Saturday 5 June 2021

The Journey & Event Horizons 2021

EventHorizons2021 

Vimeo Showcase: The Journey 

Press from Greece, Athens QR Code Gallery

The Journey started in Jeju, South Korea at the start of the school year at NLCS. I knew I was going to create a project for Event Horizons with Ana, but I didn't know what I was going to do yet. Stella, the department head for dance at NLCS, said we would be doing the theme of Journeys for a dance. I took that idea and ran with that even though, at some point, she changed the idea to David Bowie. This is how The Journey was born. 

I imagined The Journey as an explorative unit for young dancers that would travel from one school to the next. We started with a bunch of interested teachers, but Covid was a difficult year to navigate, for everyone. Instead of passing along in a line, we worked on what we could as we went. 

Gladstone, from Vancouver, was the first school to complete The Journey. They even made a final show out of it.

There were 13 questions made by Amanda Kay for EventHorizons and I used those for the mini-interview. 

13 Questions:

 

  1. How do we forge a future together?
    1. 13 EXCHANGES -Tanja and Harpa
    2. IVANA LONDON /DEMY ATHENS
    3. Nadra Assaf and Jimmy Bechara

 

  1. In what ways do we experience duration or the passing of time?
    1. DAMARIS FERRER - MIAMI

 

  1. How do we make our creative work visible and what remains invisible?
    1. Paola Escobar y Natalia Orozco

 

  1. What generates equity and diversity?
    1. Paula Bridget J
    2. Naporn Wattanakasaem, Bangkok

 

  1. Who you are at the moment vs who you become through process?
    1. Dimitri
    2. Paola Escobar y Natalia Orozco
    3. DAMARIS FERRER - MIAMI
    4. IVANA LONDON /DEMY ATHENS

 

  1. What is the dialogue between our internal rhythms and our outward rhythms?
    1. PAOLA Y RENE

 

  1. What were you given at birth?
    1. Dimitri
    2. Naporn Wattanakasaem, Bangkok

 

  1. How do we choose to appear to the world and to ourselves?
    1. IVANA LONDON /DEMY ATHENS

 

  1. What are we able to transact and transfer through distance?
    1. 13 EXCHANGES -Tanja and Harpa

 

  1. What does it take to be an artist?
    1. Marianela Boan
    2. JOE LANDINI SAN FRANCISCO

 

  1. What connects and transforms us?
    1. Paola Escobar y Natalia Orozco
    2. PAOLA Y RENE
    3. Paula Johnson, Jeju/Vancouver

 

 

  1. How do we tether our understanding of ourselves to the experience of others?
    1. DAMARIS FERRER - MIAMI
    2. Paula Johnson, Jeju/Vancouver

 

  1. What are the ways we can expose the bodily experience?
    1. Marianela Boan
    2. Paola Escobar y Natalia Orozco

 

 

 I was hoping to interview more of the completed students, but I think my project was too long and confusing. I only got to do one interview and that was with Arwen from Gladstone. 


After participating in Naporn's project with the traveling package, I understood how I could have improved my own. However, they are both different. Mine was designed as a unit of lessons for students. I wanted to it to be more collaborative and flexible for the teachers that were participating so they could make it work for their classes. (Especially during Covid.)


Consent forms were another issue. I had one that I got from the internet that I added to a Google form. That one wouldn't work for Ana's website. I had to use Theatre EnCorps version. Moving forward with the Journey, I will put the Google Form back in and tell teachers they need to check with their schools for what the rules are - and have their own media consent forms signed. Every school is different. 


Connections were the biggest issue. I really wanted this to be about connecting students around the world.. and I was not effective with this. I tried making mini-journeys that people could join in on... smaller more manageable connections - but that didn't really work either. However, I do have some fond memories of kids at NLCS dancing at me in the hall - they had learned the dances and did them for me. There were some connections - it did work somewhat. It worked more me to them not them to other kids around the world. 


I did an assembly, speech about Global Artistic Collaboration for Arts week. I spoke about Events Horizon and had Caitlin, Lipda, Rajan, Ginger, and I dancing on the stage and through Zoom. That was a good connection. That was fun and memorable. (Although, I had Rajan in tech rehearsal but somehow didn't get him connected for the actual show - even though he was there waiting... argh.. that was my fault!) 


Finally, at the end of the year, I was able to make some connections between my students and Tanja's students in Stockholm. We both only had a few students but we were able to go back and forth with them for some connections. 


I have four dancers from Sweden who would like to collaborate with you!  

 

Let me tell you more and if you want to go for it, I will send you a file with their life events, photo, and video. 

