2015- 2016 Dance Ensemble/ACTivate

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Long distance collaboration

3/20 Sarah McEnaney wrote:
So, Celeste, what is on your mind re: structure you are exploring.
Let me know more.

3/20 I responded:

I am attaching the "Choreoscript" - the improvisation I want to play with starts on page 5, "Scene 6: Improvisation Score".

A) "One Idea"

B) "Solo/Ensemble" with dancers choosing which of the words to say, causing solo/ensemble to take place; adding in "mirrors" half way through

C) Written block to traverse on diagonal. 1, 2, 3

D) Accumulation

E) Vocal accumulation, improvisation tableaux sculptures each for "Archemides" "Napoleon" and "Galileo's Tears"

I will explain what each of these improvisation structures are in the next email. For now - anything you want to respond to with: images, movement ideas, text responses - most welcome!

xox

3/21, Sarah:

Fantastic.
I just glanced at the script. Zeroed in on "water", found the attached
photo that I took at the Hindu Temple in Lilburn, GA.
Just a first thought.
Can't wait to read all later this evening.

3/22 Sarah:

(with a vision of Archemides Screw in my head)

We are soothed
We are cleansed
We are promised
We are poisoned
We are transported
We are flooded
We are saved
We are drowned

3/22 Celeste:

Celeste/score:

Using the kinesthetic idea of Archimedes Screw in which water is taken in at the bottom and travels up the threads of the screw as it rotates, create the following as a movement score.

To soothe

To cleanse

To promise

To poison

To transport

To flood

To save

To drown

I keep hearing all the speeches from Michigan's Governor running in my head. How he tried to soothe, promised to cleanse, when actually he was poisoning. Bottled water transported to Flint, flooding the residents with bottled water, trying to save the people who are drowning.

Archimedes Screw:

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Brilliant article by Grinnell's Carolyn Herbst Lewis

Frozen Pipes on the Prairie

Life jackets

Orange of life jackets, clear plastic of water bottles. The brown water running through Flint (and other) water pipes.

Friday, February 12, 2016

Doris Humphrey says, start with the end

...came to me... the floor is flooded with bottles. We have danced through them; and then the bottle dress goddess appears in the shop/alcove. By scale she is more than human. She glides in. amongst the bottles, trailing her own bottles, and from the sides and upstage gallery, the ball chain spilling happens as, the bottle dress goddess glides into the space, she starts slowly spinning... (she is on wheels, right?) and the dancers join in the spinning, sufi-trance like, spinning.

Sufi sect dancing

But in hoop skirts frames. Which are rather umbrella reminiscent.

At a tilt

Today's thoughts:

I would like to designate the up top alcove (that thrusts from the shop) to be the "kitchen", as in the choreoscript, there is a sense of someone drinking coffee (or tea) and contemplating. I would like to use that alcove area for that imaginary space. I am imagining if it could be slightly tilted? A linoleum kitchen floor, on a slight angle, a small kitchen table and chair perched on that angle. Suggested in the area, a "stove" with a tea kettle. I will be using tea kettle whistling as a sound element. I see this little "set" as "floating" in that alcove.

Metamorphosis. Scenic Design by Philip Engleheart

Along with that, I imagine the first time we see someone at that table that the tea cup/coffee mug is normal size. But then each consequent time, the cup is larger. Growing surreally. The final scene, when the bottle dress goddess is filling the space and spinning with the other dancing/spinners that the lights in the alcove space would create a sense of that world up there swirling like tea/coffee/water in a cup, as if now the actor is now longer holding the liquid/but the liquid is holding the actor.

The Small Things. Scenic design by Mayou Trikerioti. 2006

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Coming together

Plan B: When things don't go as planned, not that you had a Plan B in mind - but now in the moment of chaos, you better do something....

Often Politicians are stuck without a Plan B.

Take Flint, Michigan.

So I think the "narrative" for the Spring production is the Flint water crisis.
It has everything.
Sadly.
A Plan gone horribly awry. Politicians doing quick "Plan B" patches, only make it worse.
Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink.

Umbrellas. That useless gesture in a deluge.
Cher donates Icelandic bottled water to Flint.