Finished off the trio of scratch performances on Saturday night. We changed ideas and pieces of the work for each showing. A small arietta was added in to some of the dialogue on the second scratch, as well as changing the opening video sequence to a 2 and one half minute fade up, in the hopes of simulating the adjustment of the eye to the pitch black space. Unfortunately the studio space did not facilitate a perfect blackout, but I think the change was effective. I wrote a monologue to accompany the video, which carries on for the full 2 min 30 of this fade up, over top of Pete's soundscape. It felt good to use my writing again. It was a one-sided eye doctor's appointment, which morphs in a dream like-subconscious manner into references to Oedipus, specifically the state of Thebes, with the eye doctor becoming the priest of Thebes. The space is transformed into the doctors office, with eye charts and tests projected onto glass and a black back wall, while the baritone (matt) sitting in a chair, in a small strand of light, back turned to audience, engaged in the eye test. The whole space transitions to a triangle of light, and into song. Much more going on, but that’s a basic idea. I think it was effective. We started about changes only a couple hours before the audience came in, so it was stressful. and although this is the essence of scratch performance--it is hard sometimes to remember to dive in and change and receive criticism and suggestion. I found myself responding in strange and almost hostile ways. But negotiated it within myself. What an intense process. This idea of scratch is very valuable and not at all easy. We actually open up the performance to audience questions and feedback right in the middle of the showing. You feel very naked with the art. and it is good. Due to lack of arts council funding, Pete and I were also running all tech from on stage, we had a sound mixer between us, and I had a lighting board on a shelf at shin level. Interesting experience doing lights and video, difficult but great for the creation of that greater canvas. After the second scratch (Fri.) we got some great feedback from audience members. You generally spend hours in the BAC bar following the showing, discussing the show, suggestions, feelings etc. I was happy with the positive response to the video. (You generally don't get the negative till you read the written response sheets...soon that will come....) We knew that the problem we were having at this state was clarity and conciseness---structure basically, which I think is one of the most important things--and has been present in Amanda and my conversations over the last half a year. Modern art still needs structures to support a conveyance of the information, or ideas, or intents, to the audience. As Matt’s dad put it after the show, the job of the artist is to clarify, not to mystify. This will be the task of our next phase of work on this, or one of the tasks I should say. I woke up Saturday morning and began writing a new section to try to clarify some of the ideas, accompanied by another video section on the eye theme. We added it into the show for the last night, along with a new section of dialogue and a reprise of the arietta. We were plagued by technical difficulties leading up to the last show, which made my trying to record myself speaking the new monologue a drawn out and laborious procedure, but it somehow, in the true mystery of the theatre, all started working just in time for the show to go on. I felt the new section with speaking and video definitely added, but was certainly a rough draft with much work to be done to it. Once again, the essence of a scratch, very difficult, and somehow liberating, to put a literal first draft of an idea in front of an audience.

This is all very fresh in my mind, and I do need some days of digesting to put it in perspective. I plan to write more about it when I am in Stockholm this week.

Sunday the group got together at our flat in Forest hill for a casual dinner and the start of good byes until the fall

We are headed into our last Scratch evening at the BAC. Last evening Matt's father said something that was perhaps hard to hear but at the same time very poignant and timely. He said that it is the job of an artist to clarify not to mystify. That is a hard job! To unravel the mystery is to be clear. Hmmm.

This process of Scratch is, I think, a really good one and one that many people say would be good but most people never do. It is really actually hard to do. The whole idea is to present work in an unfinished form. Easy, right? Wrong! It is really hard to go in front of an audience and present work that is disjointed and unfinished. One's natural reaction is to create something that flows from one thing into the next. But in reality that pieces do not flow just yet and therefore you are really doing yourself a disservice by presenting them in this way. It is hard for an audience to watch something as a work in progress if it is presented in a somewhat finished way. Inevitably the audience watches the piece as a finished piece and all its flaws are glaring.

SharpWire decided to present its Scratch performance as just that, a Scratch. There were a few pieces of work that are unconnected and unfinished. Instead of moving from one idea into the next the show stops and talks about an idea and then maybe presents the same idea in an alternate way. The process of the Scratch, and the openness of the performance has allowed for some really good audience feedback and has allowed Sharp Wire to really look at what its aim were in presenting these ideas. I think that this process has helped to bring a central theme and focus to the surface. Sometimes there was a hard truth in something that the company really liked not actually working in the context of the whole, and sometimes there was an idea that really worked on all levels that will clearly be expanded in the future. There was even an instance where something that was a small added on idea has become something that people really wanted more of and that people really wanted to become, perhaps, a main focus in the bigger work.

I am thinking that I would like to implement this Scratch idea into my own work. Tobin and I have been discussing ways of opening up our creative process at various stages to audiences. I hope we really go through with this, as there is a lot that can be gained from it. However, we will have to remember to keep things "scratchy.

We just had a scratch showing of the work we have been doing, and will have another tonight, and I want to step back and write about the process since the 5th, which has been intensive:

May 6-this day was spent largely digesting the ideas we had been discussing, and editing. I approached the raw video in a very "painterly" way for this work period. I think I did this because I was viewing the video as "place holding" video, basically a placeholder until the through-line was more established and I could re-shoot more specific footage. I focused on texture, motion, composition, and color. The actual original subject matter of the footage became almost unimportant because I was using it as the rawest of material-the paint on the palette. Creation of image would take place within the computer, this being an " inner canvas", to became an element or layer in the "greater canvas" -which has been my main interest lately- which is the composition of the entire stage space (I will talk about this more later). In doing so much of the creation process is in the computer, I was very conscious of not letting the image look too "digital" (meaning, to keep it from looking computer generated and created) My objective is that the work should have a humanistic feel, so that is more like a breathing painting, and does not lean too much toward the video game/screen saver/lava lamp aesthetic.

