True collaboration means that both a choreographer and a music composer start a piece at the same time from the very beginning. However, when the choreographer needs music in the conventional way that the music is played with the dance at the same time, the music is likely to be supportive to the dance and the choreographer may control the way the music is used in a piece. In my opinion, the final outcome of the true collaboration is expected to be something more than a mere dance performance. Besides, it is important that both artists dream the similar goal.
I do not normally collaborate with a music composer as long as the music composer can produce better music than I have selected from many sources such as Internet and music store. It is more likely so when the recorded music is used for the performance. There are vast amounts of music from over hundreds years back up to now that can be easily purchased from stores with the small sum of money or for nothing. The musicians include from the great music masters such as Beethoven and Mozart to independent artists from several open web sites. These are often legally free. Also, there are many computer programs that will help most users edit or create simple music. As far as concerned with concrete music or sound effects, the choreographer may have a more detailed sound plan or imagination than the third person who cannot perfectly copy the choreographer’s idea. To select the right music is not an easy job. However, it cannot be guaranteed that the composed music will turn out to be greater than the existing music. Moreover, not many contemporary choreographers would risk this with a lot of budget for music composition.
Another reason is that a choreographer has more understanding for both genres than a music composer without any dance experience. Music is more approachable to most people from their childhood, and dancers listen to music most of the time when they rehearse (dancers mostly have at least more than ten years of dance training with music). It was surprising to find a real good dancer without rhythmic discernment in music class had excellent capability to understand the rhythm with her body in a real performance. In addition, many choreographers have a fair amount of music playing experience. Therefore, working with a music composer without a dance experience is not an easy decision as a choreographer.
There was a simple exercise in class that a choreographer and a musician work for a three-minute material. I, as the choreographer, and the music composer started the idea of a tree. We both agreed with the theme and worked independently until we presented the result next class within the same time frame. We brought the imagination of the same object into each other’s genre. People imagine things in all different ways from one object. It was interesting that the composer imagined violence of a tree and I subtle shaking movements. I found that the composer was not willing to ‘pause’ and ‘stop’ in music throughout the material while I thought silence was OK. I think that silence is a part of music and dance. Also, the composer did not seem to aware that the dance does not start tightly right from one second and finish at the very last second. For example, I was going to finish the dance for a few seconds in silence after the music completely finished while the composer wanted that the dance and the music finish exactly at the same time.
To sum up, the exercise was valuable and enjoyable as an experience. I liked the agreement on the theme, a tree. Also, working with the different imagination for the same object was interestingly matched. Though I am impressed by the way the composer worked with her music, I still wonder if I like to collaborate with a music composer for my future works. So far, I am more positive for choosing the music by myself, not because of any problems but simply because selecting, editing, and creating music by myself are more comfortable
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Young Sun Lee
Feb 17, 2008
PARTICIPATING THE TEEVE PROJECT
Technology is another tool to enlarge an artist’s creative capacity. The TEEVE (Tele-immersive Environment for Everybody) project on Feb 11, 2008 was an interesting experiment in collaboration with choreography, technology, and music. There were a technology team, two chorographers who are also dancers, and a music composer. The project brought up different ideas about space, dimension, and aesthetics.
The project started with both curiosity and doubt since the term, technology is often associated with complexity. The participants were also from different backgrounds with different nationalities. The result was unexpected.
On the first day, there was an introduction about the TEEVE system and how it could function. As a choreographer, the first thing that was noticed was the small space surrounded by three big computer screens and many cameras that would limit the dancers’ mobility. The dancers’ images in the screen were also limited by the colors of clothes and the low resolution. The computer could not capture the fast movements clearly. Most ideas that were prepared before the second rehearsal were found to be almost impossible to be practiced. Therefore, the project was proceeded to expose the participants to the unknown environment without a specific work plan. The use of some computer props such as a camel, a star, and terrain was investigated. Also, the use of a wii (a remote controller) helped to experiment the changes of a dimension and a viewpoint in the screen. During the rehearsals, malfunction of the machines frequently happened. There were the times that the computer screens were frozen and some cameras did not work. Interestingly, the work was inspired by the limitation of the space, the malfunction of machines, and the clumsy control of the technology.
When the 3D computer screen was down, the participants had to work with the 2D screen only in front of a few cameras that were working. While trying to work with clear movement images in reaction to the slow image transaction between machines, I came up with a different thinking way. The screen shows the colors of clothes better than the dancers’ bodylines, and when the movement is fast, it leaves the residues of colors like colorful dots. I zoomed in the screen to enlarge the middle part of the moving bodies. The other choreographer worried about the poor resolution as the image became bigger. A dancer normally has a fear that the clear bodyline disappears. The bodylines were not clear but colors dispersed in the screen, moving and changing their shapes as the dancers were moving. It looked like the paintings by Picasso. If the dancers’ body parts such as hands and faces were added into the screen, the distorted body parts would look like the famous painting, “Guernica” by Picasso. So, the decision was made that the participants in the UIUC studio and the others in a remote studio would work on this idea by filling the screen with colors and the body parts like a moving picture.
