Rehearsal on 23rd May, towards Slovenia

I had been intending to attend to DAP Lab since I was there last time on 31st January, but it never happened due to complication of our schedules.

Al last, I am back. Sunday the 23rd May, I joined the rehearsal. We have International Workshop with Visiting Artists from Japan from 1st June till 6th June, then a performance at Kibla Art Centre, Maribor, Slovenia on 18th June. It is the to make more shape of our creation.

The main focus for me this time is to create a scene with Doros's virtual world, using sensors. The biggest challenge is the time since Doros and I will have time together only three days.

The rehearsal on 23rd May, we had only short footage of each stage of Doros's virtual world and Sandy, who create sound in live for this scene. This was for me an opportunity to taste a flavour of the scene. The details and more ideas will come later when Doros comes here with all the tools.

I leave here some reflection from the rehearsal for myself so that I can continue the journey with clear focus from 1st June.

Act 1

My character here is called Red Mutant Woman.

picture by Johannes Birringer

This character I had it in past performance so I just need to remember it, but actually it is not that easy. The 'character' I create is not something I can write down and keep it. It is more connected to my personal images and feelings so they fades out as time passes by. I myself is also continuously changing as time passes by. So it needs some work to track down the source I had before to perform this character.
The only run through of this scene was somehow rushed and unclear performance of me. I will need more personal work on this character.

Another part in Act 1, where apparently I do some duet with Caroline, was not in my memory at all. Did we do this before? It must happened coincidentally and I am sure that I had some awareness to Caroline then and may have done something to/with her as part of my usual improvisation but I don't remember. It is good that the moment was picked by the viewers and now more consciously dealt as a scene. I will need to see the whole picture of the scene and figure out what it is about. Do I use my voice? Caroline uses her voice and it may be good to have more voice oriented scene rather than dance. But I am not sure if I make effective voice that communicate with others. I would need honest feedback on my voice performance. If it does not do anything, it does not be there.


Act2
My character here is called Leaves Woman. The scene with Doros's virtual world is called Creation.

pictures by Johannes Birringer

This is the first time I worked on this scene. Here is the circumstances;

Carolone is the sun, speaks zaum language.
I'm making synthetic virtual world.
But I'm so organic looking in Michele's dress with real Ginkgo leaves from Tokyo.
Reborn?
I keep creating world.
I am leaves. Memory, tactile sensation, secret, and hiding.
Who is this little 'greenman'?

Should I care so much about the whole dramaturgy? At the moment, I am just trying to be there at my best. I am pretty sure if I can make sense of the relation to what already happened in the performance and my Red Mutant Woman character, my performance would be more meaningful and powerful. But this seems almost impossible due to the fragmented nature of the work. So I am thinking... it may be better not to think too much and just do it. Then I would maintain simple better energy for this scene.
Is this just different way of working for performance?

There were four stages in the creation and I started finding some movement motif for each. Here are the four stages and description of my performance by Johannes.

-----
A) CEMENT
Katsura slides in, on ground, like snake. carefully sniffing the earth, careful about cracks opening, she responds to earthquake

B) SKY
she rises up, lifting her spirit, he lifts the sky and moves the clouds

C) MOUNTAIN
--- under construction, , she does a bending figure, ground and up high and down as if throwing seeds to the fields (rocks), catching the dust, the birds, the rain

- she is down and up and more vigorous,lilting and tilting, in a duet now with the voices coming from Caroline who has entered during SKY to do the zaum voice poetry and calling of ghosts.

D) ALL NATURE
as we approach the dying down of the zaum and fourth section......, the retreat of the sun goddess who has given light and energy for the creation scene with her golden glow, . katsura in LeavesDress might work well on an ephemeral, transience choreography of fades that could be support again by you and water puring and reverberating? these fades are a kind of death. for rebirth.
---

My reminder for myself of this performance is
fast-slow-fast-slow.
low-high-middle-all levels.

The ALL NATURE stage, I imaged Butoh, ephemeral and transience in Johannes's words.

Everything will be changed when I am armed with sensors and interactions. But I will try to keep these findings in my mind.