the spacing, placing, and pacing of the kinespheres and how they differ in the two pieces.
Moshpit Simulation
Below is a link to an interesting simulation of a moshpit.
I can’t insert it into this WordPress site as iframes are not allowed.
http://mattbierbaum.github.io/moshpits.js/
A definition of art
Art is something that you need to be told to look at.
Met a Four
…by using tools from schools of thought that deal in metaphor, we end up constantly looking for metaphor…
discuss
Technique trains instinct
Another definition for Contact
Con –
1. a prefix meaning “with,” “together,” “in association”
2. a verb meaning “to commit to memory” or “to study or examine closely”
3. an adverb meaning “on the negative side” or “in opposition”
4. a verb meaning “swindle”, “manipulate”, “persuade”, or “cajole”
Tact –
1.a keen sense of what to say or do to avoid giving offense; skill in dealing with difficult or delicate situations.
2.a keen sense of what is appropriate, tasteful, or aesthetically pleasing; taste; discrimination.
3.touch or the sense of touch.
2.a keen sense of what is appropriate, tasteful, or aesthetically pleasing; taste; discrimination.
3.touch or the sense of touch.
A defintion
Improvisation: bodies manifesting and dissolving dynamic temporal-spatial structures according to aesthetic and physical potentialities and proclivities in a planar arena.