- 2019 -

Make it work...

20 November

22 November

Prep for a run for Michalis...

Goal is to try to run through a structure now. Yesterday with Xeni and the day before with Ingrid I was able to work with my emotionality, and this seemed to work, between dance, music and performance.

Birdy squat
--“Birds” --> “Birds and Human”

Birdy Flight --> Journey
--“Over the Rainbow”

Get bored and tired and small again…go towards Fauno ending and Climax / Trans and Le Petit Mort.

Get Existential and armless at first

Pacing to establish the zoo-kept satus and no ability to go travelling

Trampoline
--“Try”

Man Dance Gorilla
--“I Need a Man to Love”

Human to Animal
--“All is Loneliness”

Really act like an animal for a while until I forget the emotions, etc…

Go up and find a spot in audience to perch and get into another friendly mode with audience

Child Mic

Realize I’m still alone and start to shake again

Get Existential again and empty out

Pina In
--“As Good As You’ve Been to this World” until 2:15

Pina Out
--"Zoom0039”
--“Zoom0038”

Embody
--"To Love Somebody”

Yell and sounds again…laugh and cry?

Goode/Love Hug
--“Cry”

Notes from speaking to Michalis afterwards and me watching the run on video...

Takeoff of Birdy (3min)
Can trust the length of the takeoff at the beginning…don’t need to rush this or even rush getting into the dancing. I can trust the dancing.

I can do beautiful dancing…trust it.

After Jazz Music into Silent sequence (9:25min)
I can trust the time of reaching up at the end and take my time to have my wings transform into Fauno-like ‘holding the Nymph’s shawl” arms…build more the image of folded wings moving from shoulder blade to get comfortable or scratch or throw water off or whatever birds do.

Somehow I should keep the urgency of the bird flight at first (or don’t lose it)?…keep the tension somehow…so that it gives more of a reason why I jerk off and shake, etc. But the noise of my body on the ground and the fluttering is nice.

I can give up more post orgasm/Petit Mort…more weightless or weightful or hanging with the upper body perhaps…more time to let the legs and body unfold or more boredom from my energy or emptiness in my body? I want to give the sense of “not really going anywhere in life” despair perhaps.

I can give more time to realizing how stuck I am actually. …before I start to pace around. Or maybe I make less pacing but each pace is then more dramatic and meaningful so that another emergency of stuckness gets established better. …to give a reason to “Try”

“Try”/Trampoline (16:30min)
Trampoline is good I guess. I can hold the end “land” pose longer and even have it slowly rise up over time rather than cutting it just so fast.

“I Need a Man” (21:10min)
I don’t know why I suddenly want to be sexy. I also don’t understand what I’m about in this moment or anything…
--Maybe from the “land” pose down I can slowly try flexing my muscles that I just worked out. Keep it sculptural, not too dancey, but with some fluttering isometrics (hand-finger pumps, flexing of arms? Pushups/burpees even? I don’t know). But yeah, flex hard and sensual or long!!! So that I can really feel myself and feel sexy suddenly and then notice the audience…or look to them for their approval or reaction like an insecure person or like a mirror??

Music can come in on its own I think…

I can slow way down with sexy undulations/revolados! I can indulge in the long sexy taffy of it all and give a chance for the audience eyes to caress my skin down the spinal undulation.

I can get totally into Narcissus here!!! Maybe this while scene is about my own beauty and thinking I’m so beautiful. I guess if I’m bored in a cage then I jerk off and workout and look at my muscles all day?
I can maybe bring in more fem sex power dance moves…to queer it up, but then hyper masculine again to keep it sharp and dangerous. This could maybe help the transition to flexing into gorilla be smoother and less rushed.

When I go from gorilla to hyperventilating and into a twisted, scared ball…then I can really twist all the way down into a tight ball!...before twisting all the way to a standing twist, etc.

Transition between songs (26:35min)
I don’t understand my soft arms. In my head I was hoping to have established hyper-tension in the arms and flexing to the point that I lost myself and became a gorilla, and then instead of having more power I actually lost all power and libido so that now my powerful arms are as soft and limp like a dandelion floating or a seaweed.

I don’t’ know actually. I’m not clear with myself. Why are these arms soft? Or do they need to be? What would make sense coming out of the gorilla/man dance? Maybe I don’t need to be dancey but just let myself unfold on my own and be more like a regular person back into silence again?
…then the tension or the fear of nothingness comes back? And then the next song starts?