As I worked throughout the day, and late into the night, I found myself really liking what was emerging. I do think when we are forced to treat material in a non-precious manner; it yields more naturally creative results. As color was stripped away, speed was altered; contrasts heightened, hidden shapes emerged. I am fascinated with these shapes. The images hidden between frames, the secret language of recorded movement. These patterns and shapes, because they come first from nature (in that the images recorded on video are natural and not digitally generated) contain the rhythms and patterns that only nature provides, with all its secret arithmetic and mystery. As they are uncovered on the computer screen, it feels like looking through a microscope and discovering the beauty and patterns hidden within a specimen on a glass slide.

As this developed I also saw that this connected directly to the ideas of saccades and fixations, and the process of vision. The process almost becomes a peering into the saccades, or those hidden, blind spots in our own visual/cognitive process.

I created four video "inner canvases" which I could build on in the coming days, and then add to dimensionally in the stage space on Tuesday.

I also talked to Amanda about generating a language of phrases or movement to the saccadic dialogue that I had found (I talked about it in the May 5 entry). I was thinking at this point I would like her to dance to this text, which I could then layer into the installation live, or film and layer into the video (these ideas changed over the coming days-as the project evolved and through her valuable input and ideas.)

We saw a show at Laban in the evening. Different choreographers working on the resident company, "transitions". Nice pieces from Thomas Lehman, and Henry ____?. Two horrible pieces--but the good ones made it worth the trip.

May 7-9, Work with Pete in Brighton- Sat morning Amanda and I take the train to Brighton to stay at Pete and Tina's. Pete had been unable to be at the meetings in London, so this was my opportunity to work intensively again with Pete, and have close contact with the composition of the music. Pete's studio is in the house in Brighton, so we were really able to dig in to the creative process side by side and it was very interesting for me to see this part of the composer's process.

It was beautiful and refreshing to see the ocean, and be near it (Brighton is on the sea side). We were both very happy for the new working location.

I talked with Pete about some of the discussion of the prior week, although he was well informed through phone conversations with matt. He had begun creating a canvas of sound in the studio, in what seemed to be a somewhat similar process to what I had been doing the day before. What was fascinating, and what I found related to the idea of the patterns in nature that I had been exploring, was his use of samples and sound recordings.

He had a recording, taken from outside Charing Cross station, somewhere near the water--which was a compilation of creaking, and chains, a boat (the Queen Victoria?Mary?I think) moving to the rhythm of the Thames. The sounds of the boat, he told me, were naturally tuned to c# minor--which he would compose to. He was counting the meter of the sound, finding what time register it was in. Tapping out the counts on his knee, "oh its in 11" back to counting. This was inspirational to me--and exciting. He then proceeded to lay other sounds into this canvas, percussive sounds, beds of chords, guitar. I was set up atop a file cabinet with my editing gear haphazardly strewn-hard drive resting near my feet, cables and converter adapters snaking to overcrowded outlets. We worked side by side. Due to this side-by-side working a simultaneous cross influencing or synchronicity occurred, his sound influencing the feel and texture of the imagery and the imagery influencing the textures of the music. Pete would glance over at what I was doing and I was listening to the score grow through the studio speakers. We both acknowledged the mutual inspiration--it was a great process.

On breaks we explored Brighton, which is beautiful, and just enjoyed being near the sea.

This process continued through to Monday. We revisited the saccadic text, which I copied into my computer, then had the computer read into Pete’s studio system. I also gave him the monologue I had created for an opening "eye doctor" sequence. He manipulated these with a series of filters and studio magicianry and they were added into the canvas of sounds he was creating.

I did some more reading on Oedipus topic, specifically delving in to some history on the oracles of ancient Greece, and the seers. It was interesting to find out that the oracles would speak through sound (according to this text) with the oracle of Zeus speaking through the rustling of the leaves of trees and the beating of percussive drums. This was then interpreted by priests. Seers received their information through the entrails of animals and the flight of birds. This seemed important to our central theme of vision, and I started to think of some of the imagery as the information passing, un-translated, from the Delphic oracle---containing all the information of Oedipus and his tragic path. This would fit in well with the approach Pete would take with the setting of libretto, a sort of non-linear collective consciousness approach to the Oedipus myth. As if it had all happened already, existing as the ghosts of memory. An Oedipus looking back. This approach worked really well with the way I was imagining things as well.

I gave a chunk of the text to Amanda, with some words highlighted. We had talked about highlighting certain repeating phrases and words to map out the text. She took it and did much more elaborate and intensive highlighting, the first step of the process of creating movement to the text.

We had some discussion on how to link the script, which Stephanie is writing with the work we are doing. It seems she is taking a traditional playwright’s approach to her involvement, which entails writing everything that happens in the stage space. This of course doesn't fit well at all with the way in which we work. Pete had typed the summary of our discussion over to her just as we received a bulk of new pages of script from her via email.

These pages of script illuminated a real difference in approach to the subject matter, even including some of our operatic and visual ideas translated into the world of romantic comedy, but no reflection of the themes we had been speaking of from the visual and representative strand of the work within the dialogue of the two characters. I had been hoping they would touch on ideas of sight or vision, so that the parallel stories would have resonance, becoming two angles on the same themes within the Oedipus myth.

We were all getting the idea that Tuesday would be interesting, as we tackled the merging of conventional play script and non-linear multi media opera.

We had a late dinner on Monday, and made plans for getting back to London for work in studio on Tuesday morning, with the whole group present.

May 10, BAC.- We had an early wake, and bus ride to catch the train from Brighton to East Croydon, then switch to Forest Hill, run home, change clothes, grab projector, run back to train station to catch train to Clapham and the BAC

We met up in the BAC lounge- Matt reading the script, we then had a quick chat in which we learned that a director who was friends of a friend with Stephanie would come in today to give us an outside eye.

Amanda led a warm up for all of us, which was fantastic. It really got the blood flowing and put us all in the same place. Matt has asked Amanda to come in and do this. He likes everyone working on a project to be in the same space (calling himself a "big thesbo")--and although I would found myself slightly resistant to it on the 11th, when it was early and I felt nervous and cranky-it truly works, and I always feel great afterwards. I think this is a practice we should carry into Miro, with all collaborators getting into that space together, it is very valuable.

Following the warm up we pulled chairs into a circle and got to the discussion. We started with Pete and I presenting the work we had done over the long weekend, and then had some discussion as to concerns regarding the merging of opera and play worlds. It seemed difficult to get to the heart of the issue. There is not a lot of great language to discuss the challenges we were encountering.

