disclaimer: all text is from the writing of my fellow MFA peer Katherine Moore. Follow and read more here: https://katherinegmooreblog.wordpress.com 

“Our goal” for this process “has been to research the affective relationship between the body and its environment through sensory-based improvisation and collaborative dance making processes.”

“The result of a semester-long process involving outdoor improvisations and collaborative making strategies,  this work-in-progress explored sensation, memory, and embodied modes of trace-making in relationship to place.”

“Simply by taking an improvisatory process out of the studio and into an outdoor setting, what sensations, emotions, and perceptions could be heightened in the body? How can we intuitively respond to the elements of space in the same way that dancers often intuitively respond to each other in improvisation? Is it possible to truly embody our perceptions of space?  And then, how do we capture those sensations as generative material for choreography?”

“As in any creative process, things shifted over time. Certain aspects came into focus while others faded away, much in the same way that vision functions in large spaces: As details enter the foreground, certain elements become background, and then vice versa. Over time, a few central themes began to emerge:

• Relief (as in relief sculpture)
• Foreground/background
• The attention of leaving (when to depart, how to move on)
• Circularity of space
• The physicality of dancing with no ceiling
• The group dynamic against the individual desires
• Memory as a physical sensation”

“Because my work is a bit abstract, I tried with this process to find some anchor points for my audience, mostly through the sound design and through the involvement of our written and drawn reflection in the final work. Working with my sound designer, Bita Bell, I wanted a sound score that reflected some of our outdoor experiences through found sound, while also providing some energetic support and momentum.”

“I love the way in which the tracks convey a sense of time. The returning theme of almost clock-like beeps and clicks against the more expansive melodic line brings some aspect of what we experienced outdoors into the studio. It references an oscillation between detail and more general impressions, between individual moments and duration. This is much like the experience of an improvisation, and also of taking in a landscape. Again, certain elements come into focus, while others fill a backdrop.”

Continue reading here: https://katherinegmooreblog.wordpress.com/2017/12/09/transient-passage-through-varied-ambiances/