the AOMC + Urgent Artist are back in action!

Hi all - apologies to begin for the increasing lack of posting. We've been taking some time to rest (ha, no, not really) and plan for the future, but starting right now we're back with a vengeance!

We had a great company meeting a few weeks ago, and one of the things we talked about was really improving the blog, doing a total revamp both in terms of look and writers, and really giving you more and better. It will be done! Watch for some new writers soon, and as always, if you have something you'd like to contribute, just let me know!

We have some insanely exciting news for you - 2 pieces actually - but until a certain contract is signed I'm only at liberty to tell you about one, so here's the first:

we've been shortlisted for EMPAC!!!

If you haven't been following, EMPAC's DANCE MOViES Commission is awarded to four projects annually, and funds the creation of a new dancefilm. We applied with a proposal to turn "13 Variations on a Car Crash" into a dancefilm - hopefully the first step in making a dancefilm version of the whole epic. It's a complete honor to be chosen for the shortlist - the group of films that make it to the second round to be judged by the pannel - and we'll know by July 15th who the lucky four are. It's still a LONG ways off and really tough odds, but I feel really great about our applicaiton. It would be so exciting to get to start work on a film and really feel like we have the budget and support to really make it the way it wants to be made rather than shoestring budget and no time, but for now i'm concentrating on that perfect balance of not thinking about it too much and crossing my fingers whenever possible. WANT IT. send your good vibes our way.

The second piece of news is equally exciting, but you'll have to stay tunned for that one. I promise - the second i'm allowed to tell you'll know becuase i'll blurt it out everywhere.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that we're back, we're excited, and we can't wait to get you back up to date on what we've been working on, wondering, watching, and other w words.

lovealways,
Sarah A.O. // the AOMC

As always...

have a few posts in the works, but not enough time to post them.

In the meantime, check out the sweaty slow-mo man-fight in the new sherlock holmes trailer. love it love it love it.



We're headed back into the studio now that we're done with our THROW performance (thank you thank you thank you those of you that came to support us! we hope you had as much fun as we did!) and will be both re-vamping 13 Variations on a Car Crash and trying to incorporate some of the feedback on SLFdstrcTV that we've received thus far. So yes, i'm getting all that lovely slow-mo-po-mo aesthetic back in my head!

Perspective from an outside eye...

As you may or may not know, the AOMC has been shifting around a bit lately, and looking for dancers (we are, of course, still casting about for male dancers). One of the dancers who came to the rehearsal blogged about it here. Check it out!

Slow Mo PoMo Promo!

With apologies to Neil Greenberg for the title, check out the promo i just finished for 13V!


13 Variations on a Car Crash Promo from Sarah A.O. Rosner on Vimeo.

I've had my nose to the grindstone for the past week or so on this EMPAC application, and this weekend I had that great moment in the app-writing process when all the painstaking explaining and delicate rewording gave way to an "oh" moment. As much as grant writing and apps can be tedious and a huge energy drain, I almost always come away from them clearer on the piece i'm submitting.

I though i'd share some of what I wrote in the treatment for the film version of 13v:

Picture a head-on car crash in exquisite slow motion:

As one car hits the other, the sheet metal hoods ripple, snap, buckle, and condense—forcing themselves into the windshield, which holds and holds, suddenly crystallizing into shatter of broken glass. Crumple zones spent, the real weight of the cars grind over each other and the symmetrical ballet begins, the ends of both cars lofting in the air and rotating before sucking themselves back to the pavement with such weighty heft that even in slow motion you sense their heaviness in your whole body. As the cars compress and fracture, an array of scrap metals detach and spiral outwards. Glass bounces glittering and metal shrieks twisting, as the cars lurch to a stop.

Point is, you can’t look away.

I propose the creation of a new dancefilm entitled “13 variations on a car crash”—a piece that blends the heavy partnering and detailed gesture of my dance work with the aesthetics of a car crash—edited like an action movie and told as a love story.

I am admittedly obsessed with the aesthetics of car crashes. Perhaps this is not so surprising: as present-day humans we are constantly viewing car crashes (on the highway, on the news, in action movies, etc) knowing we shouldn’t be attracted to them and yet not being able to look away. I feel a kinship, especially as a mover, with these hulks of gravitational metal. There is no falseness in a car crash—only the weight and the speed of the cars involved and their resulting physics. Their heaviness is brutish, their interaction is defined as ‘wreckage.’ These qualities embody my type of dance: hard falls, striking images, and brutally honest physicality.