Stephanie then asked to present her new pages of script in the form of a reading. This included full stage directions attempting to describe the way the media intertwined. She had said on many occasions we could take these or leave them, but it started to seem as though she planned on writing out whatever stage directions would occur at the end of the day. There were funny moments, but the play operated purely within the realm of romantic comedy, and as I sat there, feeling as though there was no room to fit our work into this play, without entirely and severely adapting the play to the multimedia form, I became very frustrated. The height of my frustration came as the stage directions were read describing what was to be the dance to the text, transmuted through the romantic playwright filter to become Pamela, a comic train station worker that engages in a comical abstract dance at the expense, I felt, of the dancer, and the idea. The joke seemed to be on dance--and Pete was feeling, through other moments in the play, that the joke was on Opera. I had said early on that I did not want to make fun of dance or opera, so it was difficult to sit, and to see what our ideas had become. When we broke for lunch, immediately following the read through, I went outside to cool down and figure out how to best express my reaction.

lunch was the hard conversation - we were discussing how people felt but most of us were remaining very quiet. I said I needed time to really express what I felt, but it ended up coming together in my head, and I explained what I was upset about, mostly that the languages of dance, and visuals, and opera are very real to me. That these languages were as important as the language of words--but that in the script, they were diminished to comic parody. I asked what we were making. Was it a play with video and music? That wasn't what I thought I was exploring, and although I have loved working on plays, and will do again--this was about exploring in the multi medium, about the combining of mediums within a new opera context. Stephanie really seemed to hear and understand what I was saying, and was very gracious in her response. Once I vocalized these concerns, some of the others realized they shared these exact feelings. The whole thing reminds me what a new arena we are really working in, and how the disciplines have really created their own walls and definitions. It is a very special practice--the combining of these things. Throughout the rest of the day we revisited these issues with respectful and intense conversation. Issues of the role of the various forms are addressed. What is the role of the writer? in the traditional sense, in writing conventional theatre vs., in the world of multi media work, and cross medium exploration, where various languages are speaking together.

Following lunch, Pete set up with piano in hallway-and scrawled out vocal parts on manuscript paper to a section of Stephanie’s re-translation of Oedipus,

In the studio I worked with moving the singers within the greater canvas, preparing some makeshift levels of projection with found objects in the studio and moving them within the environment. This was the moment I had really been waiting for, where I could direct the movement of the performers through the space. It was slightly horrifying at first. They stand there and say "what do you want us to do" and in that moment all of your ideas become shit. But I plowed on, and it was a great experience and the confidence returns. It was awkward directing over the gorgeous operatic singing, I kept thinking I shouldn't interrupt--which is funny cause if they had been speaking dialogue I would have jumped right in.

We experimented with the TV (that early idea) and then without the TV, and then around it. In the end I decided it didn't quite work, within the time frame and resources we had here. But I will add it in later, if not to this show, then as a stand-alone installation idea.

Pete returned from the hallway and gave the music to Matt and Helen. They then went over it and sang through it, I have video of this, so if it's all right with the singers and composer I will post some here later.

We then returned to what we had started with movement experimentation, but now with them singing what Pete had written. Trying things within a rough multi layered projection environment, exploring the outer edges of what we could do with a movement language. Amanda did a quick intro to contact improv with them, working on passing of weight, etc (I am sure she will write about that). I asked them to play with the idea of attraction and revulsion, at the same time. We were exploring the libretto between Oedipus and Jocasta (his mother / wife) and I wanted to explore use of body and placement of body within the video environment to convey, along with the music, the complex levels of emotion, sexuality, loss, denial and power that were happening between the two characters--but to do this while really focusing on the two words--attraction and revulsion. The transition from ideas in your mind to ideas in the space offers up lots of surprises. I was finding that the simplest and most economical gestures could convey a great deal. In opera the music is dancing, so the performers -the singers-don't bear that sole responsibility. Through this exercise the power of distance emerged. And touching without touching. Through this process I became more aware of Jocasta's plight -- losing everyone she loves--her baby, her husband, then her child again, and her husband. Everyone she had loved. Everyone loses in Oedipus. A true tragedy

Pete and I were talking about how to find hope in the story. Can you find hope in tragedy-(in opposition to nihilism, or fatalism, or resigned pessimism) It is something we will be exploring more and more as we move forward.

An outside director, an acquaintance of Stephanie, came in to see some sketches of what we were working on and offer feedback and suggestion. She mostly danced around the divide growing between the play script, which was personal and conventional, and the opera and video art. It seemed she also did not see them coming together-but offered up the idea of an evening of different works inspired by Oedipus myth--or different angles. As much as it was not new information, it was valuable, and it did spur on the discussion, which brought us to the end of a long working day.

Stephanie decided to step out of the process for the last day of work (the next day). Stating it may be time for the writer just to go away--as is often the case in the last week of a theatre production. This was followed that evening with an email that stated she was not sure if her play fit into our world, and perhaps she would just take it off on its own way after the showing. After seeing how the rest of us worked together, I think she realized how different our process is. The silver lining of it ---is that the rest of us work fantastically together, and when left in a studio--the work just explodes out of us--it is very exciting. We all had worked on Adams Apple together last year--and the new addition of Helen (the soprano) just seemed a perfect fit. The next day, some exciting stuff would come together.

May 11, Wednesday

No Stephanie on Wednesday.

On way to BAC talk to Amanda about my growing interest in systems and structure for non linear work, for audience understanding and relaying message clearly, (versus for personal academic interest or idea generating exercise.) sparked good conversation. She has been having similar thoughts.

Amanda leads a warm up for us all.

Based on the work of the day before. Amanda and I decided she would teach a series of phrases connecting to pivotal actions in the Oedipal myth. This came from her ideas around creating a dance to the academic text on Saccades and fixations. These phrases she would teach in the morning, would become the tools that I would then use to place the singers into the video staging. (Creating the "greater canvas"). This worked amazingly and Amanda was comfortable with me then taking apart and using the phrases (1-5) as the common language of movement.

