Call for collaborators: SIDEsubTEN

Here's an email i just sent out to some of the artsy folk in my life. Consider yourself invited! Send submissions to SRosner@gm.slc.edu

Hi Friends!
i hope you are all enjoying the feels-like-spring weather!
I am in the process of recruiting a team of ten artists to each take part creating a side project that i'm working on (thus the SIDE and the TEN part), and emailing you because you were on my mind as a possible collaborator!
I know that all of you are busy busy creators, but check this out and see if it's something you'd be interested in - i think it would be a lot of fun!

Here's the deal:
I'm working with the lovely Julia PT in creating a beautiful plastic-bag-tossing solo that is the end section of the new piece i'm working on.
We have about forty separate phrases of movement, each ranging from one to five seconds in length (so a lot of little clips).
We are arranging them in a certain way for our version of the piece, but are excited by the simplicity of the structure, and want to use this as an opportunity to engage other artists. I am excited by this idea of having the solo in the piece as is, and then also having ten other versions of it. These versions, which would not be included in my piece, would act as a sub-layer (subvisc, if you speak my language - that would be the "sub" part) of information to the solo - a group of interpretations of one set of ideas that could be shown separately as just these eleven works (mine plus the ten of yours). I'm really excited by this idea, and see options in front of us like a gallery showing or a web-centric-gallery where we could show all eleven.
SO.
We'd like to invite you to take the forty phrases that we have, use as many or as few as you want, and make your own work out of it. Ours is a movement/film version, but we're excited to integrate as many different mediums and media as possible - drawing, music, painting, sculpture, dance-tech, film, writing, dance, theater, photography, and all the lovely things that i'm not even thinking of yet. All you ask is that you use our raw material as a starting point to make your own related-but-original work. The options are literally limitless. Come in to the studio with us, "capture" our phrases in any way you want, and then go to town. All we ask is that you make the final projects available for a joint showing/showings!

If this sounds like something you'd be interested in (or even just hearing a little more about) email me and give me a general idea of what you'd like to do - just the general medium(s) and any ideas that might be popping up - don't worry, i won't hold you to them. At this point, i think ten sounds like a manageable number, so we'll see what the response is like. If we get way over ten, we'll figure out some application, but for the time being, just email me to voice interest.

Also, feel free to pass this on to friends and artists you think might be interested.
We can't wait to work with you!

Best, Sarah A.O.

Hope that starts the ideas pinging...let me know if you have any questions!

"Mobile" vs. "Stabile"

Returning from the Calder exhibit at the Whitney (where i was so graciously taken by Darla's art-loving parents) I find myself very excited about a new term I learned at the exhibit - a "stabile".

Alexander Calder, now famous for his ceiling-attached slightly-moving abstract modern art, had a great deal of works that were both stationary (as in not moving at all, ever) and semi-stationary (for example, a wire sculpture that doesn't re-arrange in relation to itself, but does move via the vibrations and indirect movements of those walking by and looking at it). I was reading on one of the walls that Jean Arp coined a term for this type of Calder's work - "Stabiles".

Defined as "an abstract construction that is completely stationary" the text at the exhibit noted that the point of deeming these works "stabiles" was to relate them to their moving counterparts, mobiles. In doing so, Calder was showing that these stationary works were mobiles too - only with these, the movement, shifting perspective, and kinetic nature of the art came from the viewer's movement, not the sculpture's.

Neat, right? I think it's a lovely concept, and one that's immediately relatable (at least for me...) to dance and dance film. While i think the most logical connection is to look at pieces where the audience is asked to move and change perspectives, there's not really my cup of tea and, having never made one, it would be a brief and unthurough analysis. However, i think that looking at dancefilm through the structure of "mobile" vs. "stabile" can be quite illuminating.

Here's how it makes sense to me:
If we're looking at it analytically from a kinesthetic point of view, it seems we have four options.

1.) camera stationary, dancers stationary
2.) camera moving, dancers stationary
3.) camera stationary, dancers moving and
4.) camera moving, dancers moving.

While there are certainly a million shades of gray (what happens when you have multiple dancers, some moving some not? are we defining movement spatially? viscerally? etc) almost all situations are at least comprised, at a base level, of these four options. In that case, since the camera takes the role of the viewers perspective, we could also look at it with this parallel:

1.) camera stationary, dancers stationary - "Super-stabile" (or whatever.)
2.) camera moving, dancers stationary - "Stabile"
3.) camera stationary, dancers moving - "Mobile"
4.) camera moving, dancers moving. - "Ultra-mobile"

While, at first glance, this might look like a spectrum from least to most movement, I don't think it is. As i've often argued, the way to kill a dance is to film it from a stationary tripod. Which is not to say that you can't create a stationary shot that really conveys a sense of movement, it's just to point out that sometimes a moving shot can convey movement in a more visceral way (take, if you will, the camera movement for kiss in the elevator in Bazz Luhrman's "Romeo + Juliet" - tiny clip w/i the preview - versus the (okay, semi-)stationary footage of Beyonce's "Single Ladies").





Though you could spend time arguing that one conveys movement better than the other, i'd be satiated just agreeing that they convey it differently - one wants you to see the dancing for all it's aesthetic and visceral glory, and one wants you to experience that glory viscerally as the camera moves for you.

This has been on my mind of late, because we're getting closer and closer to being able to film Julia's solo for the new piece ("Glass Tree in Harlem"). The basic question has been (as it is whenever i make a dance film): what is the best way to film this as to make an art of it in it's own right? I don't want to make an artifact of the performative version - i want to make a dancefilm - and so an intersecting and re-working of the performative version's aesthetic into an aesthetic that combines the technique of both dance and film is necessary. So how to do it? Is it better to show the movement from full front? Better to have the camera move around Julia since much of the piece is still or small movement? Better to have both Julia and the camera moving? Or is that too much, to shaky to be viewed seated?

I've begun to assemble a sort of mish mosh of shots, some still others moving. I think my vision for it (at this point, we're still pretty young) is to have most of the phrases (the piece is composed of 30+ four-second phrases and two longer phrases) shot still from the front, at various different perspectives (for example, one mid range full body shot, one close in resting on the floor, etc). THEN, for the two longer phrases, i'm working out the mechanics of a shot that combines choreographed camera and dancer movement. If we can pull it off like it is in my mind (maybe 76% chance?) it will be GORGEOUS, and i'm pretty excited for it.

Since we'll also be utilizing slow and fast motion as well as reversing in the editing of it, I'm hoping to do a test of this shot sometime soon so i can start playing with it on final cut and seeing if it's possible. I'll post whatever I make!