There was a day that only the 3D screen would work. Adapting the changed environment, the participants experimented the artistic possibility of the 3D screen. Only the computer props such as a camel, a star, and terrain were possible to be used. While playing with the enlarged star images and the changing dimensions of the computer landscape, an interesting thing happened. The composer was sitting on one side of the wall. The camera accidentally captured her face imposed to the blue star prop. It looked as if the composer was looking down the dancers from the big funny star. Since her image was also distorted, I associated the image with a witch. Again another dancer wanted to use the terrain. The terrain has the red volcano surface, the blue river, and the green mountains with the pasture. While the technology team activated the terrain on the screen, the bodies looked as if they were half buried in the terrain. The other dancer liked to play with the movements that she came out of the terrain using the body parts and disappeared into it. I described it as a radish, and later compared the movement to a vegetable growing. It was possible to play with different dimensions such as under the terrain and above the terrain. The buried body parts were manipulated to expose or hide using the wii, and it looked like the waist of the body was stuck on the surface of the terrain and the bodies were hanging. Hence, the second part of the performance was choreographed.
After the performance, it was interesting to listen to how the composer composed the music. The music composer did not say much but mostly worked alone with a computer sitting close to the dancers during the rehearsal period. During the performance, the music sounded well fitted to the performance atmosphere. For the 2D performance, she structured the music according to the choreographic structure based on the time line. So, the music had two different sections. She was motivated by the dancers’ conversation during the rehearsal like a vegetable growing. The music score visually looked like a vegetable growing.
Out of many things that were learned through the process, one new notion was about reality vs. virtual reality. The dancers worked looking at themselves that were transmitted and transformed into the computer screen. The reality was transmitted to the virtual reality. In other words, it can also mean that the dancers were interacting with the computer system as if it were alive. The dancers were controlled by the capacity of the technology. In reverse, the dancers autonomously interacted with their self-images in the screen. These virtual images somehow manipulate the dancers’ bodies in reality, too. Also, the body in reality was often forgotten, being manipulated by the virtual images. Most of the time, the conscious was in the screen. The dancers were dancing with themselves reflected into the screen.
Another thing is, sometimes “limitation” may be the wrong chosen word for “difference and possibility”. When confronting a new environment, the difference becomes more noticeable. It creates anxiety. Also, when people do not have the knowledge of the new environment, they may be limited by their own ignorance.
Last, as a gifted artist can only grow with a great deal of training in order to acquire possible skills of manipulating the tools such as a body, musical instruments, and drawing pencils, any new tool will requires the users that much experience and practice. For example, the invention of a new and innovative technology itself will not produce an innovative artwork merely by displaying the tool or arranging the functions in the manual. It is expected that a professional artist of a new genre like “a technology artist” will appear in the near future. For example, it was not only the invention of oil colors in tubes that gave birth to the impressionist painters in the past, but oil colors was the medium that enabled the artists to go out and explore what was out of their studios. They would have spent a great amount of effort and time to produce the fine artworks. Likewise, in process of making the project, many new ideas were developed by actually doing and spending time with the new tools. It was an important lesson that ideas should be practiced and experimented.
To summarize, it was the different approach to create an artwork. The participants influenced each other, and it was learned that collaboration could shorten the time to create a piece because collaborators could share each different part of the piece simultaneously. When these small parts were put together, unexpected results could happen.
Feb 17, 2008
PARTICIPATING THE TEEVE PROJECT
Technology is another tool to enlarge an artist’s creative capacity. The TEEVE (Tele-immersive Environment for Everybody) project on Feb 11, 2008 was an interesting experiment in collaboration with choreography, technology, and music. There were a technology team, two chorographers who are also dancers, and a music composer. The project brought up different ideas about space, dimension, and aesthetics.
The project started with both curiosity and doubt since the term, technology is often associated with complexity. The participants were also from different backgrounds with different nationalities. The result was unexpected.