 

You would need to: 

  • read their life events and watch their video
  • Record your voice saying (can be video or audio): 
  • My name is (your name) 
  • I am from (city, country) 
  • I saw your video and read your life events. One thing that I noticed that is the same for me is... 
  • One thing I noticed that was different is... 
  • Record a video of: 
  • Your movement - watch their video and see the moves that they did (They were going though the pathways of their morning routine.) How can you take those and make those your own? You don't have to do their moves - just build something and dance back to it. Does that make sense? 
  • Send them your favourite song to dance to. 
  • Send them one question. 

An email to teachers I sent at the start of summer:

For me, this was a difficult year to try and implement this project. I was at a new school, in a new country, teaching a new curriculum. I had students at home that were missing dance and I was trying to find a way to stay connected. I wanted to have opportunities available for my dance kids to connect without pushing them because I knew the struggles they were going through with Covid. Maybe I should have been more pushy because I did not get a lot of interaction with my kids at home or at the school I was at.

 

As I try not to feel disappointed, I put this year in perspective and am grateful for the creation of the unit and the moments of connection that did happen. In my mind, I know that this is just the beginning and while Event/Horizons is a project that ends in November 2021, The Journey, is something that could continue to grow and travel.

 

Highlights

 

NLCS in Jeju, South Korea (Paula)

 

Gladstone in Vancouver, Canada (Cynthia)

 

OSCARTS in California, USA (Amanda)

  • Explored some of the unit…

 

Bangkok City Ballet in Bangkok, Thailand (Naporn)

 

Järfälla kulturskola in Järfälla, Stockholm, Sweden (Tanja)

  • Created a final video with this group

 

 

As I reflect on some of the highlights from this year, I am interested to know any thoughts and areas for improvement as we move forward. Is it too much? I went in with the idea that teachers would pick and choose what they want to try and adapt for their own students and in their own styles. I am also open to teachers adding their own activities to the document. (A living, breathing document.)

 

I attempted to make the mini-journeys for students that didn't have a lot of time to connect. I don't feel those were that successful. I feel as though, they might have been confusing. I also feel, like maybe they are something that could be more student driven. They could create mini-journeys and share them on the Instagram. (Although that IG does not have very many followers - and growing it takes effort I am not totally fond of.)  However, I do feel like I did get some interaction with my students. Some of my students learned the dance and shared their food but were not allowed to share them online. I had students come up to me in the hall and share their fancy footwork. So for that, it did help share the idea of the Journey.

 

With this in mind, I think about the possibilities for the future and the connections that could be made. I would love to hear your thoughts, anytime throughout the summer. No pressure. Enjoy the break. I thank-you all for joining the Journey with me this year, for your time, support, and feedback. I hope you will continue to collaborate with myself and my new students 2021/2022. Please share it with colleagues that might also be interested. Let's keep the Journey going. I would love to see where it is in a decade!

 

 


at

Reflecting on the Sand Dance Project Collaboration

I came across The Sand Dance Project while scrolling through Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/sanddanceproject/?hl=en

I immediately fell in love - stopped scrolling - beach and dance - two of my favourite things combined in one beautifully ephemeral swirl ... I had to find out more about this Sand Dance Project. I am sure I left some hearts and probably a comment before scrolling up and finding the website: https://sanddanceproject.com/

I wanted to be part of this Sand Dance Project. I thought, they should run a workshop during spring break and my family and I will drive down there. We always drive down the coast. It is our favourite thing to do. This would give us another reason to go.

I reached out to Holly at the Sand Dance Project and she was down to make a workshop happen during spring break. Awesome. What could go wrong?

It is the week before spring break. I am standing in my studio at Frank Hurt with my principal, Mike Stickley. (#stickitcancer) We were talking about Covid and Sars and how we didn't think it would be that big of a deal and everything would be the same after spring break. Well, as we all know, it wasn't the same. We didn't even go back to school at all after spring break. We all quickly got familiar with Zoom meetings and teaching from our living rooms. The borders closed down and non essential travel, anywhere was shut down. The farthest I got from home was a run through the Stanley Park trails each day. The Sand Dance Project plan was put on hold.

That isn't entirely true. I did get farther than Stanley Park. After an intense interview process, a husband who wouldn't go for two years, and an accepted contract change to one year, my family and I moved to Jeju, South Korea. North London Collegiage School had a dream facility. I met some amazing teachers, staff, and students. I said yes to every opportunity and made up my own projects to fill my memories.

After Covid chills out a bit. When I say that, it was probably once Californians started to get vaccinated, The Sand Dance Project started becoming more active on Instagram. Americans got their vaccinations before we did in Korea... actually we didn't even get vaccinated in Korea that year. We were first in line after our two week quarantine in Canada though. I am still waiting for my booster as I write this - it is December 29, 2021.