For the morning, Amanda worked on the phrases with Matt and Helen, while I chimed in slightly at times, but this was basically Amanda’s time, and I worked on creating the set, hazing the glass for projection, creating a rough sort of texture, and sorting out the way the installation of the video could work.

Throughout this, Pete works with headphones on an electric piano in the corner of the studio, working on vocal parts

We broke for lunch at the BAC

Following lunch Pete taught the music to the singers in the upstairs studio while I moved into the theatre space in studio 2 (we had just found it we could use it for the afternoon-which was great because it was dark and we could work out the video.

It was finally in the theater space that I was able to start piecing together the look of this thing and how it would work. I set the projector up front and center, and then used the painted glass piece to create and extension of the projection into the center of the space, as well as frame out a part of the whole. It became a very simple square on square sort of look, which I was happy with for the scratch set up. I was specifically happy with the way the glass was reacting to the projection with the textured frosting.

I decided to let the TV set go by the wayside for this scratch performance. I really like the minimalism and clean lines of the framed glass (Plexiglas square).

Matt Helen and Pete came down to the space and played the music that had been completed. I then worked to set the video work I had done to each of these pieces of music, combining my composition ideas, with specific focus on the three dimensionality of the video (the "greater canvas") with the series of phrases that Amanda created in the morning of the blocking into video. (I will insert sketches here later referring to the balance and composition.)

And intensely magical moment happened when setting to a piece of music we referred to as the bed. I paired it with a section of the video work I had done, that was a sort of black and white disintegrative moving bitscape layered in with text-unreadably small-made up of the saccades and fixations academic text. It was a bit of video I was really happy with, and knew that it was absolutely incomplete without the performers placed into it. The colors and shapes move through the projection almost choreographing the movement on its own, creating fantastic paths and openings for the singers to inhabit. I set Helen upstage right, standing in profile. She is lit by the projection, with the hard edge of the projection severing her profile down the center-her head just dipped into the light. Matt was set upstage left, facing the audience on an angle toward stage center. Matt sings first, telling the story of the first king of the land, whose name was Liaus (Oedipus' father who he is unaware of and unknowingly kills) I took the phrase Amanda had created to signify the killing of Liaus. The phrase involved a circular movement of the arm and then inward movement of the two hands to the chest. I asked him to make it very sharp, somewhat violent, and he made the choice to pair this with a stamping of the foot, which was alarming and fantastic. He said the best spot for this would be just following the low sustained final word "laius" in the singing. This worked perfectly with the libretto. I had him sing this as he moved forward slowly on a slight diagonal. Synchronicity of it was beautiful, as the video seemed to move to the right to make room for him, folding white light over his head as he sang forward towards the audience... I then turned to Helen, and (stupefyingly simple) had her walk across the back upstage so that we see her enter the distorted world of the hazed glass. The phrase I asked her to use was the one Amanda had created for the loving of her son, which we had all had some input into. This phrase rang of loss--with a downward movement to the floor from the loins, which came up to a cradling around the torso of the arms. There was something haunting about the end spot of this phrase, the resting of the arms across the midriff. A gutted,barren, sickening feeling of loss. I asked her to hold the positioning of the arms as she began the walk and stay in the position for the whole crossing of the stage. Her vocal part was a haunting melody that floated above the music like the ghosts of loss and fate and forknowledge of your own tragedy--if that makes any sense at all. Pete had approached the setting of the libretto in that matter. Saying that he was starting from the point at which everyone already knows what has happened and what will happen, so it is as if the ghosts of Oedipus are telling their story. This really resonated with me, and tied in to the idea of the way Tiresius must view everything--knowing all that will happen, the plight of the seer. So we went to play through with the music and the staging. I had imagined that Helen would do the phrase and then start singing as she began to walk, but what she actually did (either because she misunderstood me or had great inspiration--I will have to ask her) is that she began to sing as she did the phrase--so this high note emanated from her in this haunting manner as she sunk downward to the floor, as she begins her slow gutted walk the white strip of video riddled with blue text slowly traced her path across the space, and as she entered the glass, she truly looked as though she entered another dimension. It was a truly magic moment, and I think everyone in the room felt. It had all fit together. It had hit on some unspeakable emotional level. The three dimensionality of the video had been successful, with the video wrapping across the black wall, coming forward across the glass... it was just one of those splendid magic moments that can happen in the rehearsal process that makes us love what we do. These can often disappear, brief magical things. But this section of the scratch elicited a lot of comments, I think possibly the most, and it felt equally as powerful throughout the scratch run. One woman stated she was reached visually and aurally in a way she never had been before, and someone else said they did not want that moment to end, to make it last longer please.

We continued working in this way through the day and then had a meeting to discuss what we would show, and how we would show it, the following night.

May 12, Thursday, day of scratch showing

No break today. Trains cancelled so lost time in the morning, had to wait 30 minutes at station. Pete and I immediately jump in to getting theatre set up and loading in--the loss of arts council funding led to my volunteering us to run tech from stage--a better idea in theory than practice. I have my computer on tabletop, in front of audience on stage left, and the light board at my shins--on a lower shelf.

I had the Bac technical staff person focus the few instruments we used into a triangle of light surrounding the glass square.

Amanda works for some time on an improv for Matt and Helen to dance.

I work on editing the opening monologue into the eye doctor visuals

Once everything is set up, we work more on staging within the actual environment. We go through all of the sections of the opera we will show.

The improv Amanda worked on with the singers is placed on the stage right side of the triangle, and they perform the improv as they move downstage singing the final bit between Jocasta and Oedipus. It works very well, and ends up getting very positive feedback throughout the run. This is the end result of the initial attraction revulsion exercises we had done.

We then weave in the play pieces.

We have the soprano in the audience, back row, for the opening section. So people hear the vocals coming from stage and from behind them (or next to them, depending where they are sitting). This leads the first bit of stage dialogue to take place over the heads of the audience. (Pete and I both wanted soprano in audience--inspired by trumpets in audience for Wagner ring cycle)

We have a final run through what we will present from start to back, and then finally get a minimal break to grab some snacks and the show is on.

