Ready for the final unshowing!

Here it is- I think we're in our near-final form (though lacking audience participants here in rehearsal). A change of music, different costuming (Cheslea's dress will be gray covered in color emotional and IADS photos). All that's left is to define how I'll involve the audience through disposable cameras- as to just when I'll ask them to enter the stage to claim and use them. Fun fun!



I can finally say that I am absorbed in watching this, even though I've seen it so many times in and out of the studio. This, I love. (I say this every rehearsal and then change things, but this time, I feel that it's very close to love!) A few timing and specificity things to continue rehearsing, but that comes with time and I daresay we have just enough of that to make it work for Monday's last "designer" unshowing! Two weeks til the show- wowzers! :)

Nerves and vision

Another rehearsal today. Movement-wise I want to work on specificity with my dancers; other than that, I think we'll talk about the role of a few other changes and their opinions on that. Neta helped me come up with some cool ideas that I need to visualize to better integrate. There are so many possibilities and so little time to try them out, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, but excited too. (Part of that probably has to do with the terrible suspense of a late response from my top grad school... yikes.)

Other ideas I'm chewing on include looking up wholesale disposable cameras to give to audience members during the performance, and I'm going to see about inviting them into a role onstage during the dance. Just what that role is and how to instruct and encourage them in it is what I need to envision. I think I'll develop contact sheets of the photos they'll take.

I'm also rethinking the costumes. Considering stitching photos of the piece or from IAPS onto Chels' dress, and dressing the two observers in clothes like my own (put-together contemporary conservative, aka pretty-nerdy).

I'm also asking Lydia about live-feeding her photos to a computer screen. That's where I need to consider technical concerns. Today is the production meeting, which is where they tell us "no" to technical requests and we push for compromises to do the ridiculous things we want to do :)

Maybe they'll also tell us what pieces are actually approved since adjudication on Monday...

Beginning the rough draft

Here goes... let's all pray technology doesn't do something horrible to me and try to dump the work I'm starting. I'll see if I want to post as I write. I definitely will be getting comments on this as it goes along, but we'll see what I can get out first on my own. It's a good start so far!

On a lunch break, I found this TED video by a spoken word poet who talks about putting herself into her art.

Notes from the Symposium

All that excitement, and it turned out to be so simple. I set up my board, hooked up my iPod, let the dancers dress and warm up, and off we went! A few people looked at the photo board while I set up but they didn't stay to ask questions- we were all distracted as the announcement for best paper and the performances approached. Someone announced the work for me, and they performed well (the camera flash didn't work, but nobody knew to miss it, and the lighting wouldn't have shown it off anyway, as there was none).

After asking for feedback, I'm thinking I need to introduce Camille before Chelsea, and change her position so that the audience relates more to her than to Chels. I got feedback that it appears that Camille wants to join Chels in the "chaotic" part, then she wants Chels to join her-- I want to rethink how we enact their meeting to clarify this movement together. It is always about Camille joining Chels. I may decide to structure that transition further, so that it is no longer purely improvised as the first part draws into the second. Neta also suggests that I put Lydia in Chels' face between the dancers taking some photos. That makes me think of a possible competition between Lydia and Camille to be closer to Chels in this part I'm considering rethinking. I also want to find an external measure for timing the improvised part. I might be able to find some kind of sound score still, which would also solve the problem of the suddenness of the music beginning the second part.

Good thoughts! Now, off to find that sound score and to imagine the definition of their competition and meeting as the first part works into the second.


ps- today I got accepted to UCF's Master of Arts in Counselor Education Mental Health Track! still waiting to hear from my top school, but this is a great option! I get to be a counselor!!

Super. Excited.

First video of this piece under it's new name, with all performers, mostly in costume, with the music by Mumford and Sons! yahooo!

And, looking at last year's paper I'm looking forward to writing my own. I finally feel like I can actually do this! (It only took a year! lol)

Awake, My Soul

"Awakening is followed by a new naming of self and reality that articulates the new orientation to self and world achieved through experiencing the powers of being."

-Carol P. Christ (emphasis included, and I like it)

Beautiful song- I want it!

Artist talks on the road

Just sound clips of me thinking out loud to myself/you about the piece as things fall together in the final week before the symposium. Don't mind if I jabber... and sorry if the audio's not great, but I was driving home from a grad interview.

On the title and personal involvement:

Symposium write-up and artist bio

Dance Performance: Naming

University Scholar – Stephani Babcock

Mentor – Neta Pulvermacher

Naming was choreographed by Stephani Babcock, a senior psychology major and dance minor. The research was inspired by stumli from UF’s Center for the Study of Emotion and Attention, which induce emotions in study participants through images, sounds, and text. Naming also features collaboration with UF photography student Lydia Challenger.

