EMMA: New Ground

Performance Zone

I came to OSU to look into the ways and reasons to include technology in performance. I know this is an ongoing process. Being involved in 2 similiar performance situations this past weekend, one at ACCAD, the other in a piece by Keren Ganin-Pinto at Haskitt Hall, brought to mind a whole set of observations and questions.

First, I want to acknowledge how much I like to perform - there is a physical, chemical connection to the activity of dancing while being onstage - the adreneline rush. When I'm working offstage, or backstage during a show, I am usually exhausted after the event. Not so when I'm performing. Also, the act of being on stage is a very specialized and hypersensitive state of awareness. Time seems very fluid and maliable. Some events might seem to be taking "forever", while others are over in an instant, all simply reliant on my subjective state of focus at the time. When the performance is over, the entire event being only a memory, there is a sense of disconnect, of unreality to the immediate past, that is palpable, yet indescribable at the same time. There is an awareness excercise that is used in the work of Gurdjieff. One is asked to recall each event during the course of the day, starting from the end to the beginning. It is an impossible task, which is the point, which has a definite resonance when attempting to recall and define the performances I was involved in this weekend.

Which brings me to the questions. Why is any of this important? Other than an increased ability of motor control and eye-hand coordination of the participants, what use is a dance? Most people would admit that performance is essential to the cultural life of a society, but is it really a necessary part of the functioning of the world? Does dance really need to be important or essential to society? Is it enough to entertain?

And why include technology in a performance? Is it simply to enhance the atmosphere? Are the concerns simply those of artistic aesthetics? Does content and context play an important role in the work we are exploring, or is it simply another layer? Is the focus of the novelty of using technology in performance reason enough to include it in a dance piece? Is the fact that we are priveledged to have access to such specialized tools a reason for celebration, or concern? And finally, how can we take this first step, the showing at ACCAD on Friday, and hone it into a piece of work that expresses our individual and disparate sensibilities?

I'll be looking into these texts this week:
Performing psychology : a postmodern culture of the mind / Lois Holzman, editor
Publish info New York : Routledge, 1999

The artist & the emotional world : creativity and personality / John E. Gedo
Publish info New York : Columbia University Press, c1996

posted by Peter @ 6:03 PM