for the past ten days i’ve been working with a. on a new pice called ‘landline’. the idea was/is to connect two strangers in two different places, and create a shared experience for them.

the week prior to that i was working with j. on our lantern project. the project uses dance, light, projection, and sound to animate a structure that is situated in a public space.

a strategy that has been useful in both processes was asking the question ‘what do we need to know?’

the idea is simple. start writing out all the elements you think you know to be true. then, we basically mind map what you need more information about.

for me, the process gets me thinking in ways that reveal practical starting points for discussion and research.

if we know the lantern has these four or five elements, what do we need to know about them? what do we need to know about the connection between two strangers? what can these questions tell about where we need to focus our energy?

how do you get your ideas moving?

i think of myself as a theatre maker because the elements i use to make work are the same ones that go into making a theatre event. there is a use of light and sound, of text, of set and sometimes costume. there is a relationship between performer and audience, a desire to communicate, a transference of ideas and/or emotion. for me, these define my practice and approach.

as i continue to work toward ‘lighthouse’- a performative installation, i find myself curious about intersections, about the ways theatre, dance, and architecture are alike.

j. and i identified that we each may have prejudices toward each other’s forms, which has shown itself in the ways we challenge each other’s assumptions. for example, my use of ‘story’ and ‘narrative’, and how that relates to how a piece unfolds. i discovered that i may take the inclusion of them in the experience for granite.

my instinct tells me that there are two approaches developing. one in which we work from a strong position of intersection, of how the disciplines are alike. or, two, a more mysterious position of drawing from only the elements that are outside the connecting points.

the idea reminds me that sailors set sail knowing there might be sea monsters in the unknown waters.

over the past couple years, i’ve been interested in how works emerge from a beginning idea to a point of public presentation. as a way for me to indulge that curiosity i’ve been hosting these events called demostage, which give people opportunities to show some of what they are working on at different stages of their development. the whole idea is adapted from software developers that get together in bars to demo their programs. participants get a chance to communicate some ideas, receive some feedback, and maybe connect with people who can help out. for me, seeing how people work is encouraging, and reminds me that there is always a process.

here is a link to the document i created with the folks at co&co that showcases most of the demos since 2009. click on the link to download the pdf.

DEMOSTAGE BOOKLET

i encourage you to get in touch with the artists.

what are the forces that drive narrative?

i was watching a movie recently, and i found myself thinking about the way the story represented reality, about how stories edit real life. the movie still had a powerful and profound affect on me, but i don’t know why. the more i thought about it, the more uncomfortable it made me feel.

i suspect that the part of us that creates narrative is the same part of us that builds all sorts of stories around us. these stories are ones like how i dress, or how i like my coffee, the place that i live, the things i do… the stories represent ‘me’ and my place in ‘this’.

what are the forces that drive us to be creatures of narrative? what drives us to make connections, and look for meaning? does the universe possess the same sort of creative energy, or is this drive an aspect of nature, of the laws of nature that are no more relevant to us than the elements that rain or shine on us everyday no matter how fortunate or unfortunate the circumstance are for us?

i got thinking about these questions in relationship to two pieces i am currently working on- departure, and landline.

in departure we are directly playing on the forces that make story. all the pieces j. and i present you with are more or less separate from one another. they are related to a process of working, which is evident in how the pieces are made. we realign these pieces in ways that are meant to produce connections, to further a story in your imagination that is not the story of the making process.

in landline, i am interested in the force itself, the drive to make the connection, that human drive for connection, and the happy accidents that sometimes appear all by themselves in pursuit of that.

if i may speak to the whole of human existence, we are strange and wonderful creatures us people. i suspect that we do nothing more than participate, and the stories we make are nothing more than representations of how terrifying/amazing life/we can be, of how brief it all is, of how the power of sharing/telling/expressing can bring us into community with an other.

there is something weird about separation, and how we are designed to be separated yet empowered to be together. if i were looking at it as a ‘thing’ i might say that it was designed rather poorly because there is so much left to chance. what if you don’t find community? what if people don’t connect to each other? or, maybe when i relax and look at it with soft eyes i can see just how incredible of a design it is because it employs dynamic.

what drives you?

The relocation curiosity really started after n. did our common walk project and commented that the challenge for us would be finding a way for the work to travel since it was so specific to the placewe were in. This sort of comment can be a real gift in a process. It comes in response to the work, and provides a problem the new work has to try and solve. Or at least that is how it was taken.

So the question begins, how can you make something that is specific to the place that it is in, but do it in such a way that it is about to change places and still feel very specific…?

This is the Aarhus rail station. Or rather it is an unused travel business storefront inside the station we will be using for our show.

this show was funded through the ns culture division, and presented in halifax with help from HRM cultural affairs.