The film.
The film itself follows two once-lovers (the two main dancers) as they experience a series of physical and emotional crashes. Entering into a dream-like collage of effortless yet heavy partnering, hard falls, surreal images, and grocery lists, the pair is pulled through space and time, navigating a visually stunning junkyard in the black of night. Amidst crushed cars and blaring TV sets, dark Muses direct the action and embody the physics of wreckage. Crashes disrupt time and render each moment infinite. As heads sail towards dashboards there’s still time to think “coffee…eggs…flour…facewash…” Exploring the emotional damage of lovers becoming once-lovers, the film’s fixation with crashes is an embodiment of physical and emotional hurt, an exposure of the beauty of debris. As the dancers struggle to find control in the face of inertia, the film’s editing and slow motion mimics ideas of control and lack thereof, horrible beauty, and the mess of how we treat the ones we love.

Point is, you can’t look away.

Shooting the film.
I propose to create the film via three main shoots.
The first shoot (which we will choreograph in early September 2010 and shoot later that month) involves the two main dancers, and consists of intimate shots of the two lovers together – approaching for a kiss, unexpected shots of the soft “crash” of the two bodies coming together, etc. This footage will be edited together in late September with found footage of actual crashes, crash tests, and driver safety videos to create a montage of crashes, both mechanical and sexual. After being edited and printed to VHS, this montage will be played through the cluster of old TVs that will serve as the lover’s “car” in the second shoot. I am excited to create this film-within-a-film because it will lines the dancers, counterpoint their movements, or re-contextualize what they are doing. Since the new footage of the dancers will be mixed with low-fi found footage, I will be shooting it on my own equipment (a Panasonic 100dvx)—and will therefore be able to save on production costs by requiring only minimal lighting and one camera operator on this shoot.

After completely reworking and rehearsing the movement for the piece for the month of October, the second and third location shoots will occur over a weekend in early November, using the first two nights to shoot in a junkyard and the third to shoot in a black box theater.

The second (and main) shoot will take place in a crushed car lot in Brooklyn. This set of crushed cars and scrap metal, along with the eight TV sets showing the crash montage, will serve the piece by providing a location that is at once surreal and pedestrian, enhancing the piece’s sense of unease and impending impact. Lighting designed by Lauren Parrish will utilize the location by shooting with the available industrial light, as well as hotwiring select headlights of junked cars to frame the piece. This location will feature the majority of the movement of the piece, and will be shot in a variety of stationary and moving shots. It is important to me that dance on screen still convey visceral excitement and impulses to the audience, so we will shoot both a well-planned storyboard, and leave time for improvisational shots of the movement as to allow for maximum flexibility in editing.

The third and final shoot will be in a black box theater. This shoot will capture two types of footage: surreal images of the two main dancers and lighting-specific images of the Muses. The surreal snippets include shots of the main dancers playing with a small matchbox car, the woman putting it in her mouth and running it over her legs. Lighting-specific shots of the Muses’ movement will utilize the black box setup to create a night-driving atmosphere, playing with the effect of the dancers moving in darkness while “headlights” sweep over them, illuminating them in glimpses.

Starting in December, I will begin editing the footage from these shoots together to create a cohesive and alluring whole. Because I work day jobs in addition to my art making, I plan for the project to be fully edited by the end of March. After the film’s premiere in August 2010 at EMPAC, I plan on submitting the film to a number of film festivals (dancefilm and otherwise) as well as using screenings and DVD sales of the project to fundraise and build excitement for the eventual production of other sections in the larger piece.

In terms of production, this piece will be fortified by the collaborations and working relationships that will create it. As I work as an editor and producer at reels4artists, Gerrit Vooren (owner, producer) and Brian Miller (production coordinator, camera operator) are excited to bring their expertise to the film. Additionally, Lauren Parrish (lighting design and execution) has lit many of my stage works. New collaborations include Tracy Klein, (costume design and execution) who is interested in creating a movable and pedestrian subtle-grunge look, and the Psychedelic Disco Angels (composers), who are committed to a collaborative approach to making a lush dark sound-score specifically for the film.