We get good and constructive feedback in show and after. People found it very interesting that we performed one section of text twice in a row, once as straight theatre, and the second time, after a quick break to explain what was happening, with musical underscoring. Everyone stated that they liked the musical underscoring much better, and that led to discussion as to why, and how it heightened the meaning of the text, and relayed the emotion better. There was then discussion as to why the man sang and the woman didn't in the dialogue, which sparked debate within the audience. All this in the middle of the performance. It was fantastic (we had worried no one would want to participate in these mid show feedback breaks.)

After feedback in the bar for a while, a large group moved down the street for Thai food. It was a great crowd of folks. We talk at dinner with Dominick, an academic who will be presenting a lecture in DC on SharpWires Adams Apple (or using Adams Apple as the central example of discussion). He asked Amanda," does dance happen in time or in space"...she replied quickly, "yes". ..."Both".

I finally made it back to class this week, after being away on Monday and in the studio with SharpWire on Tuesday and Wednesday. Sean Feldman was teaching and the class was great. It was very luscious and high energy and my brain had to work very quickly to pick up the complex combinations that they had been working on all week. You know, I just really enjoy moving my body in that way. You sort of consciously move back and forth through the passive and active.

After class Sue and got to talk about my stay so far. We talked a lot about the art of choreography and of the quest to let things happen. She made a comment last week regarding the desire to have her work be about one or two concepts, and of the realities of always wanting to add more in. To hear someone I admire talk of the fears and insecurities is amazingly refreshing! It is also an important element in my development to understand that things will work and things won’t work and that is forever a part of it. Sue and I spoke a bit more about what I am aiming to get out of my fellowship with her. I am interested in the process of bringing the movement sketches into the practical application of setting it all into a choreographic context and staging the work. I understand the process of being in the studio with the dancers to develop movement, and I understand working on a constructed pieced to get out of the dancers a physical interpretation of what already exists. Those are the things that the dancer is inherently involved in and those are the elements that I have been a part of both in my career as a dancer and in how I have staged and created works so far. It is the in between that I want to dive into, the process of picking, and choosing, and constructing.

Next week, for three days anyway, the company will be working on some more movement ideas for the new piece. I am looking forward to getting back into the new piece and to getting more information in regards to what the piece will be focusing on so that I can have that as a reference when observing the creation process. I will be coming back in the fall when the new piece will be what is worked on, probably exclusively. So far this has been an enriching experience and one that is almost immeasurable in how I have been affected. My ideas regarding spacing and staging are really getting an overhaul. Even my ideas regarding movement and style are being challenged. Of course there are always the insecurities of moving yourself in a new direction. I still feel a struggle in letting go of my classical background. I have spoken a bit about this with Sue and she continues to keep me thinking, and she continues to tell me that I do not have to abandon anything. Just today she said, rather simply but quite complex, that my medium is dance. I am using dance to tell my story and I can use dance in any way to get that across. (This is so not as eloquent as she was in saying it to me but I am just going to have to live with my own re-interpretations for now.) There is no reason that a large sweep of the arm cannot come from a genuine and sincere place, or that a pointed foot has to be a balletic re-hash of an old idea. If I am clear in what I want to say then I can use any means to speak.  

It has been a pretty full on week here as the Scratch performances at the BAC opened last night. Tobin and I spent the weekend in Brighton with Pete and Tina B. Pete and Tobin got to work on some music and video elements for the piece and I was given a scientific paper on Saccades and Fixations and how to go about figuring out which eye movements were which. Tobin knew he liked to sounds of the words and the cold science of the idea but could not quite make out the concept of the article. It was actually through this article that I came up with some movement ideas for the piece.

In mapping eye movements there are saccades and fixations, the saccades are the moments of fast movement where the person is not seeing, the fixations are the moments where the eye is seeing. When one removes the saccades and collapses the fixations one image is created and that is the whole picture that a person sees. Or something liked that! So my thought for creating movements was that in a dance phrase there would be moments that relate to the elements of Oedipus that we wanted to explore. If one were to remove all the unrelated elements and then bring together the related ones to create a new phrase, the new phrase would have a central moment that can be highlighted expanded and explored in its own right to become the most clear concept of the story. ???

So, in the studio with Matt and Helen, the performers, we sort of worked backwards. First finding what movements would clearly express the central idea, then how that movement could be the center of a short, simple phrase. I wanted to be sure that the performers were comfortable with the movements and that they had a personal and emotional investment in them because these would be the movements that we would draw from for the piece. Instead of setting choreography in two days, as they were just getting libretto and music and text and stage directions for operating in the videoscapes, I would have them improvise with the key moments that we had created. My thought was that that way they would be able to react emotionally to the time and space in which they were performing while still having relevance to the piece as a whole.

A sunny afternoon, back in Herne Hill. Taking this time to catch up in the journal, even though a number of things I should be doing instead. Amazing how work ceases to be work once it takes the form of procrastination for some other work. The first test for the internet live feed with Jazz at Lincoln Center Festival is tonight at 8. I should be setting up for it now. But I will do this quick entry first. I am heading to Brixton at 4 to see the film Bullet Boy. A first time film from a London local, the producer and actor will be at the screening, and will do a talkback afterwards. Should be interesting because the film has been slightly controversial in its depiction of a gun culture and London’s version of "projects" I think. Of course, I haven't seen it yet--and don't yet know what I am talking about. More in the next entry. I am going to see two documentaries on America and Iraq on Wednesday, also with the directors present. Really looking forward to that, especially with the "warrior" project coming up next year, and the documentary "itch" returning to me. I leave with Amanda on Thursday for Netherlands, for the Spring Dance Festival. We are meeting up with others from Philadelphia, and I think New York. So we really haven't gotten out of our suitcases yet. The day I get back we do the feed to NYC, so my week is really full--its how I like it.

Just finished reading Alma's memoirs of Gustav Mahler. It was so full of love, and moving, and intense. I am so glad I read it. I feel very connected to this Mahler project on many levels. Have really become a huge Mahler enthusiast. It seems so few people know about him and his contribution to music. I look forward to reading more from other sources. And will be hunting for recordings of Alma's music this week. It is strange how my projects are overlapping. This opera, with its departure point in Tristan and Isolde, which was Mahler’s signature and one of his favorite operas. The Warrior project next year, with the Alban Berg connection-another Viennese artist who had connection with Mahler, and my own roots to Austria, in that time period I believe, as an Austrian Jew. I never made a decision to immerse myself in this period -- so it is interesting that it has sort of manifested in this way. I will roll with it of course.

