Stephanie, Carrie, and I participated in Seven to the Seventh Vancouver. My mom surprised me for a visit too. She did walk into the space for a little bit which makes her a participant too. (Link to Facebook Event)
Performance Schedule:
In Vancouver, we met for six days and at five different times of day, at the Inukshuk in English Bay. One time, I danced by myself in my living room because it was at three in the morning. With just two phones, an Ipod, and a speaker, we were able to connect and dance with artists from around the world and be part of a live-streamed performance. There were live streams from Athens, Miami, Tokyo, San Francisco, San Juan, Chennai, Arnhem, Byblos, Bangkok, and Stockholm.
The audio scores were different for each day. They were created by BROS PIGOUNIS and made up from sounds from each participating city. Each were seven minutes long, with a number or sound to indicate each minute interval.
There were seven different performance scores. You could choose to play with just one or change every minute. The performance scores were accessible to any human and they were available in different languages. Here is the English version that I worked from:
Reflections from my experience of Seven to the Seventh: Vancouver
First, I was extremely happy to get to participate in this global performance event. Thank-you to Ana Sanchez-Colberg for inviting me and the world, into this project. I am enthralled with the idea of technology being able to connect dancers from around the world. How wonderful to get to be part of a project that has live stream that is actually working. How amazing to be part of a ground breaking global performance. This is the first time that something like this has been able to be accomplished. This makes me question, what will be next and how else can we make this work? How amazing that I was able to dance with people around the world. We were really connecting the world through art. (#letsconnecttheworldthroughart)Tasks that stuck out for me: Move for seven pause for seven is a lovely entry point. Anyone can do this. It focuses your mind on a simple task and you find freedom in the movement. I also enjoyed incorporating movements from the people around me. Often, there would be runners stretching, people staring at their phones, a game of volleyball, or even just a simple gesticulation during a conversation. Adding these movements into my movements created an even deeper connection to the location and moment in time. The other task that resonated with me was leading with my hand. I had a lot of fun trying to make my hand manipulate different parts of my body as it lead the movement. I also traced the number seven on the ground and in space with different body parts. If I had been dancing with more people or in a different space, I would have liked to have lead a partner or made contact with seven points. I would also have liked to have tried going through each task and switching at the minute mark.
One thing that stood out to me was the connection that I built with the actual space and the Inukshuk. Visiting the same space and dancing in the same space each day, gave that space a greater meaning to me. Like attending the same high school your whole life, each time you drive back to your home town and past that school, you have memories from that time. Every time I walk past the Inukshuk now, I will remember the time that I spent dancing with the Inukshuk. It has become more than just a piece of art by the beach, it has become part of me. That sounds cheesey - but if you think about it - if that is all it takes to make something more important or meaningful to someone - then maybe we all just need to dance for seven days on certain spots and find connection. (Not to go here - but it popped in my brain - I imagined Trump dancing on the Mexican border and then deciding not to build a wall... maybe we need to have a dancing Mexican wall...!!! Did I just solve the world's racism problems right now?? Maybe we should try to have DANCING BORDERS!! #letsglobalizetheworldthroughdance)
It wasn't always pretty. For the three in the morning performance in Vancouver, I danced from my living room. I was going to go to the Inukshuk and wear glow in the dark things - but my partner in crime decided it was best to sit out of this one. So, I thought, I would dance from my patio. We have lights out there... but we didn't and I didn't realize until it was almost time to dance. I also had my phone fully charged before bed and then when I woke up it was almost dead... what was on all night? I had to find a plug and dance with it attached to the wall. The angle was of my ugly couch that was really supposed to be my patio couch, but "they" have been fixing things on our patios for a year and all of our patio furniture had to be moved in. That is a long, frustrating story - what I am trying to say - is Bambuser got a bad angle due to being plugged into the wall. Anyways, I danced and tried to go back to sleep, but who can sleep after dancing for twenty one minutes? I also had to be really quiet, trying not to wake up Christian and Jonny. (I am sure I failed in that!) I do remember making arm dances with Jimmy on Appear.in though - that was fun.
Other technical difficulties included touching the Bambuser off when it was already off and accidentally turning it back on and off again - which means the live stream was only three seconds long.
I look forward to participating in the next one and want to remember some things for next time: Next time thoughts: How can I get more people involved: doing this with students at school - going through the tasks before hand.. and then participating... make it happen at school... if it is during the school year... Maybe not all of them - but one of them at least. Then, have it out in the community and invite students that now know -to come and participate somewhere new... and to bring a friend. Get other schools involved -maybe have a big field trip... Definitely have one at the Inukshuk again... but would also be cool to showcase different locations. I love the outdoor shows...