As always, feedback (as E.D. would say: questions? headaches? heartaches?) is welcome, as are questions about the meaning of life, and great summer salad recipes. I'll post the whole app once i'm done so you can cross your fingers with me. Here's to the imminent maybe of our funding, the eventual certain of our success, and the rare joys of clarity!

Crash Crash Crash! Live in Cinemascope!

So i've finally gotten it online! Sorry for the glitchy beginning (i had edited it out, but somehow uploaded this one...) but i can't wait any longer - i have to SHARE!

Here's the vid from our April 12th performance at DanceNOW[nyc]'s RAW festival! Check it out and TELL! US! WHAT! YOU! THINK!


13 Variations on a Car Crash - live performance version from Sarah A.O. Rosner on Vimeo.

You can just post about what you saw, what it made you think or feel, or you can check out the questions we posted if you want to respond to something more specific. Remember, there's no wrong way to see it, no wrong thing to take from it. Feedback on a new work is always immensely helpful, especially while it's still in process. It also just feels good to know that someone's out there on the other side of the 4th wall - sometimes a piece spends so long in the studio or in your head that it's hard to take it out of that context and think about the people who will be seeing it. And if you've got something to say but are shy about posting it publicly, you can always email us at theAOMC@gmail.com

We'll be showing a newer version of this (with an added three minutes from the section that leads into it at the beginning) when we perform with CrossCurrents Dance Company at the Dance Place in DC at the end of May, so all you DCers, put it on your calendars and tell all your friends! It's actually really nice to look forward to performing this again - it's become quite a baby of mine.

That being said, c o m m e n t a w a y !

Questions for RAW showing...

Just got back from a GREAT last rehearsal before our RAW showing, and feeling so so so excited to show it tomorrow. Lillie and i were talking about this - for some reason it feels like it's been a really secret piece. Perhaps a combination of not a ton of footage online, and the piece itself (and it's cast) shifting around and then coming together really quickly - it just feels like not many people have seen it yet. Combine that with the fact that this is this project's first NY showing, and you cna understand why i'm SIKED.

If you're planning on being at the show tomorrow, here are some questions that i have (for myself and for anyone interested in answering) since it is an in-process showing after all. Feel free to respond as comments here, in person, or via email (theAOMC@gmail.com). I'll also try to get the video up asap so those of you that aren't going to make it can see/discuss.

Questions:
1. What/when are the "ah-ha!" or "ooo!" moments for you? Moments that are exciting, stimulating, interesting, or entertaining?

2. Of the "slow motion" movement, what of it (if any) works for you and what of it (if any) doesn't? Would you say that the movement is more "embodied" or "acted", and how does that make you feel?

3. Let's talk about time and quantity. Do you feel overwhelmed by the amount of movement/ideas shown in this time period and/or the speed at which they are shown?

4. Is there a narrative apparent in your mind? Is there something that this piece is about?

5. What specific moment or image sticks out to you the most? Why?

6. Are there any moments when you feel yourself unengaged, turned-off, or bored? Are there parts that distinctly don't work for you? Why?


Thanks in advance for your feedback!

Come see us perform!

This Sunday (you know, the 12th, the day with chocolate eggs and bunnies) at 11:00am, the A.O. Movement Collective will be showing "13 variations on a car crash", an excerpt from their upcoming eventing-length work. It's part of DanceNOW[nyc]'s RAW festival, and we'd love love l o v e to have you there!

Tickets are FREE too, you just have to email Lauren at alwaystwirling@gmail.com with "RAW Reservations" in the subject line by Thursday to be on the list.

We're really excited to show it, and i'm hoping to use the occasion (this! our first new york premiere!) to take a step back from what we've made, as well as get some feedback. I'll post some specific questions before the show.

Also, we may be voyaging on a picnic or brunch after, so if you know me by being a reader but we haven't done the face-to-face thing yet, just introduce yourself and come along with us!

crash crash crash

Here's some new footage from the "sexytime" crash (crash #7 of 13) from 13 variations on a car crash. This was the first day of cristina and cory working on it together (they'd both learned it separately with other partners) so we still have a lot of little details to iron out. It's getting there!

Grocery List

I've made a grocery list.