The research began with a goal to induce discreet, specific basic emotions in the audience through dance, developing into a need to first genuinely encounter the subject personally. The choreographer’s empathetic experiences as a crisis phone counselor replaced academic research. The work bridges the scientific and artistic perspectives by identifying what we see, and questions the value of objective understanding in the absence of personal understanding or meaning. Our dual abilities to observe or participate are contrasted among the performers’ roles including the photographer’s measurement and recording of the artistic process and each fleeting moment. The title Naming indicates identification and labeling, whether it be making distinctions between basic emotions, or identifying our methods of understanding them. Naming investigates the necessity of the personal encounter and engagement to the sharing of emotions, questioning where observation and scientific measurement fail and personal engagement must begin in order to genuinely understand and name the nature of a subject.

About the choreographer: Stephani Babcock is a senior psychology major and dance minor, striving to integrate her scientific and artistic perspectives through lessons learned in dance. She appeared in 2,280 Pints! and in an original solo in the BFA showcase last year; this year she presents her first group work, Naming, developed with the assistance of the University Scholars Program. After graduation, Stephani seeks to become a mental health counselor, which to her represents the ultimate melding of the art and science of personal growth.

Yikkeesss

Sorry, but this is a personal release blog, not a strictly project-focused one. Finished some homework. More homework to go. Crummy headache left over from food poisoning (feels like day 4 of a hangover that I didn't earn...) I'm feeling crunch time for the semester as a whole, my undergraduate life is coming to an end, and this project is closing in on me. I also don't know if grad schools want me yet. Prayers appreciated- I really want to go to grad school to be a counselor.

The show is in 9 days. I have 2 rehearsals, an unshowing, one more rehearsal, then the symposium show on a tiny stage with poor lighting and doubtable tech abilities. I'm not feelin it. I'm feeling parts of it, but not the whole "in it's final form" performance thing. I'm not ready for "final."

And the paper is due in 44 days; I haven't started writing, but this blog serves as a reservoir for material I'll use. It's not going to be exactly what I proposed, I need to confess. It will be about my personal process of realizing that I couldn't do what I set out to do. The process has been very interesting to me, and I'm just hoping I can convince others how valuable its realizations are. Looking at an example from last year's research journal, my topic is personal, but I'm maybe it relies too much on internal processes rather than external inspiration. Well- that's what I've got. I did do lots of research on emotions last summer, but that was soon outdated as I refined and realized what I would really choreograph. Now, the inspiration is largely internal, and comes from my connecting to my own emotions and my growth as a dancer and (hopefully) future counselor.

I'm sure I'll start to think of things once I start writing... I just need to get all this immediate stuff done for regular classes first.

So little time!

Great rehearsal yesterday! I had a grad school interview and food poisoning, but somehow that kicked me into high gear when we got started with less time to get things done. Our photographer was with us, too! With the semester winding down to a few weeks before I graduate, and before everything is due and I need to know what I'm doing after graduation, I'm feeling a time crunch! But I'm glad the piece continues to develop well, and I'm ever enjoying the process. That's what it's all about, after all!

Yesterday's changes include CM improvising "reading" the environment, and working on remembering parts of a script to keep with her for performances in other spaces. CT now follows and measures CM, and we'll refine that further tomorrow. She begins close to L, but gradually move closer to CM. L begins in a single location, but she narrows the scope of her photos as the piece moves along, by physically changing the distance between herself and CM.

I need to knit this in with what we've got from when CM and CT meet- I want to see if they should go together, or how they can make sense together. Also, what L's role is in the remainder of the earlier versions of the piece. I feel like the new material plus the passing-improv would fit well together. I'd regret losing the contact section, but I'm afraid it fits less in the piece. I'll have to look at these before tomorrow to decide if they should all go in, or if it's best to narrow the scope as JMS encouraged.


Next Friday is our show for the symposium! I'll need to check out the space and consider what kinds of lighting options we may have. I need to pull costumes from the shop; still thinking of colored sundresses for the two dancers and more muted shades for the photographer. Get music rights for whatever music I find (asap!) I liked the sound of the camera going in rehearsal yesterday... for music I'm feeling something acoustic with a soft vocal emphasis to create a sort of unobtrusive curious environment.

I think I'm at a point where I can speak about the piece in the presentation on Friday. As long as they accept that it has become about my personal process of learning to relate to and experience emotions, getting away from the quantifying that I originally set out to do... that'll be good.

The best things in life, I learned from dance

For a long time, I've been building confidence in the parallels between dance, life, and counseling/psychology. Here are some things that I think they have in common, which I've learned more through dance than through anything else... (in no particular order)

