Filming and performance research in mature growth forest and on heritage coastlines. Followed by video screening and experiments with performance installation.
A collection of items made from things destined for the landfill. I asked Alena to make a collection which can be ambiguously worn -- which means that the dancers have a certain amount of freedom as to what goes where.
We looked at camouflage and shapeshifting animals, and iconic images of climate change. I wanted the costumes to be changeable in that they can look like a mysterious organic something, or a pile of garbage, or a fashion silhouette. They give a huge amount of sensory feedback to the body, which informs how the dancers move.
Combining this with the sensory feedback gained from landscapes, (wind, sun, air, sand, waves, tress…) I was hoping to understand something about my physical response to climate change. Where do I feel on a bodily level my response to what is happening -- whether that is overwhelm, grief, fear of loss, love of consumer goods and technology, shame, etc.
Image: Laura Doehler
Image: Anne Gäelle Thiriot
Photo: Alena Kudera Image: Deborah Black
Photos by Mark Loudon and Noel Jones
episode i
Filming and performance research
may 27th- June 1st in mature growth forest, Llandysul, Wales.
june 24-29th on Jurassic heritage coastline, Dorset, UK.
Thanks to Eeva Mutka and Andy Paget, Anna Best at Penpynfarch and Anna Best at The Mothership residencies.
Screening and performance installation
Sept 23, 2019 ‘rough cuts’ screening of video shorts at Metal Culture
Sept 23- October 4th, 2019 Residencies in LJMU Sudley Theatre, and Unity Theatre, Liverpool
Oct 4, 2019 work-in-progress performance installation at Unity Theatre
Thanks to Liverpool John Moore’s University dance practices and Unity Theatre.
Costume collection and styling : Alena Kudera
Project Direction and Video Editing: Mary Pearson
Filmed and performed by dance research collaborators: Anne Gaëlle Thiriot, Anya Cloud, Deborah Black, Karen Schaffman and Laura Doehler with Mary Pearson
Music: Barry Han
Project Advisor: Kate Elswit
Graphic Design: Doug Kerr
Photography: Alena Kudera, Noel Jones, Mark Loudon
Somewhere in the gap existing between screen addiction and a disappearing wilderness…
What have we become?
Surrounded by products
We are by-products; landscape becomes by-product
Technology mediates experience
Visibly altered bodies
making visible the impact of the material world on self/body/animal.
Sensing contradiction in attempts to make contact with the landscape
LOSS
of presence
of sense of back body
of responsiveness to what surrounds me
of orientation in space
I am somewhere else
My attention is somewhere else
I am with someone who is somewhere else
Slowing down
(Re) Orienting, sensing, tracking:
Where am I? What is happening to my body? What surrounds me?
Memory loss.
How to survive?
My body remembers. I can negotiate with forest, fields, coast.
Being with/in a place, located.
In a demanding world, threat is pervasive and can be abstract.
Is the predator my inbox?
What are we trying to heal?
amnesia, anaesthesia, overstimulation, contamination, toxicity
overwhelm, anxiety, alienation, disconnection
normalised in an overstimulated culture
Selfie culture
I saw it = I can have it
overwhelmed systems shut down, space out, keep vigil
In trauma, there / then disrupts (the possibility of) being here / now.
It was/is too much, too fast