Because when you find yourself in a car crash (Cory explains to me) the adrenaline sharpens you to a point where everything slows down, so much so that you have time to consider what you were supposed to buy at the grocery store, notice the woman walking her dog, and tell your body to go limp and just let it happen. Almost like when you're on the phone and someone says they're leaving and you have time to think "well this doesn't hurt" and realize you're making your grocery list all over again. Which is similar to when you're in bed and that breathy moment catches you and you touch your forehead to his or her forehead and everything stops, which is similar to when you're performing, and you aren't thinking, you're just doing, and then all of a sudden you're going, "milk, tomatoes, and maybe bread...i'll have to check on the bread..."

They're all the same, really.

Here's our list. Think hard about what you imagine our phrase looks like, and post a video or description of it.  Or your own list.  Or your own crash.
You know, for kicks.

Coffee
Eggs
Flour
Face wash
Mouthwash
Toothpaste
2% milk
Earl Gray
Butter (no - we already have butter)
Ice cream to go with the cake

A few of my favorite things...

As you (may) know, we'll be showing the first excerpt of this epic mass of stuff that we've been working on very very soon! Sunday April 12th to be precise, as part of danceNOW NYC's RAW showings. Car crashes have been sort of a fixation for me for a while now. Not the bloody, sudden, real ones, but the gorgeous, slow motion, sparkling ones.

I've been talking with Cory and Cristina (the "driver/passenger" for the piece...but abstract)about why i'm so fixated on them, and i think it's a few things.

1. Something about the sudden wreckage of a crash - that it's such a break from the way things normally are, to see sheet metal and glass and all those "strong" and "structural" elements ripped apart like that - keeps taking me back to feelings i had after the end of a certain relationship i emerged from about a year ago. How cliche, i know. But it certainly fits the piece, in that the slow motion study of these images is an attempt to enact or retain some sort of logic or control over something that a) has no control b) is governed by logic, but very unchangeable logic ie. physics and c) can't be undone even if you understand it. The piece itself (as a whole) aims to explore that space of visiting and revisiting - the search to find logic or clarity in something that is much more massive and out of control than yourself.

2. Something about how in slow motion you can isolate the moment when all the howevermany tons of car is completely in the air - it's almost like a lullaby.

3. The physics that make all car crashes pretty much the same. Inside of one, it must feel like the least organized, most instantaneous...crunch and thrash? There aren't really words for it. But looked at objectively from the outside it's pretty self explanatory. If the car is hit at this place at this speed, it will react in this way.

4. There's this whole sub-culture relating car crashes and sex. Recently watched the 199(6?) film Crash (no, not the race relations one) and didn't love it as a film (thought it lacked a lot of basic construction) but thought it was really interesting as a study. Also, Palahaniuk's Book "Rant" rocked my world this past summer, and i'll probably come around for another read sometime soon. When Adrienne was at rehearsal, she noticed a lot of the sexiness in the crashes that we had constructed so far, which surprised me as it hadn't been our focus. Since then we've made crash #7 - "sexytime". You'd like to see a clip of that one, wouldn't you? Well you can't. Not yet.

But enough po-mo mumble jumble, here's what i wanted to share with you: some of the best crashes i've found. It's worth watching till it gets to the slow-mo part, trust me!





And there's also this one, which won't embed, but is pretty cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZQMfb5naz8

Then of course there's the art of the cinematic car crash, for which the second matrix (in my humble opinion) takes the cake:



Yum.

13 variations on a Car Crash

Here's some initial work that we're doing on the spot we're calling "13 variations on a Car Crash".

I've been a little hesitant about showing it until we're a little farther along, in part because of similar reasons to Lillie's rock solo. I think dance like this is dangerous (or, at least, it feels dangerous for me as the choreographer to be pursuing it), becuase it gets so close to acting and miming. As i said at CB on wed, i have no interest in acting out a car crash (or 13 of them) - instead i'm trying to cultivate a non-human ability into the body and anatomically explore trauma via the tool slow motion. Which is all said and good in my head of PoMo reasoning, but makes very little difference for someone who's just watching it.

That being said, all the feedback i've gotten on it is incredibly positive and excited. I'm really looking forward to working with cristina and cory more on this - really refining it and getting it right on the mark. I'm also excited to incorporate more of the cast, as we're expanding it from a duet to more of a group thing, though the focus will remain on cory and cristina's action.

Anyway, here it is, and would love to hear anything that comes up for you watching it.
We'll be premiering it as a work in process as part of the RAW showings at one of the NYU Studios on April 12th @ 11. Mark your calendar! Save the date! And always wear your seatbelt.