“All is Loneliness” / Human to Animal Transformation (27:45min)
When I go down at first from standing, I feel from the audience perspective that it’s too soon for another dance now. I feel this in general with this song…starts to feel like a catalogue I’m going through.

In general with this song I can take way more time to let things develop on their own and not rush transformations. For example, the crawling on the ground at first, I can reach a more still despair before I shake. Then when I shake, I shouldn’t skip over it but let it take its time and get me standing.

After the chicken in the center moment and I go down to be a lizard…I can maybe hold a long stretch, claw, tongue out moment before just moving more…not to illustrate the animal, but have it come from a feeling inside. But generally to let myself feel more rather than constantly producing movement.

I really need to establish the jailness of this world in order to have such a dark scene make more sense…or to have more weight. Otherwise it’s like dancing a concert, but not so clear narratively/flow-wise.

The transition can take more time with the bird poses after.

Maybe these sculptural movement poses could come after the gorilla and before this whole song? Then maybe they come back again, or they don’t afterwards? Maybe after this song I could just walk off the tension-emotion and get more playful on my own.

Child Mic (36:35min)
Michalis said that I should not talk in the piece. I can imagine that it changes everything about the piece and ruins the body/character that’s been created.

He said that maybe I can record it, and just play with my hands in a general stillness during it.

I was thinking that I can play with hands and maybe do some of this emotional baby/child without voice thing while looking to audience members. Not too much. It could be like a prisoner trying to remember his life before incarceration? Or a traumatized person before they were traumatized? Like a memory or an internal daydream?

I should clean up my California slang a bit. Also, I can be more concise so that the text doesn’t drag on so much. I got bored in the middle and lost at the end.

Transition from Child Mic to Pina In (41:20min – 42:50min)
Me just in the space not really doing anything or knowing what to do…I think this sort of moment feels appropriate right now. Almost like a little break/pause/intermission or acknowledging the time having passed, etc.

Pina In Place & Pina Out of Place (43:55min)
I don’t need to try so hard and so fast so early on. I can be light and casual at first…especially if I’m coming out of more of a silence.

I’m not exactly sure what my vocabulary is here or why I’m just in place.

Maybe I can be in silence kind of in my own world to the side somewhere…then when the music comes on I can relocate somewhere else more central and presentational an do the same but somehow bigger as if now I have to show it to everyone. I don’t know.

When the techno comes in, it’s a bit of a harsh music change. Maybe there can be a fade in of the techno somehow….but I do like dancing to the second of Zam’s improvs.

I enjoy the dancing because the music is infectious.

I get into more footwork at a moment…maybe in terms of choreography, I can do more the attempts of flying and skipping/falling at first…and then after that has been reached somehow, I can do a drop of energy (not intensity), and this brings me to focusing on the feet and the ground and the more Tanzwut material.

Then later I get to arms again into a repetitive thing that takes me beyond when the music fades/stops.

“To Love Somebody” / Spirit getting a body (52:19min kinda…was finding a transition before I guess)
I should do nothing here. At some point eventually I can touch myself and go to an audience to touch with them, but it’s a moment to just listen together to a good song.

“Cry, Baby” / Goode-Love Hug Dancing (57:50min)
Michalis said that it felt like an encore. I should not do this song actually. I can do the dancing here within “To Love Somebody” actually.

**Possibility for how music could blend from Pina In through until the ending…**
From the silence comes in softly the Zoom0039 track…but then fades in “As Good As You’ve Been To This World” until it takes over mostly. Still the other track is present…but approaching the break of the song at 2:15min, the Zoom0039 can continue super strong. Then fades in Zoom0038 until that completely takes over. We can work in “CRY” fading in on that but not taking over…
Then the Zoom0041 comes in to get to crazy land and goes unbearably a bit…maybe with some CRY swells in there.
Movement-wise I can get to a repetitive flight move or Tanzwut…
Music can fade out but I continue…until I fade out too and all is silence.

I can go back to Birdy…
Birdy can do the first part of takeoff…once to a gallop then I can go really fast, but then the music “To Love Somebody” makes me stop to be with everyone, and I remember myself…doing minimally…
Just audience touch
Maybe holding hands.

At 2:45 I can start slow hug arms very slowly…and only move with the feels slowly…and slowly come to the Goode dancing…the song will do the bridge and here I can get more into the dance. Eventually I get faster until I’m back to the original fluttering in a cage perhaps…but super happy and excited that everyone is here together with me and each other!! So back to the beginning but happy together.

Notes from receiving feedback afterwards and me watching the run in studio 12 on video

Birdy takeoff and flight

Do some preliminary hops before the official hops-to-takeoff…too quick otherwise.

