Video Rehearsal

The beginning and end are clipped a bit from when I was trying to fit these all into one clip (which Youtube didna like mon).

notes on a friend's piece

There were a few things she tried, and even succeeded at, which I think I've argued can't be done. The first is, at a certain point in the piece, an almost constant saturation of projected image, projected text, live speech, movement and live music. The result, though chaotic, was not impossible to enter as an audience, and while I'm sure some people were shutting out one or more elements at certain moments, I don't think it diminished the impact of the whole. She utilized two (possibly three?) projectors from near the back of the house, one dedicated to images, the other to text. In the clip below, you can see text scrolling on the bottom/front of the stage, while a large image of a trash-strewn gutter is projected on a screen behind the stage. At the last moment, text starts cascading down the screen, and then passes over the people on stage. These moments were very engaging, the image we had been studying for several minutes suddenly has new levels of complication and meaning by virtue of the texts (which were, variously, quotes from the IPCC, sets of the digitis "1" and "0" followed by ".", titles of poems she was drawing from).

The relation of speech to the texts was also very interesting. Instead of focusing on the most informative/meaningful parts of the IPCC, the speakers read only the citation, a little paranthetical phrase of the form "IPCC4" or, later, "ibid." Eventually, the ibid's overwhelmed any other text and started repeating over and over again, so that you hear a dozen or so people repeating this very strange sounding word. Aurally, the effect was awesome. In terms of its relation to the text, I thought two things: that it could be a play on how quickly the IPCC is trying to establish a kind of global authority on the subject of climate change, and how its reiteration in so much news reporting may be eroding its meaning and impact- it's just the same reference/same news, repeating itself. I'm not sure either of these are intentions or effects I want to see tudy 2013 repeating, but it was interesting to see someone else grapple with this text in a context similar to ours.

Other cool moments in the piece included cell phone conversations between the people on stage quoting passages of the IPCC to eachother as though they were parts of a conversation, and the end, in which everyone sat down at the foot of the very high Mills Hall stage, with their legs dangling off, playing "Go Fish" with concepts of the new environmentalism: "anyone have sustainability", "anyone have social justice and equity". When no one could come up with the latter, the audience was asked to turn over their program, where a little card had been printed into the back, each of which turned out to be, if not unique, of a few smaller sets. So they could ask the question, anyone have renewable energy, and only a few hands in the audience would be raised. This surprise bit of interactivity, at the end of the piece, was particularly involving, in that this was a moment where audience was very much trying to process and get a gloss on the whole. The aesthetics were also very warm and friendly, the whole cast hanging out out of character playing some game from everyone's childhood (reminded me of the way the "You Can't Do That On Television" always ended, if anyone can go there with me).

Feedback from the showing

CONGRATULATIONS on a very successful showing!
Everyone was all smiles as we finished up our nearly fifteen minute showing. We've got some work to do, but it was clear that we are on our way to a focused piece.
Here's what people had to say:
-start performing the work every time we run it
-strong opening image, stretch it out
-work on continuing power through the transitions
-no "slappy girl running"
-lots of unison, make sure it is synched and clean
-walking/ running: don't think about where you have to be, but HOW you are going to get there
-clarify intent and work on facial expressions

Also, people really seemed to like the way the stats part came off with me just talking us through it. We may try to keep it this way for now and add in a few more stats that aren't quite as heavy, but still related to try and lighten that part up. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.
We have some parts to edit, some parts to clean, music to write, costumes to fit..... but I think we should feel secure that we have a stand out piece that will be both provocative and entertaining.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO TEAM!

Rehearsal Times

Currently, here's what we're loking at:

Sat 4/7 12-2 ODC Loft:
Sunday 4/8 2-4 ODC:
Thursday 4/12 12-230, CP:
Sat 4/14 12-2 ODC Loft:
Sun 4/15 2-4 ODC:
Thurs 4/19 12-230 CP:
Sat 4/21 12-2 ODC Loft: *fit costumes??
Sun 4/22 2-4 ODC

TECH: Thursday 4/26, 8pm ODC Theatre...subject to change.. let me know
if you can't make it

SHOW: Friday 4/27 dress rehearsal at 4 (ish) ???
SHOWING Sat 4/28 12 (ish???) for MAP at CounterPULSE
SHOW Sat 4/28 call :6:30 ??

We will try to maintain our Sunday rehearsals in May, but I need to
confirm this. We definitely have scheduled:

Thurs 5/3 12-2:30 CP
Wed 5/9 8-10 pm CP (can anyone make this??? Subject to Change)
Thurs 5/10 12-2:30 CP

TECH: Wed 5/16 evening??

SHOW: Thursday 5/17 CounterPulse
SHOW Friday 5/18 CounterPulse

umm... we really need this guy for May

dig this good shit.

In other news- strong work today, 'yal. Very interesting to see choreography materialize where I've missed a few rehearsals. Comments I took away were all very positive, also sometimes constructive, sometimes weird (they really liked Cara talking the statistics, like "this is a statistic about blah,blah,blah"- thought we should leave it like that).