BE.
I used to be afraid to be. I still am sometimes, but I'm getting better at claiming my right and necessity to be.
Be you.
In being, I have to be genuine, myself.
Be present and aware.
Dance teaches us to actively take moments as they come, to experience what is happening now, and also to be able to relate it to what came before and to begin to consider what comes after. To appreciate dance, we need awareness of time, relationships, space, motion, emotions...
Be curious.
Childlike interest in the world leads us to be engaged and to ask questions. Don't take things at face value- or do sometimes. Curiosity is like contemplative interest that leads to action.
Be engaged.
Touch things, don't let the world pass you by. Get in there and do.
Ask questions, and live them.
Don't take the easy-out, consider and re-consider until you get to the depth of the thing. The meanings can be made personal by the process of questioning.
Be in process.
You may never arrive at the answer. Live that process and take it as it comes, because that experience is where the meaning derives from anyway.
Make shit, don't be precious.
Life is where the mess happens. Sometimes the mistakes are where realizations are made- plenty of inventions happen that way.
Make choices.
To paraphrase Viktor Frankl, in the spaces of life (or counseling or dance) we make choices, and these choices bring us to growth and freedom. We should know our options, and deliberately choose between them to suit our purposes.
Know the rules... and be able to break them.
Be aware of the guidelines, and choose when they work and when they might not. Some rules don't work all the time or for all people.
Take risks.
Don't stay in the safe zone- "everything we want is just outside our comfort zone." If we had it, we wouldn't be in want of it. Risk makes it real.
See connections, note patterns.
In dance, there are opportunities to connect ideas and note broader ideas composed of details. I think this is a skill in life in general- it is probably an important component of what we consider intelligence to be.
LET GO.
It doesn't need to be what you thought it was or should be. It will be what it is, let it be that and find the best in that.
Think differently, less, associatively.
When we stop thinking routine, we stop making routine. Associative thinking frees us from cognitive constriction and taps into creativity where we can be ourselves.
Trust- yourself and others.
They have important ideas, as do you. Don't be afraid to test yourself or to rely on them- physically and creatively. I am still growing in this area.
Be what you're about.
In art, form and function serve each other- it is a kind of all-out genuineness that refers to and strengthens itself by its unity. A person can do this too, as living itself can be an art.

Questions worth asking

I got some great advice after the unshowing this week. Visiting choreographer and movement analyst JoAnna Mendel Shaw generously spoke with me after a session of student feedback in comp class yesterday. For now, neglecting much of the feedback I got from others, I want to focus on what I got out of her advice to me.

I realized that my piece was very long at the time I showed. This meets my goal to create a lot so that I would have something to narrow down from. Now, I think that stage is over and it's time to make this "epic" into a haiku. Joanna talked about the logic of pieces: mine was switching logic and modes. I was using both measuring and feeling logics, and was switching temporal modes in what inspired different parts of the piece (memory/abstraction/aiming for present emotion). I clearly had several sections, and I agree with Joanna that each section could be its own piece. She encouraged me to focus in on an aspect of what I had, to make mini-pieces out of each section, or to generally cut down to the one I knew I wanted to focus on. While talking with her about how my intentions and inspiration relate to the piece, I began to realize what is motivating me and what parts of the piece actually speak to that.

I'm going to be eliminating most of the beginning (Trio A response phrases). It was helpful for me as an opportunity to practice defining how I wanted visual elements to be carried out by the dancers, but it does not have any emotional content as JMS pointed out. I knew I was getting caught up in "pretty" and I also want to move away from the wholly abstract mapping that it became. I was not very far from what I attempted to do last semester with similar mapping. It was a logic of measuring. I can use this, but not in the way the piece is now. I think I might use this idea of measuring to portray for a short time where one of my characters is coming from: she will represent the scientist in me, before becoming personally involved in the world of emotions.

Meanwhile, the language of emotions will be the focus of the other character and will draw the measuring character in. When the scientist meets the feeler, the feeler will ask "do you hear me?" drawing the scientist into that world of feeling. The piece will continue from there with their meeting and growing connection. The scientist will learn to bear the emotionality of the feeler, and may begin to share (weight) back. This will be the contact-heavy part of what I've shown, with some adjustments to answer questions of who is bearing whom.

The photographer, at the moment, I see as an extension of the scientist. As they are both measuring, she will methodically take images. As the scientist moves in, the images will also zoom in. As the scientist begins to feel, though, the photography will become more interpretive and involved and spurred. I want to figure out how to make it clear that the photographer is drawn in and no longer an outsider. It will represent the level of involvement that can be achieved by the scientist. In a way, maybe the fact that I feel like she may not be able to show full involvement will demonstrate the part of the scientist that will forever be disconnected at least a little through observation. I think now that finding a way to show a live feed of the images would be interesting

(Just to note, I don't think I'm considering the environment aspect of it so much. No more blocks. The setting will be something else... TBD. Maybe the CSEA lab or the CC.)

It's interesting, because I've heard lately about how psychologists are supposedly disconnected and not personal with others. I hadn't heard that stereotype until fairly recently, and I rejected it until I kept hearing it- it started to get to me. I know that I personally have been working on connecting more with others, and I've become better at sharing that understanding- an important aspect of true empathy. So how is it that people believe that counselors are unfeeling? My training says otherwise, as does my personality, given my career goal.

I'm considering my scientist/feeling self as I think of this dance now. Rather than narrow it to only one of these languages as JMS suggested, I believe for me it's necessary to acknowledge them both. But one will be the focus, the other must still have it's hints of presence. This duality is why this project came about for me. Rather than abandon it in the effort to focus, I can take it into consideration and use it as I focus.