I digress... back to the story: I want to dance all over this school and this island. This school had everything. It even had a drone. It is on an island - there are beautiful beaches. BING! I had an idea. Holly was down with my idea. She was open to collaboration and sharing her choreography.

This was going to be a true international collaboration. We were learning choreography from California. We had dancers from Canada, Ireland, New Zeland, and the UK. We were dancing on a beach in Jeju, South Korea.

I was super happy that Stella, Natalie, and Caitlin were down with another of my crazy ideas. (Although, I was slightly more excited about it than they were.)

Once I got the choreography from Holly, I chunked it and started learning it on my own. Caitlin joined me when we had breaks together and we started learning it together.

 I had one class with one year twelve student in it, Ginger. Ginger and I loved rolling around on the floor, so I taught it to her as well. We also played around with dancing it to different songs. We even used the NLCS collaborative song made with the students and teachers from all three campuses of, All Night Long.

 

Ginger and I also tried it to Oasis's, Champagne Supernova. 

 

I taught some of it to Natalie and Stella, but they had different schedules and would learn it on their own time.

On Monday, May 31, 2021 we met in the morning at Gwakji beach. Stella husband, Jonathan had his own drone and filmed for us.

We filmed it once all together. We moved down the beach a bit and filmed it again. I think we had decided to slow it down a little bit. You can't tell from the drone, but the incline of the beach was steeper than it looks. The forward roll up the hill was a struggle. I think I was calling out and counting too so we could all be as the same time together.

Really, this was our first time dancing it all together and it was our first time experiencing it in sand. All I can say, is thank goodness for the magic of editing.

Stella and Natalie didn't really learn the second half. They wanted to adapt the choreography and make changes. I am flexible but this bummed me out a little bit. I wanted it to stay authentic to the original choreography. 

Since Caitlin and I knew the entire choreography, we filmed the whole thing again just the two of us. The drone ran out of power before Caitlin and I finished our set. Again, thank-you editing.

Sand Dance Project is textural dance. Let's talk about the experience of dancing in the sand. The sand gets everywhere. You have to be ok with getting dirty. It was like being a kid again. Swinging and rolling through the sand leaves tracings of the movements. Changing the resistance of your body weight, also changes the depth of the swirls and patterns. Your body melts into dry sand different than it does wet sand. The resistance of the sand makes it more difficult to keep the speed of the original choreography done in the studio.

When looking at the drone footage, it looks like we were farther away from the water line. It felt like, at any moment we were going to be in the water, or it was going to lap up and get us.

This first run with the dancers definitely required more rehearsal. I should have organized more formal rehearsals in the studio to make sure everyone knew the choreography. We should have taken more time with our filming. I imagined driving around to different beaches and filming all morning, maybe even multiple mornings. However, I am happy and grateful for the time that the other teachers did give me. They took time out of their work days to learn the choreography. They took time out of their half term break to meet me on the beach. For me though, this felt like the start of something.

After we were all done that morning, I won't ever forget running into the ocean with Stella. Running. The Irish girl and the Canadian girl racing into the water to wash off the sand. Soon we were all in the water. Stella's kids came out with us too. I swam and swam, smiling and happy that I got to be part of this project... that I was here on this beautiful island and having this experience that was so different from what I would have been experiencing back home.

Here are some reflections that we recorded right after our drone filming.

Jonathan sent me the drone footage and I made a first edit of the video. I found a really cheesey copyright free song. I did not particularly like that edit and I did mean to go back and make a different edit with a different song. I still haven't done that. 

 After this first experience in the sand with this choreography, I visited other beaches and danced in different sand. Each beach had a different texture, level of resistance, and slant to the beach.

June 6, 2021

There was no surf at Jungmun this morning. I took the trail and walked above the beach. I did ballet on the bridge and contemporary in the sand. 

When the water would touch me and get me from behind and it was cold. I would forget my next move, lose my breath in surprise for a second. The water came up right when I did the swim move with my arms in a ball... that one didn't record. I remember that moment though be in time with the ocean. 

The deep sand. Sinking in. 

The steeper hill.

The realization that this is the beginning... not the finished product. Knowing that I am going to keep dancing this choreo ... getting into the sand... as many times as I can before I leave here...


Sagye Beach June 19, 2021






I am back in Vancouver now. It is winter. There is actual snow on the ground. That doesn't always happen here. Are you thinking what I am thinking? Snow dance? Brrr....

The studios and gyms have just shut down here in Vancouver again, this time for the Omicron strain of Covid. This virus is in its second year of disrupting life. However, I know that one day, I will make it back down the coast to California and I will join the Sand Dance Project in a real live collaboration.

Thank-you to everyone who made this dream idea come to life. Who knew scrolling through Instagram could change the pathways of your life in a meaningful and creative way?

Let's connect the world through art. 

Global artistic collaboration.



at
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)