dance video of the day - drawing dance

Submitted by Susan Miller on Sat, 04/04/2009 - 19:56.

Drawing Movement’s Connections

This is the coolest freakin’ thing I have ever seen. I have long imagined it. From the time I began studying ballet and geometry I new there has to be a way to draw dance. Labanotation is so clunky and I magically escaped learning it in college. I was not wishing to become a notator nor did I want to reconstruct dances from a “score”, but I see this way and I imagine that other dancers do to. I see the world in matrix. I notice the space between people and objects, people and other people and part of the body in relation to other body parts. Sometimes these relationships tell a story or convey emotional content, but sometimes it is just architecture; the architecture of a single individual’s movement in space or sometimes that of a duo or group. This is dance defined in data and objects. Finally someone who actually did what I have been seeing for half a century.

Explore and enjoy these videos and the synchronous objects website itself. It is a window into the world in which dancers and choreographers live consciously or unconsciously.

This guy has a great imagination. For example: Scattered Crowd @ ImPulsTanz 2008. But he's also long worked with bunheads and has seen the simplicity and beauty in Balanachine and Petipa, too. I mean, you need those pointe shoes? Here you go: Impressing the Czar and In the middle somewhat elevated. Or maybe if it has Bach you'll know it's classical:

 

 


Pacific Northwest Ballet restages One Flat Thing (pictured above with no CAD) with apologies to the audience – who undoubtedly is stuck in a ballet museum.

Here's the man himself doing the dancing deed: Forsythe Solo

“William Forsythe, who has worked internationally for the last 35 years, is recognized as one of the world’s foremost choreographers. His early work is acknowledged for reorienting the practice of ballet from its identification with classical repertoire to a dynamic 21st-century art form, while his more recent works have further extended his research on the performative potentials of dance and his investigation of choreography as a fundamental principle of organization.” more Forsythe bio (.PDF)

This is happed in Columbus, OhioDo Ohio dancers use technology?

Forsythe does: check it out…

 

Yes, of course it’s on the great dance weblog.

Check out the website – Synchronous Objects. I have spent the better part of two days fascinated with the possibilities here. Yes, much of that time waiting for this data intensive website to load.

Click on "view dance" and "alignment forms". This stuff makes Frank Gehry’s work look like a kindergarten. Notice the arcs and curves. This is because our joints have rounded articular surfaces.

There was an event on April 1, which I did not attend, but I can only imagine how cool that must have been. But the exhibit is up until July 26, 2009. A trip to Columbus anyone?

 

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what a coincidence ...

I just saw William Forsythe's works ("Choroeographic Objects") at the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State. He is brilliant!

It was my first visit and I was quite impressed by the Wexner Center. There are three enlightening exhibits going on there right now. Check the link.

choreographic objects

I knew that Norm said he had to go to Columbus and I almost phoned to say, don't miss this exhibit. Glad you saw it.

choreographic objects

When the blind mathematician Bernard Morin was asked where the imaging of the process of everting a sphere existed in his imagination, he famously replied: "Nowhere and everywhere at the same time." And so it is with the choreographic object: it is a model of potential transition from one state to another in any space imaginable. An example of a similar transition already exists in another time based art practice: the musical score. A score represents the potential of perceptual phenomena to instigate action, the result of which can be perceived by a sense of a different order: a transition via the body from the visual to the aural. A choreographic object, or score, is by nature open to a full palette of phenomenological instigations because it acknowledges the body as wholly designed to persistently read every signal from its environment.

Evelyn and I would go back

We only had a few hours and had the kids in tow - it would be fun to go back and spend more time there and seeing other arts in the city - Columbus is very interesting. We should go for their art walk and plan around a good lecture, performance or concert there and make a real trip out of it... we have friends and family there so plenty of help making plans.

We had the best Ice Cream I ever tasted when we were there this week... Jeni's... love this description of their newest flavors... "A collection of 6 pints inspired by the art of Wayne Thiebaud ..."

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