Dance more and trust that I have lots of time to develop things as they come rather than rushing. Hopping and all that jazzy dance is great with the running, so let it be and do more.

Once I land into more formal dancing then really establish the strict grid…Make it a project to officially lay these spokes from the center and be formal with it.

It’s a happy scene, I don’t think I need to quickly find my way to being sad I don’t think…otherwise I lose my connection.


Notes from feedback:
• the bird sounds and the bird movement/pose is maybe too 1:1/obvious. I could try being more artistic in this, like editing the sound so that the bird sounds abruptly cut out into silence, and then they come back…to play with the image and give more space or abstraction/editing for an audience to associate their own thoughts/projections more.
• I could even keep the first Birdy Perch pose longer…just chilling like an animal in the zoo.
• Someone thought of a bird weathervain with my straight arm directionality moves.


Transition into silence (9:40min)

What if I didn’t get sad at all with Birdy? I can stay with the happy feeling and try to stay happy and dancing for as long as I can…I know I’m exhausted already, and I also know that eventually I’ll lose the energy, get insecure, etc…so let this process unfold naturally as a way to get to the boredom or loneliness or stuckness, etc.

There are images and moves I like:
o fauno/wing pumps towards crotch/ground area
o the little triangle I make with my fingertips on the ground inscribing a circle around me
o Nijinsky’s orgasm pose lying downwards but then arching the upper back with weight on the forehead
o shaking/convulsions/humping the ground until coming up to an all-fours climax then laying down facing up in a birdy death pose. I like this dead birdy actually.
o I like the qualities of my legs and feet being caressing/soft/moving and my upper body being just weight…but I’m not sure if it serves anything at this point.

The main images are Masturbation and Death, but the sequence I move through is confusing chronologically and I repeat cycles unnecessarily.

Either: Find one sequence that unfolds naturally
OR
Play with switching between death and masturbation here back and forth so that it’s another sort of frenzy/confusion perhaps or that the “Logic” is not such an obvious, literal-timeline one.


Notes from feedback:
• People generally couldn’t really follow me after the jazz song. It wasn’t clear why I do the things I do…why I masturbate, etc. I agree, I wasn’t clear or feeling it.
• When Michalis saw the run on 20.11.2019, he really liked the transition and the moves in silence because it was unexpected and surprising in an interesting way…so maybe just how I performed it that night I guess.


“Try”/Trampoline (17:08min)

This is the first Janis Joplin song. So it’s a big deal as it’s a new mode/register/information. It can possibly feel very “theatrical number”

Give more time to the aforementioned sequence in silence and then when I begin Trampoline, I don’t need to be so intense at the beginning. I can do light jumps and let myself get higher, louder, more emotional on my own. I’m forcing the acting and emotions too much here, so that the flowing with the music isn’t working as well as it could.

When I jump off of the Trampoline…CUT THE SOUND! So a hard silence/stillness.

I’m not convinced yet of the flexing. Try finding myself from the stuck image to flying or to waking up into gym squats. I can be discovering or feeling my body through stretching and then flexing…as if to see what this new, exercised body is or can do or feels like.

Lifting the Trampoline was funny and people liked that. Try in the body to be more muscle man showing off without overdoing it.


Notes from feedback:
• Some people liked the trampoline while others didn’t. I like it, but it needs to be cared for dramaturgically


“I Need a Man” (22:10min)

Performer-Jorge wasn’t sure of his main intention entering the circle again. Is he thinking of trying to make a jail break and getting the courage somehow? Is he wanting to gain more confidence in life and risk to be/show sexy in front of others? Is he by himself looking in the mirror trying to grow his muscles?

Generally it’s maybe a too-obvious scene with the muscles and male-ness of it all.

The body coming out of the Trampoline could be flexing and strength & stretch based leading to the macho carrying out of the trampoline, but then this new song/section could be trying out the genders. Soo….

Try going between Female and Male…really work the genders because it could be an honest question that people have…to be girly or manly. So maybe it’s ok to be obvious, but as long as it’s about both genders and not just a guy trying to be sexy.

Would that solve it? I don’t know. I also get strippy here…is the sexuality needed? Or is it just my ego/narcissism in a way that doesn’t serve the piece?

OR, should I really go for the stripper/gogo boy and lap dance the shit out of someone?

Don’t stay in the center only! Travel more…dance more…otherwise it’s too self-contained and not open to the audience.

Audience-Jorge is lost and doesn’t understand all that is happening here and is annoyed watching!

