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:

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.

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

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.

Umbrellas: The Umbrella Movement

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_the_Umbrella_Movement

http://1vze7o2h8a2b2tyahl3i0t68.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Umbrella-Revolution-Explainer-01.jpg

The Umbrella Movement:

http://www.ejinsight.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/921951_7d97b693399b54a7853ead58193dfa3e.jpg

Plastic bags as the material for costumes?

In addition to the big, major plastic bottle dress - what if the costumes were made from plastic bags?
Could there be a "curtain" of plastic bags?

Umbrellas!

Submitted by Jill Wielgos.
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/10/umbrella-canopy/

Plan B by artist Lubaina Himid

"Magic tricks, changing light, relentless tides, crazy perspectives, optical illusions, and poetic texts, empty chairs and the 'choice' offered by two canvas paintings clarifies and confuses everything.  However I have to admit this totally expresses the point of the whole body of work.  How do you tell the difference between war and  peace? "   

      Lubaina Himid  Plan B Catalogue - Letter to Mike Tooby    

Lubaina Himid from "Plan B"

Follow Tina's Pinterest page

https://www.pinterest.com/tinabarrigan/backup-plan/

Projection Mapping

Projection Mapping used by Anarchy Dance Theatre

From lighting and scenic designer (Spring) Tina Barrigan

Resilience: Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress — such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems or workplace and financial stressors. It means "bouncing back" from difficult experiences. (http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/road-resilience.aspx)

 

I have been participating in some “Resilience training” the Army Reserves is offering my husband as part of his training schedule and I am continually struck by how important some of the ideas are.  This seems to really touch on what “Plan b” wants to explore. How to we “hunt the good stuff”? How do we resist “catastrophizing” situations? How do we mentally center ourselves to come back strong? 

Some interesting reading regarding resilience: 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/resilience

 

Also, regarding plastic bottles:  the top photo is a drop constructed of plastic bottles.  I saw Xochitl Gonzalez speak about this dance piece last spring. This is amazing and beautiful.  http://decanteddesign.com/2013/11/26/xochitl-gonzalez-quintanilla-won-best-lighting-design-award-at-world-stage-design-2013-cardiff-for-her-work-on-ex-stasis-staged-at-placia-de-bellas-artes-mexico-see-blogroll-for-a-link-to-her-bl/

Door Number 1

There's this:
"Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?"  [Stick with Plan A, or go to Plan B?]

Television Show: "Let's Make a Deal" circa 1960's

According to Wikipedia: 
"The problem was originally posed in a letter bySteve Selvin to the American Statistician in 1975 (Selvin 1975a), (Selvin 1975b). It became famous as a question from a reader's letter quoted in Marilyn vos Savant's "Ask Marilyn" column in Parade magazine in 1990 (vos Savant 1990a): Vos Savant's response was that the contestant should switch to the other door (vos Savant 1990a). Under the standard assumptions, contestants who switch have a 2/3 chance of winning the car, while contestants who stick to their choice have only a 1/3 chance.

Many readers of vos Savant's column refused to believe switching is beneficial despite her explanation. After the problem appeared in Parade, approximately 10,000 readers, including nearly 1,000 with PhDs, wrote to the magazine, most of them claiming vos Savant was wrong (Tierney 1991). The problem is a paradox of the veridical type, because the correct result (you should switch doors) is so counterintuitive it can seem absurd, but is nevertheless demonstrably true. 

Here's the math:

Here's my image in movement: 

Three doors (moveable, on wheels, spun around by dancers) Other dancers manipulate the reveal of a toy car and two toy goats attached to doors labelled 1, 2 and 3. 

A very rapid series of spinning doors 1,2,3 match the above chart at a dizzying speed. 

PLAN B: mY musings

Plan B:  Do you even have a Plan A?  Are you a Plan A with a Plan B type of person?  Do you spontaneously improvise your Plan B when Plan A doesn't pan out? My Plan B is a philosophy, "If it doesn't work out, it wasn't meant to be."  (B?)
Umbrellas, parachutes, an extra pair of socks, my aunt's warning: "Make sure you wear nice underwear at all times, just in case you are in an accident."
Plan B - out of your control.  The plight of the Syrian refugees.  Of all people living a normal life and a government makes that normal life impossible, the only choice to flee.
Plan B- out of your control.  Being young, male and black in America.
Plan B- The environment, "We have no Plan B."  Is it too late?
Plan B - The Italian Prime Minister re: the refugee situation, "We have a Plan B."
Plan B - The birth control pill.  Is it aptly named?

The scouts motto, "Be Prepared"

A story from this summer (Ebony, Taylor and Sophiyaa explored this with me for a performance at Skwirlhaus in Atlanta) Iraqi cellist, in response to the bombings.  He shows up at a bombing site and plays his cello. As a way to hold onto "Beauty, civility and compassion." This to me feels like a Plan B response.

Image from Maddy, As hundreds of plastic bottles are released from the overhead, one person who has "been prepared" with an umbrella all the time, opens it.

Image: a costume that is made of hundreds of plastic bottles, with a long train of plastic bottles.  A person wears this costume around campus.  Anonymous.  For the months preceding the show, and somewhere in the performance they appear, enter the space.  Something happens.


I would like the arc of the show to be from sweet, warm, and funny with our own "Plan B" stories, then go into some harder "Plan B" stories, and then...?

For those who want to come think about Plan B with me - this Friday. 5PM. My house. Pizza and Plan B.

Welcome Dance Ensemble/ACTivate Fall 2015

We have begun!  Dynamic week one - we started with a complex "Described Movement" phrase, and then on Thursday had the great pleasure of having Jeremy, from Kyle Abraham dance company teach a master class for us.  What a way to begin.
Our topic this year: Plan B.  That is a little nebulous at this point but together we will explore ideas and see what evolves.