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Feb 12 08 / Initial questions & Comfort zones
So it’s been a while since I last worked with a new community of performers. Especially for this work, this is proving to be an adjustment of my own comfort levels. How do I teach a style of movement I have never had to break down, deconstruct and explain? How do I codify some of house’s vocabulary while trying to maintain its free-form aesthetic base?
Quite frankly, I am more interested in using its qualities of bounce, rapid shifts between bound and free energy, and focus on down-centered weight (even when the body’s top half is pushing upward).
Stylistically, I’m interested in:
The play between introversion/minute movement, almost gestural and introspective;
Movement that attacks with strength - I often see this in what I like to call the “house hoedown” stomp;
And the fierce “performance” (equatable in Trini English to the notion of “playing yuhself”) style in which I have seen/experienced radical shifts across gender play (i.e., combination of the ball room scene’s voguing styles and/or the spectre of the disco diva’s glam vamp persona and a kind of butch up/hyper-masculine attack on movement).
How can I use these observations/foundations as markers to hone performance style (which I think will be critical to this piece more so than the actual vocabulary itself)? How can I use these qualities to infuse an improvisational edge to the piece - getting the community of performers to understand and embody them?
Quite frankly, I am more interested in using its qualities of bounce, rapid shifts between bound and free energy, and focus on down-centered weight (even when the body’s top half is pushing upward).
Stylistically, I’m interested in:
The play between introversion/minute movement, almost gestural and introspective;
Movement that attacks with strength - I often see this in what I like to call the “house hoedown” stomp;
And the fierce “performance” (equatable in Trini English to the notion of “playing yuhself”) style in which I have seen/experienced radical shifts across gender play (i.e., combination of the ball room scene’s voguing styles and/or the spectre of the disco diva’s glam vamp persona and a kind of butch up/hyper-masculine attack on movement).
How can I use these observations/foundations as markers to hone performance style (which I think will be critical to this piece more so than the actual vocabulary itself)? How can I use these qualities to infuse an improvisational edge to the piece - getting the community of performers to understand and embody them?
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| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | ||
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| Miche_the_Killer | "radical shifts across gender play" | 0 | Nov 13 2008, 5:40 PM EST by Miche_the_Killer | ||
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Thread started: Nov 13 2008, 5:40 PM EST
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i like the questions of gender that arise: what exactly are masculine and feminine movements, when our bodies aren't physically limited by gender? I think this is the sort of question house raises- How did aggressiveness become masculine and fluidity become feminine? House became an extension of the sexual revolution with its challenge of learned gender roles in physical expression. It celebrates that sexuality is not just what you do in the bedroom but is present on the street and on the dancefloor. And especially mixing the sacred with the secular, how's it celebrates the incarnation of life & mind thru the amazing body- it's more than the stuffy church most us knew, but seems like a real, pagan celebration of LIFE and the gift of the body...
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