random thoughts

Reading Great Dance, DC blog. . . the issue of media and dance seems strange to me. I get all my information about dance from the internet, blogs,e-letters, etc. I have not bought a newspaper for several years and although I do read online dailies, reviews are not often seen anymore and instead these antiquated media outlets that I read; the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Washington Post, New York Times (the exception), print gossip and entertainment fodder, mostly from wire services. That system is so dead, existing in a kind of cultural necrophilia.

When I stopped making dance for theatres, stages and mounted works in old factories, parks and storefronts, I found a whole other audience, one that was not interested in sitting in a red velvet seat for two hours. There are many people who enjoy the comfort of an auditorium and that audience may have certain expectations. But I want to implicate the audience in a new way. I have tried to make the audience a part of the dance, not by asking for participation in a scary way, but just by giving the viewer more choices and vantage points.

I received the book on Anthony McCall's work and his amazing solid light installations, where he implicates the viewer in the sculptures of light using 16mm projectors.

Caroline and I are working with some ideas and fascination with phantasmagoria and other illusions of the 19th century. Going back to pre-digital technologies as a way to see beyond the present. Using light, mirrors and frankincense. . .

Flux excerpt 2

performance space

Thinking about the performance space. . .so often it is defined by hard right angles. The body moves in a curved three-dimensional environment. The performance space should reflect the way the body moves through space. The projection of light can help achieve this. If you project onto a flat rectangular screen then the effect is two-dimensional, but projecting onto a body or a rounded object can bend the light. If the audience in my performance can rotate around the moving body, I suppose the projection sources can vary from above and various side angles. I love the way artist Anthony McCall uses light to sculpt space.

Flux excerpt (1993) Dance film