On the first day, there was an introduction about the TEEVE system and how it could function. As a choreographer, the first thing that was noticed was the small space surrounded by three big computer screens and many cameras that would limit the dancers’ mobility. The dancers’ images in the screen were also limited by the colors of clothes and the low resolution. The computer could not capture the fast movements clearly. Most ideas that were prepared before the second rehearsal were found to be almost impossible to be practiced. Therefore, the project was proceeded to expose the participants to the unknown environment without a specific work plan. The use of some computer props such as a camel, a star, and terrain was investigated. Also, the use of a wii (a remote controller) helped to experiment the changes of a dimension and a viewpoint in the screen. During the rehearsals, malfunction of the machines frequently happened. There were the times that the computer screens were frozen and some cameras did not work. Interestingly, the work was inspired by the limitation of the space, the malfunction of machines, and the clumsy control of the technology.
When the 3D computer screen was down, the participants had to work with the 2D screen only in front of a few cameras that were working. While trying to work with clear movement images in reaction to the slow image transaction between machines, I came up with a different thinking way. The screen shows the colors of clothes better than the dancers’ bodylines, and when the movement is fast, it leaves the residues of colors like colorful dots. I zoomed in the screen to enlarge the middle part of the moving bodies. The other choreographer worried about the poor resolution as the image became bigger. A dancer normally has a fear that the clear bodyline disappears. The bodylines were not clear but colors dispersed in the screen, moving and changing their shapes as the dancers were moving. It looked like the paintings by Picasso. If the dancers’ body parts such as hands and faces were added into the screen, the distorted body parts would look like the famous painting, “Guernica” by Picasso. So, the decision was made that the participants in the UIUC studio and the others in a remote studio would work on this idea by filling the screen with colors and the body parts like a moving picture.
There was a day that only the 3D screen would work. Adapting the changed environment, the participants experimented the artistic possibility of the 3D screen. Only the computer props such as a camel, a star, and terrain were possible to be used. While playing with the enlarged star images and the changing dimensions of the computer landscape, an interesting thing happened. The composer was sitting on one side of the wall. The camera accidentally captured her face imposed to the blue star prop. It looked as if the composer was looking down the dancers from the big funny star. Since her image was also distorted, I associated the image with a witch. Again another dancer wanted to use the terrain. The terrain has the red volcano surface, the blue river, and the green mountains with the pasture. While the technology team activated the terrain on the screen, the bodies looked as if they were half buried in the terrain. The other dancer liked to play with the movements that she came out of the terrain using the body parts and disappeared into it. I described it as a radish, and later compared the movement to a vegetable growing. It was possible to play with different dimensions such as under the terrain and above the terrain. The buried body parts were manipulated to expose or hide using the wii, and it looked like the waist of the body was stuck on the surface of the terrain and the bodies were hanging. Hence, the second part of the performance was choreographed.
After the performance, it was interesting to listen to how the composer composed the music. The music composer did not say much but mostly worked alone with a computer sitting close to the dancers during the rehearsal period. During the performance, the music sounded well fitted to the performance atmosphere. For the 2D performance, she structured the music according to the choreographic structure based on the time line. So, the music had two different sections. She was motivated by the dancers’ conversation during the rehearsal like a vegetable growing. The music score visually looked like a vegetable growing.
Out of many things that were learned through the process, one new notion was about reality vs. virtual reality. The dancers worked looking at themselves that were transmitted and transformed into the computer screen. The reality was transmitted to the virtual reality. In other words, it can also mean that the dancers were interacting with the computer system as if it were alive. The dancers were controlled by the capacity of the technology. In reverse, the dancers autonomously interacted with their self-images in the screen. These virtual images somehow manipulate the dancers’ bodies in reality, too. Also, the body in reality was often forgotten, being manipulated by the virtual images. Most of the time, the conscious was in the screen. The dancers were dancing with themselves reflected into the screen.
Another thing is, sometimes “limitation” may be the wrong chosen word for “difference and possibility”. When confronting a new environment, the difference becomes more noticeable. It creates anxiety. Also, when people do not have the knowledge of the new environment, they may be limited by their own ignorance.
Last, as a gifted artist can only grow with a great deal of training in order to acquire possible skills of manipulating the tools such as a body, musical instruments, and drawing pencils, any new tool will requires the users that much experience and practice. For example, the invention of a new and innovative technology itself will not produce an innovative artwork merely by displaying the tool or arranging the functions in the manual. It is expected that a professional artist of a new genre like “a technology artist” will appear in the near future. For example, it was not only the invention of oil colors in tubes that gave birth to the impressionist painters in the past, but oil colors was the medium that enabled the artists to go out and explore what was out of their studios. They would have spent a great amount of effort and time to produce the fine artworks. Likewise, in process of making the project, many new ideas were developed by actually doing and spending time with the new tools. It was an important lesson that ideas should be practiced and experimented.
To summarize, it was the different approach to create an artwork. The participants influenced each other, and it was learned that collaboration could shorten the time to create a piece because collaborators could share each different part of the piece simultaneously. When these small parts were put together, unexpected results could happen.
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