I have been thinking a lot about what someone said to me before leaving--not to let my work get too European. This is from someone in the sort of New York "downtown: world--which I suppose is a reaction to the "self serious highly artsy" --I am not sure--it is a strange thing to wrap my head around. But interesting that I step right into this sort of "downtown" Lincoln Center gig. I think I will try to play with both ideas, as much as I understand what both these ideas are.

talked a lot about music with Pete this week, especially the composers’ process. How we can integrate the work I do with that process, which at times demands isolation, --while that same isolation makes the composer (according to Pete) feel cut off from the process.

I am excited for the first meeting between Pete, the playwright/librettist, and myself (the week after next). I think it will be very interesting.

Met a woman from Argentina yesterday who is involved with a dance theatre hybrid form called "emergence" technique. It uses physical trained actors and dancers-some with ballet background, in a system of improvisations governed by a set of preformulated rules. It seemed very interesting and I will be trying to attend some rehearsals while I am here.

I should get going now, a start to rig this complex circuit of digital analog conversions in order to get this signal, with live and out of the computer imagery over to states. Once again a tight budget has forced some creative work arounds--would probably make some technical types cringe. But I am excited for the sort of ridiculous circle of analog to digital conversions and what effect that will result in-especially coupled with the cubic interference that can occur with any type of movement during the live compression and Internet transfer. I am still trying to decide between taking a signal straight out of my computer verses putting it out via projector to a textured surface, than re digitizing via a camera before compressing and sending. I definitely want to get the feeling of image breaking apart-and to get that live, in a somewhat un predictable way (along the lines of feedback) would be idea, although if it becomes too un predictable-it could just look terrible, or become a gimmick. Hence the testing-to which I go now. I imagine I may be recording video and digital still for the project while in the Netherlands in addition to whatever I do in Chelsea in the beginning of the week.

Sue tells a story about how a trip to America changed the way she viewed her work and her process. I never quite understood how this could be. I do now. This trip to England and Europe has had a similar effect on me. It is somewhat unexplainable yet now her comment makes perfect sense to me. My views on my work and what it can be and how it can be done have changed. What remains to be seen as of yet is the actual change in the physical. Of course, this will only manifest itself in the studio on my return. No small feat but one for which I have found a new energy. I suppose I should apologize ahead of time if the work does no live up to any expectations but life is a journey and some of the paths are slow and treacherous. I have my walking boots on and may need to pick up a walking stick in the way, but damnit my bags are packed! Now where is the entrance?

Well, this trip to England and the Springdance festival has truly altered me. I mean I feel that I am viewing work that I see differently after having been to that festival. We, Tobin and I, went to a dance performance tonight and I wonder if the piece that really struck me the most would have had the same effect on me before going to that festival. Or perhaps this change could be a part of my work so far with Sue. As the piece that really struck the most, as the most genuine and touching was created by one of Sue’s dancers, Henry Montes. The work used improvisation and “authentic Movement” and it really brought out the personalities of the dancers. There was a very clear structure, a la Sue, and there was a very clear intention. Questions were asked and answered and the performance really felt genuine. A real treat. On the program was also a work by Thomas Lehman, whose worked we missed at the Springdance Festival but that I had highlighted as something I wanted to see. This particular piece was interesting and somewhat engaging but not altogether whole. It did hold a similar aesthetic to the other work that we saw at the festival. A work by Canadian Crystal Pite was on the bill as well. I have been interested in seeing her work for quite some time and I enjoyed it. It closed the program very well. It was luscious and lyrical with some beautiful moments. Not as original as I had hoped but really nice and well suited for the dancers, which is feat in itself!

After the show we talked with one of Sue’s dancers and we got to talking about French choreographer Jerome Bel. His work was really the highlight of the festival for me and Laurent had a great story about his commission by the Paris Opera- the piece that we saw at the festival. I had wondered how on earth the Paris Opera would go about commissioning this particular solo. And had really wondered why the Paris Opera would choose such a choreographer. The story that Laurent told was priceless. To paraphrase: The director of the Paris Opera said to Jerome Bel, “ I do not think that dance is so important in your work, but I do think that your work is important for dance” Well said!

Today was day three working intensively on Saccades. The two singer/ performers (Matt and Helen) read lines together, singing and speaking. We did this in a busy cafe resembling a train station (the location of the script) and I did videotape, in extreme close up mostly, trying to capture some of the raw, docu-quality of this first reading. Present was myself, Stephanie (the playwright), Matt and Helen. As things start to make sense, other things become more confused. I am finding, with the nature of my work developing to a place where much of the idea is outside of the projection, it becomes tricky to find ones’ role within the collaborative process. At the same time the process is extremely useful in helping me to clarify ideas and choices. This morning I started reading through a very impregnable and academic study on Saccades and Fixations of the human eye. I had tried reading this previously, but found it completing alienating and moved on to more accessible accounts. But this morning, seeing the PDF was still on my desktop, I opened it and read it. Strangely…a text within the text emerged for me, along with a sort of rhythm to the impregnability of the writing--that was enthralling. I was involved in my own series of cognitive saccades and fixations, roaming over the text, absorbing it for its sound qualities and rhythm, and then fixating on moments that related to me, words relating to space, and speed, rapidity, language describing movement, sound, and imagery--embedded in the text. I started imagining the text being used in the show, as a foundation or backdrop for dance, sound, and imagery. the vision in my mind was strong, and there was something very pleasing about this. When at the meeting today, I needed to explain this idea to others, I found myself at a verbal bottleneck. I was unable to explain this to the others in that moment, in relation to the pages of dialogue we had just explored with Stephanie. She then asked me what the emotion was that I wanted people to get from this idea, or the feeling from which this idea came. A fantastic question, that frustrated me because I could not answer it easily. I eventually responded that it came from a place of no feeling. Then proceeded to…a place of cold analytical self-examination. A viewing glass into a structure behind the piece we are creating. The idea of rapid searching…and momentary fixation on an acute idea, and then a return to rapid searching--the saccades--the blind moments of searching in which we do not see and do not notice that we do not see. This is the key framework we are working within for the show conceptually (in my mind), and it is important that people (the audience) are let into that idea. Then I thought of the article on atheism and agnostics that was in The Guardian last week. The writer told the story of a beautiful religious painting on a brick wall. The painting was so beautiful and lifelike, that people began to worship it as if it were real. Because of this, the artist then took a brick out of the wall, creating a gap in the painting.  It was at this point that the people could appreciate the beauty of the painting...it’s existence as a painting and not reality had been established. From here I was led to the idea that my interest may be in the idea of juxtaposing the language of science against the realm of emotions, or the practice of trying to place emotion within that scientific construct. That maybe the incompatibility of the two opposing languages, the language of feelings and the language of science, was what interested me - the non-negotiable nature of these two realities - the insistence of people to fit one within the framework of the other. This relates to the idea of seeing--it relates to those hard moments of self - evaluation, where we try to fit the complexities of our selves and of our world into a reasonable and scientific container. The questioning of my idea was very helpful to me - and reinforced for me the importance of process.

