hold me

This week the lovely Jackie Carslon joined us. She is fierce.
We worked on an improvised duet for Liz and Jackie with the following in mind:

: verb (used with object)
-squeeze someone tightly in one's arms, typically to express affection
-hold (something) closely or tightly around or against part of one's body
-fit tightly around
-keep close to

The bodies tell the story. The videos posted are the beginning takes of the process this week.
-Rach

seeing what happens

Last week was spent mostly talking, conceptualizing, throwing out every idea that came to mind. A lot of the talk was centered around the phrase "the last supper". This phrase has been in my brain for awhile now. I have been talking to people about what the phrase means to them, Liz has as well. The different responses are incredibly vast (more on this soon) and inspired the intentions and compositional ideas for the basic studies we have been playing around with so far:
1. perspective
2. portrait/depiction.

thinking thinking thinking....

Toward the end of the week, we decided to put all that intellectualizing aside as best we could and let our bodies lead us. This video clip is my favorite place we ended up.
-Rachel

limitation breeds creativity

We spent the past week studying our individual movement behaviors and patterns. In solo, we improvised with no particular goal in mind, trying to stay true to just following impulses. Through repetition of this exercise, patterns developed and we began to identify our habits. Habit-friend or foe? Yes, friend and foe. I wanted to try eliminating the habits we tend to employ when improvising. Jolt us a little, remove the comfort and uncover the movement narratives that reside under the protective layers. We spent more time improvising trying to exclude our habits- "anti-habit" studies, so to speak. It was a frustrating and revealing task, for me. I was irritated by the limitation and, at the same time, aggravated that I couldn't let my "tendencies" go. Idiosyncrasy has it place in performance and creativity; but, I found myself bored with my habitual movement vocabulary. I wanted new stuff! What ended up happening was exactly what I was hoping would happen: the elimination of the habit eventually created new patterns. We taught ourselves new tricks! The videos posted are several "anti-habit" studies edited together. The studies exhibit some of our little discoveries. P.S. The music in the videos is motivation (and feel-good indulgence). -Rachel :)

beginning

(liz's foot after Friday's rehearsal- werk)

so, it's Liz, the studio, and me. we have been writing a lot, talking a lot. and now, over the past few weeks have begun to move a lot. we drink the wine (or the harder stuff) in rehearsal and it usually takes us about an hour before we calm down enough to actually start rehearsing. distractions are often welcomed as we sift through the incredibly vulnerable ritual of rehearsing. our sources are anything and everything. "the last supper", flashlights, trash bags, shiny things, and answering machine messages have been floating around the studio A LOT- literally and not so literally.

This past week we made movement portraits in which we tried to examine personality perspectives. these portrait studies are exposing ways for us to fuse abstraction and "recognizable person" gesture and vice verse. We are working on teaching ourselves how to seamlessly move in and out of realism and abstraction. unlearning the distinction is THE GOAL right now. rhythm and variation of timing is creating interest and calls for more exploration. a desire to challenge our "comfortable" performance behavior is in the air. the throat and the idea of dying has come up a lot. oh, and Barbie in all her splendor became a re-occurring theme in a our rehearsal jabber on Friday.

the ideas are broad and vague. so many places to go. i like where we are headed so far! -Rachel

Rachel and Brenda

liz and brenda