Spasmotive 6 with Franca and Dianne

Today’s session was really experimental – with the projector and trying ways to project some of my art work. I also moved to create some “imaginary” drawings as my arms hung themselves through the loop. I was moved by the realisation of being free of shifting from left to right, and right to left… without the demanding force of my “left hand/side” dominating the way… 

Dianne is on the other end of me and we are experimenting with balance, climbing and height.

Spasmotive—thinking about the dramaturgy of the spasm

What I’m loving about this project, is the words/thought provoking ideas bouncing between those who are working with me.  Below is something from Dianne – read on…

Dianne here thinking about the dramaturgy of spasm for Spasmotive…

I am being your “outside eye” for this project—offering suggestions in relation to your movement, the design of video projection, and the interaction between those elements and how we attune the viewer into the feel and duration of your physicality.

Things I am reading feed into the thinking. From “Planes of Composition” edited by Lepecki and Joy (2009):

“Spasms call attention to the kinetic potentials of individual bodies—
pushed into movement, caught in stillness, reverberating in between—
questioning philosophical and psychological notions of subjectivity.” 
(Jenn Joy “Anatomies of Spasm” p. 66) 

and the wonderful recent edition of Dan Goodley’s “Disability Studies” (2017):

“Crip time might slow down, 
halt and find time to think again about how we live our lives. 
Such moments contrast with the speed, haste and mobility of lives 
that work to succeed in a capitalist society. 
We rethink temporality through disability. 
We rethink how we might live our lives: to stop and regroup.” 
(Goodley, p 195)

I’m thinking about strategies for managing a theatrical showing, how we position the audience and move between sections, that resists speeding up and which allows the viewer to “stop and regroup.”
So I look forward tomorrow to playing with some of the projection tests across the hanging cloth in relation to your suspended body…ways to rethink temporality in a spatial and textural sense.

Spasmotive 5—sound recording with Mark Lang

Friday 22 September
@ Mel’s, Mooroolbark

Sound…
Today, I work with Mark and play with my natural speech while Mark plays with his sound recordings. Using my natural speech is the most challenging thing I do – finding words and figuring out how to bring them to my mouth, and to say them how my brain thinks… Oh my…….

Dianne had given me great advice when I came to writing these words – “Take your work “writing” to another place for a day i.e. cafe or local library and think/reflect on the senses, i.e. sight, hear, smell, taste, touch…”

Breath becomes rhythm, heart beat, movement inside, drumming, cells sing, rocking gently, whispering, paper tearing, jaw click, teeth bump together, gas heater roars, air blowing, doors open, heavy boots stump pass. Hair brushes pass hearing aid, fingers scrape, tongue and saliva sound, chalk on board, cough, air pushing, feet clench, relax sigh, giggle pop, water falls, splashes, straw drops in the bottle, hands grasping rope, fingers knock each other, spasm burst “warning” sound

Spasmotive 3—introduction with visual artist Stef Robinson

Sunday 10 September
@ Mel’s Studio, Mooroolbark


Stef came to my studio and I showed her some of my artwork before we talked about ideas for Spasmotive.

Here’s Stef’s feedback after our first session:

What a great day on Sunday…thanks.

I thought I would write down the outcome of what we came up with,  firstly have it in writing and also so you could make sure that it fits in with the direction that the rest of the show is going….and to make sure that we are on the same page…

In response to the drawing of yourself outlined life size on the floor, and your first drawing for this work of a head with neural pathways, we imagined a drop of fabric falling from a rafter that has the outline of you drawn on it, that has been stitched with wool(?) also the neural pathways in the brain  drawn/stitched.(do these pathsways go through the whole body?)

These stitches would have knotty bits and loose ends (representing the spams and misfiring and knoting of signals in the brain/nervous system.)

This fabric drop could also be a shadow screen and a projection screen.
As well as the stitching it could have other drawings on  it

The fabric drop could be present all the way through or it could be released into the space at moment in the show.

It could be good to film some of the making/ stitching of the piece, to be projected in the show??

The stitching will be done with a plastic needle
I will source a suitable fabric for this (it could be muslin or it could be a open weave silk or a heavy hessian, cotton will probably be too tightly woven for a plastic needle to pass through)

It could be the only drop in the space or there could be others…

It isn’t what you were originally imagining which is was making something together that you can climb in and out of… at this stage I that doing that could be potentially too big a project for the limited budget…?? but I’m writing this to check in that you are ok with moving away from this original vision.

it is possible to still also create a cocoon like structure that hangs, out of the cane and paper, lantern style, which could look like you are emerging from it, it could also carry projections or light.

At the moment I am planning to gather a few samples and prices for you to choose from for the fabric and ill look at sticking options as well…wool our embroidery thread or ??…
Mel you said green as the colour for the stitching…??

…we have Tuesday sept 26th booked in for another session. We could have the fabric and thread for this and start the drop or I could bringing a piece of fabric and we could trail the idea to make sure its going to work??either way I will need to go shopping… If this is too soon between you getting the samples and making a decision and me having materials for the next meet up I am also available the following Tuesday (3rd oct) 



Spasmotive 2—loop play with Franca and Dianne

Friday 8 September
@ the Women’s Circus

Franca set up three different styles and heights of her ‘loops’ to play with the cocoon idea, moving from floor to loop and hanging in the hammock just above the ground, experimenting with hanging, rolling, swinging. Dianne filmed a lot of the play and identified a few “moves” that we could return to:

the womb or cocoon (tucked inside)
the coffin (laying on back just with head out)
the dolphin or mermaid (legs hanging out and feet crossed like a tail fin)
the birth (shoulders pushing through and body tumbling out onto the floor)

We thought about using some of the footage (or shoot some more) for projection onto hanging cloth
in the flesh leotard in the cocoon and swinging in toward the camera

Spasmotive 1—the solo project

Spasmotive is a creative development project funded by Creative Victoria, that involves the creative development of a new solo work for myself as a “diverse dancer.” 

Working with in the Women’s Circus venue with aerial rigger Franca Stadler, dance trainer and video artist Dianne Reid, visual designer Stef Robinson and composer Mark Lang, I am experimenting with the development of a three-dimensional performance environment which acts both as a metaphor for the nature and behaviour of CP neural pathways, and offers multi-dimensional possibilities for re-routing and re-configuring my dance performance.  

“I am thinking about creating a performance, using the complexity of the inside of my brain, my body, and the relationship I have with myself. I am in the first person in my body. It is not about me. It is me. I am using a microscope to see inside my brain. It is complex, parts of my brain are a complete wiry mess with signals flashing in all attempts to find the correct route, but missing the path way, and ending up somewhere else. Spasm strikes in my arm. Another signal begins…I move with it, take another direction before I get on track. It becomes what it becomes…  the audience sees the INSIDE, the complexity of my brain, the skeleton, the mess and the de-tangling…” 


Day 1…  Am I ready for this new development of space playing… of course I am. I feel back inside the womb, where I begin to move with each cell… the world is perfect inside and I’m safe in my body…  

Image by Dianne Reid

This Image taken December 31 2012…

Quoted from my journal… (31.12.2012)

… a dance unfolds the year of events – between Melbourne,  Adelaide, London, Sweden and India…and back to Melbourne to continue the dance… Weave Movement Theatre, Born in a Taxi and Contact Improvisation with Tara Brandel. Dance has stretched me in many shapes and forms – increased movements, expanded my mind and life experience…