Movement Matters is part of a 44-month institutional exploration that “seeks to foster artistic creation and curricular development at the pedagogical nexus of embodied learning and scholarly interests with a special emphasis on increasing global understanding.” The Movement Matters Steering Committee selected the other finalists and I from a pool of applicants from the United States and abroad. This program is made possible by a major performing arts grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Read about Maree ReMalia’s Middlebury team investigations here:
https://mahiree.wordpress.com/mfa-project-solo-input/movement-matter-residency/
The Multiple Bodies Project is a collaborative endeavor conceived of by Charli Brissey that includes multiple artists who will produce a series of interconnected works to be revealed in various cities and in various forms throughout the Autumn/Winter of 2015. Instead of one comprehensive and geographically specific premiere evening, we hope to extend these ideas and processes into multiple communities and through multiple iterations, maybe even happening at the same time. These collaborations will take on many forms and structures, including performances, sound installations, videos, photography, essays, and who knows what else. Cooking?
(So for example: A performance may be happening in DC while a related video is screening in New York). Not all events will be held in major cities, and some might only exist online.
We are interested in pursuing critically engaged ideas that develop from the purposefully vague prompt of ‘tomorrow.’ This could include interrogations of gender, habit, sexuality, socialization, transformative action, censorship, forgiveness, love, kinship, and all shades of queerness that resonate when considering these topics in relation to ‘tomorrow.’
Concepts for Video Experiment with Pittsburgh Collaborators:
Jil Stifel
David Cherry
Blaine Siegel
David Bernabo
Ideas for location from Pittsburgh-based visual artist/collaborator, Blaine Siegel: So I am always fascinated by what I call “soft zones” “neglected spaces” “spaces of other”. I am referring to areas that are man made but neglected and not used but usually exist side by side with heavily trafficked areas. Next to freeway passes or commercial zones. I have been trying to figure a way to use these areas of desolation. Abandoned malls and the like. I have attached an ariel photo of Pittsburgh Mills Mall, the zones highlighted are areas that always catch my eye when I drive by…I think that they are a possibility for a locale for what you and Jil have been speaking of. The interior of the mall is vast and sad as well, nobody goes out to this mall and large sections are just existing.
Although technology makes it easier for us to connect globally it can simultaneously make it harder for us to connect locally.
Something about heightened states, body level states, where are we aware of our self(selves) Perhaps these body moments exist as antithesis to our virtual lives?
Also, something about the created virtual self versus the live self.
For the shoot I think we are dealing with the theme of the individual versus the crowd and finding the quiet body level moments of heightened awareness juxtaposed against a setting that shows the sprawl of modernity.
Maree’s notes and the score:
The video is black and white, the camera shoots as a partner. Also the camera could get bored and wander to looking at a foot, the sky, etc. Although It’s probably good to have wide shots also depending upon how things end up looking, maybe better for editing. Let me know if you want me to do something that I can repeat so that you can edit various shots together, see below for an example.
My score.
choose three words from this list:
confrontation
anchor
rapidity
quiet
hope
fear
yes
Feel each word independently on a body level then begin to get mixed up. The words can layer. Quiet and internal moments are OK. Seek those places feel them then move back into the word dance. End.
We could use some time-lapse, like if I am fairly still in a triangle of earth between on ramps/off ramps and the cars are moving very quickly around me. This is one idea I had that could show the individual versus the crowd and a sense of local loneliness also the choreography of the vehicles, and rapidity versus the stillness or quietness of body level experience.
Maree ReMalia
Source