I am going to work on putting this idea together over the next few days.  Amanda will dance to the text (I think), on video, and then phrases or elements of the dance will resonate in more pedestrian staging with Matt and Helen (live).  I will talk to Pete about what he thinks music will do here.  I think I will also need to explore more about where the singers can move without the alteration of the singing. Yesterday, I was asking Matt and Helen lots of questions as to this.  They were explaining to me that at certain moments the singer needs to support the vocalization with the body, so the positioning is important.  They need to have some way through the musculature to support the note.  So the singing needs to be negotiated with the movement.  In other words, the singing really dictates the scope of movement possibilities at any given time.  It seems that breath also plays a big role in this.  What is great is that Matt and Helen are both more than willing to explore the extents to which movement can co exist with the singing.  I look forward to learning more about this. Matt also talks a lot about the register of the singing.  I will ask him more about this.

We spent a lot of time the day before yesterday really tackling concept.  How can we draw different ideas together? Oedipus Rex, The ex lover conversation in the train station, and the saccades and fixations of the human eye are the three strands that we narrowed down too.  We found the common thread to be sight. For me the television, or the image within the television, represented the weight of what we do not know.  This tied in to the myth and the conversation.  The pivot point, or shared climax of the strands, becomes the blinding of Oedipus, at the point at which he “sees” and the act of seeing or realization between the lovers in the train station, and of saccades-or moment of blindness-in the human function of sight.  I am wondering if the piece could follow an experimental dramatic structure to reflect this.  Instead of the classic dramatic arc, it would take the shape of a dramatic spiral, which would spin out from the center, the moment of blindness, towards the exposition and abstract non linear chapters that lead up to it.

Spent a chunk of the day yesterday going over Sophocles Oedipus Rex with Matt.  We basically stepped through translating into modern day English and situations, and identifying possible duets, solos, etc.  I am interested in focusing on the confrontation between Tiresius and Oedipus, hopefully for this upcoming scratch performance, with Tiresius on video and Oedipus on stage.  Matt came up with the idea that he play both parts, (we were considering having Helen do the role), and I think this makes great sense, because it then becomes an inner dialogue or confrontation between what we know and don’t know about our selves.  Did Oedipus, on some level, know his true ancestry and situation- deep in his sub-conscious?  Could the blind seer be a part of the seer who is blind?  This should be interesting to explore.  I imagine we will start with a rough recording—a sort of video pencil sketch, and pick up again with the idea in Leeds this fall.

As the scratch performance draws near, I find myself more and more at a strange artistic crossroads. Questioning much of the theatrical conventions that are taken as a given.

As we are using the scratch performance as a sharing of early ideas in a process with a test audience, we will be presenting what we are working on in a very informal manner. I think it will be interesting to see what develops, and which, if any of the informal conventions may have usefulness in the final production.

Saw two performances at BAC last night.  The Creation of the Violin, and In Search of Cellonetta ( I think that is what it was called)

The Creation of the Violin piece was interesting material. As it was a scratch he started by speaking casually to the audience about his passion for the violin—how it was the inspiration for the piece-and then filled us in on some background on the violin and its origins.  The house lights were up and it was very engaging.  After maybe 7 minutes, he concluded, signaled to the technician, and the house lights faded out.  I couldn’t help feeling like a portion of the passion, or the engaging quality of the material faded out as well.  I wonder if there is a way, as the piece develops he could keep that quality in the piece.  He even changed his manner once the lights descended.  He started with a story of gypsy fiddlers and his violin—which was beautiful-and then he sort of disappeared into the background, while some physical actors took on the bulk of the storytelling until the violin was birthed through a transformation of some kind, and he played live violin—which was again unique and engaging.  What really interests me is that the pre show talk, a necessity of the scratch show, held in it the spark of magic that could really bring that show to life.  A moment I also liked was when he handed his violin, I presume a pretty expensive and precious object, to a woman in the front row. He asked her to hold it for him until the point in the show where he would play it.  Maybe he knew the woman, or it was planned—I don’t know, but in my mind she was a random audience member who he engaged in a spontaneous act of trust and inclusion. It was somewhat magical.

As I write about it now, it reminds me of the Jewish practice of letting a congregant hold the Torah.  This happened to me once in a conservative synagogue in New York.  It was my first time ever being there, and this object was placed into my arms—precious and sacred-and it is hard to describe the feeling of it. I wondered if the woman in the front row had that same sort of feeling.  A tactile inclusionand connection to the source of the show she was watching.

It was truly fascinating what went into the creation of the violin and the history of it.  I would love to see that piece in a year’s time.