Going down into a ball from the gorilla and then twisting slightly out of it was ok.

I’m really not sure what I’m working on in the silence or where I’m coming from.

Should I take this scene out??


Notes from feedback:
• Macho is too placative here (Ana). Rather than re-presenting the stereotype, she would want to see more of “Jorge’s” macho or masculine or personal discovery/struggle/journey.
• Ingrid didn’t mind the obvious flexing because it seems like an honest thing people do or want to do…like a boy or a man in private with a mirror.
• Minna generally distinguishes three modes of audience-to-performer relationship: intimate, private, public. She’s ok with intimacy, but she doesn’t like private in public because she’s subjected to watching someone’s private thing where maybe she doesn’t want to watch it or is interested in it…maybe feeling used as a spectator rather than offered something. I imagine this scene is a good example of private in public.
•

“All is Loneliness” (28:40min)

Don’t go so slow when I’m bent over traveling with slight wings

Connect with audience more rather than looking down and being in myself. It’s about looking at the audience with the face and emotions.

I’m tired here though, but maybe because I don’t feel secure or safe…and neither does the audience probably.

Shaking again…not necessary. Unless it’s a quick “jolt” version that gets me to standing.

I’m too tense and heavy generally…I need my body to be looser and lighter and maybe have fun in the pain and darkness even.

I feel like I hate this performer piece at this moment.


Transition from Loneliness to Silence – bird poses, Rodin statues/sculptures (34:20min)

Bird-human pose on one leg is just ok.

But, I like the quality of the sculptures at first. Spend more time with them…don’t move through them like a flow, but dare to hold them longer to feel each world separately wherever I land.

Again, I’m not sure of the transition here at all.


Child Mic (36:45min)

The sudden change of register is very refreshing here. This was audience feedback too. However, they’re not saying that the text itself as it is is the best thing in the world. Ana, mentioned that I could play way more radically with text here…to do a drastic change!

It’s a moment where context could come in and help the piece…but is this context needed? This is tangled up with all the lyrics of Janis Joplin and those songs currently. Her lyrics are too dominant right now

Silence into Pina In-to-Out of Place (41:20min)

I don’t need any Janis Joplin. I should just stick with the techno.

Pina-In is way too long. If it’s just techno then I can find my own timing to Pina myself out of Place. Pina-In doesn’t make so much sense to me because I don’t know why/where it comes, and it’s too long. But then Pina Out makes more sense if it’s about trying to fly and getting movement in the space.

Generally I don’t know what I’m trying to accomplish here exactly. When do I know if I’ve accomplished it?

I went to footwork…it’s fine, but, again, why? I like the footwork material actually because it’s more followable and can have a journey…but then where to?

Should I bring back the grid from the Birdly Flight? If I establish it early on then maybe it can come back here as a pathway to follow with my footwork perhaps? Or this quick foot travel thing I do sometimes.

“To Love Somebody” (47:40min)

Letting the song be the song is good…rather than trying to do so much.

This can be a revival of the Janis Jopling Big Top songs from the piece (if I take some out and haven’t had Janis in a while).

I shouldn’t spend too long with the one person.

The dancing nicely is on the edge for me. The Running and fluttering is good again. Keep this for sure…but just how to blend this all? I didn’t do so much of the score “spirit trying to get a body”. I was just not doing anything.

Jumping is ok.


General Notes
--Janis is coloring everything…how to not have that dominate?
--it’s too modulor right now with different scenes/sections. The rhythm of the piece is the same throughout.
--What’s the major arc?
--Nudity ether works or it doesn’t. If it’s the whole piece then maybe, or maybe I pass through. My body looks really good, so this can be distracting…especially if I’m trying to show weakness or failure or sincere attempts at flying. Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I should be more honest with myself rather than trying to act a role of something (Like Ahmed not liking how I look up to the sky).
--I really neeed to keep daring to open myself from the heart and share directly with the eyes to the audience!!!
--what structures or movement can be repeated in the piece?

Song issues:
Michalis liked that I operate my own sound. I can see this making sense to the “Try”/Trampoline and possibly to “I Need a Man”. If I had a stereo with me like I’m a prisoner but I have a stereo at least and Janis Joplin is the only cd I have.
--but do I fake press play and the music plays from the main speakers? Or is it localized in the stereo? Or is my device hooked up to a sound calbe that runs to the tech area and soundboard?

Audio Recording of "Child Mic" Text.

It didn't make sense to speak out loud since I don't speak the rest of the show, so I tried a voice over.