Random thoughts from past days

This past weekend spent time in Horniman Gardens. They are beautiful, and just down the street from the flat we are staying in. There is a large lawn, which is perched on the hill overlooking Battersea. Because the weather was nice, people had brought their lives to this lawn. What was amazing was that there was all this private drama playing out. A lovers break up, with tearful proclamations and embraces, on the blanket to our right. Behind us two groping lovers were interlocked in a clothed straddle to the consternation of the Eastern European family further down the lawn. (They shouted something about getting a room, in heavy accent). A young boy, spiraling outward from the Eastern Europeans, was in a repeating cycle of running through the grass until, due to his own increasing acceleration, he tripped over his own feet – skid face first -continue on crawling for a moment-get up-repeat. The group seemed to be engaged in communal parental consultation on what the boy should do next. This culminated in him being handed a racket, with which he had no idea what to do, so he immediately began circling about waving it perilously in his one hand until it became a strange cantilever which magically enabled him to stay upright for more prolonged periods of time- although with constant imminent threat of sideways collapse. A middle aged "nutter"(as they call them here.) was walking in his own erratic pattern-- stumbling forward with a strange, leg shaking, limp, and then settling on the ground where he would lay blissfully motionless (and seemingly sane). At one point he became urgently fascinated with a group of school age kids playing center of the lawn, motioning for them to include him in their game, but then lost interest, twittered in an erratic bee-like line, and settled again on a bench in the shade at the top of the hill. Behind us to the right, a mother and daughter were in a deep and silent conversation-mostly of the eyes and body. I never saw them speak to each other. The teen’s head was angled down, hair over her face, and the woman had her back angled toward me, but the air was thick in-between them. It was a strange teen to adult duet. The girl looked angstly out from pink strips of hair, and her mother leaned forward, emanating concern. The woman seemed ever aware of the young boy (a son?) who was hovering mid lawn, between the mother daughter duet, and a man (father? lover?) on the far side of the lawn. They had started--upon our arrival—together, as a quartet. This had digressed to two duets, on opposite sides of the lawn, and then duet, solo, solo. etc. At the resolution of this lawn dance there is a hesitant approach by the young boy, resulting in a welcoming hug from the woman. The pink-stripped hair girl emphatically looks away.  The man still stands watching from the far side of the gardens.  The woman, girl and boy begin slow procession across the lawn, and follow behind the man as he exits through a gate in the fence near where he stood. We'll never know what their story was.

The clothed straddling lovers are maneuvering into a very questionable position. Everyone looks away.

Two women with Caribbean accents are laughing - something about marriage and their boyfriends.

The troubled couple has settled into a tragic tableau, the girl gazing away, and the man resignedly gazing into the back of her head.

The sun heads down and the park empties.

At moments it had felt like a series of living rooms with invisible walls

There is a definite choreography to the park, or movement dynamic. Definitely want to explore it more at some point.

Twilight of the Gods---watched all 5 and a half hours. Moments of brilliance. Too much to write about now. 1:32 am and my eyes are falling. More on that in a future entry.

The costume designer for the new piece came into the studio today. She brought in structures that she has created for previous works so that the dancers could play with these added pieces and so that Sue could get a better picture of what she feels works and doesn’t. There were some great conversations about structures as costumes and as buildings etc. I took some notes on these ideas and will put them to a better presentation in a later log.

Company class this week was with Gil Clarke. What she looks to get from the dancers is exactly and absolutely what I was so miffed about not getting a few weeks ago! It is so thrilling to hear someone explain your ideas in a new way and to get a clearer picture into your own philosophies of movement through someone else’s eyes and words. She talks about the ups and the downs in the body, about the support structure and of the going up to go down and vice versa. You feel open and lifted yet grounded and with gravity. These were some of the most ethereal modern classes I have ever had.  All it all it was very refreshing and informative as to the human body. I truly felt that the ideas presented could be brought into any movement and technique class. It makes me want to take a ballet class again just to experience it in this way. This is what I strive for when I teach ballet. Sometimes you think that your own ideas are purely that and then someone comes along in the most unexpected places and reiterates your thoughts. YEAH!

Beautiful days in London, can you believe it? The sun has been shining for two days without any rain. A great start. Met with Pete Wyer today for brunch in Chelsea and then a long walk through the city along with Amanda. I have been getting filled in on the details for the project. The "Tristan and Isolde" inspired opera has taken the title “Saccades and Fixations.” There will be a scratch performance at the BAC in May, in which we will test early ideas against a small audience. I saw the scratch advertised yesterday and got that nervous feeling. The one I always get when you see an advertisement for the show that does not yet exist. What is exciting is that I will be with Pete right at the start of the music writing process. He begins work tomorrow and I will be there. I am also going to help him with the Chelsea-Chelsea project, which is premiering at the Jazz at Lincoln Center Festival in April. All in all in will be full immersion into phase one, the music-writing portion of the process. I think being so involved in this part of the process will effect the way the video comes into play. How? I do not know yet. Just trying to stay loose and open. I am hoping I haven't lost too much of my music theory skills--but I think I am very very rusty; Will know for sure when I am looking at notes on a screen. I am looking forward to the extended time with Pete. When I was in London working on Adam's Apple I was entirely removed form the composition side of the process. I was basically just handed cds, after Pete had been hidden away in a studio for days. I think this could possibly lead (the involvement in the composition process) to looking at ways in which the composition of the video can relate to the composition of the music. When you look at handwritten music on the manuscript, there is a definite energy and visual movement to it. I did use images of the written note way back in Carol Brown's "View from Here" but I have a feeling that was just the teeny tiny tip of the iceberg. I am interested in playing with the patterns, and the lines, created through the written music. Anyhow...I am getting ahead of myself. Will see what happens this week.

Did a lot of people watching this weekend. London is great for it-especially in good weather. Everybody has been out of their homes and the city is just exploding with life. Brockwell park, one of the favorite places anywhere, was exploding with kids, and adults, and dogs, and men lying in their underwear (yes...its true, the sun can inspire...) frisbees and kites and ice cream men in tidy green aprons (looking much different from an American ice cream man). You can sit on a bench and it feels like you are sitting at the center of the world, the sky and grass and wind and humans blowing around in this amazing dance, sounds mixing together in a multi layered soundscape of barks and twigs snapping and hilarious laughter and wailing.--it was a much needed break, and I feel ready for the weeks ahead now.