Aesthetics Identity Flyer and Script

http://vimeo.com/32934900

Below is the Identity Flyer I made and distributed via email to friends.

IDENTITY

Who am I?

What are my fears?

What do I love?

Who loves me?

What makes me who I am?

This 10 minute improvisation explores our inner thoughts about our sense of self through text and movement.

When: Nov. 27, 2011 1:30pm and 2pm

Where: Outside of Down Dog Yoga Studio in Georgetown.

Who: Jen Stone, Asher Gelman, Megan Thompson.

1046 Potomac Street, NW
Washington, DC 20007

The studio is located off of M St. Potomac St. runs along the right side of Dean & Deluca. Down Dog Georgetown is the last building on the right just before Potomac St. meets the canal.  Parking Information: In Georgetown, there is plenty of street parking in neighborhood as well as parking garages and lots. The Colonial Parking Garages on the corner of Water and Potomac Streets and elsewhere in Georgetown offer a discounted $10 flat rate after 5 pm weekdays and all day Saturday and Sunday.

Title: IDENTITY

Intention: We are our thoughts.  This performance explores through text and movement our inner thoughts.  By answering questions posed by the performers, verbally and physically, and by listening and reacting to the other performers’ answers, the performers themselves will delve into the idea of what it is to be them, confronting their identity.   

These are the questions that were asked of the dancers and the audience during this piece.  The questions came from my stream of concious ideas on Identity.  These were all questions that I came up with that personally made me dig into my personal sence of self.

IDENTITY

1) Please state your Name, Occupation and Intention.

2) Please describe yourself.

3) Who do you love?

4) What or who do you fear?

5) What is your skill set?

6) What are you lacking?

7) Please state your magical name?

8) What do you want to be when you grow up?

Objects and tools needed:

 1 )Three dancers, doesn’t matter female or male, but a mixed group is best. 

2 )Three gray or white tee-shirts with one word on them each.  WHO, AM, I. 

3) A lab coat

4) clip board with attached pen

5) Sign announcing the title on poster or wooden board

Description:  The three dancers in shirts with lables WHO AM I stand in a horizontal line in front of a found audience.  After a moment they begin to move backwards and forwards, toward and away from the audience.  In time one dancer races up the lab coat which is placed at the downstage left corner of the space.  The other dancers make their way to the back of the space. The dancer puts on the lab coat and picks up the clip board. Then the dancer reads off one of the questions on the clip board in no particular order.  The other dancers one at a time dance or walk forward answering the questions asked.  This repeats with more questions being asked until one of the dancer replaces the one with the clip board.  The same process continues, questions being asked, answered in text and movement.  The piece ends when the dancers all come to stillness.

Where it is to be performed:  I had wanted it performed out side of a yoga studio because I believe yogis are on a path of self awareness and therefore might find interest in this idea of Identity.  I also being a yoga teacher felt like this could be gift from me to other yogis. Outside of Down Dog Yoga Center in George Town there is a safe place to perform,  a place to sit where audience and performers do not need to worry about cars.  Here is a letter I sent to the Down Dog Yoga Studio.  The plan was to perform outside of this studio after classes let out.  Traditionally students sit outside cooling off after a hot class.

Hello,

I’m a dance artist in the area as well as a yoga teacher.  Check out the announcement below.  I thought where else should I perform a dance piece on Identity, but outside a yoga studio where self-awareness is being practiced.  It would be great if you posted the attachment at your studio.  But either way poke your head out at 1:30pm and 2pm this coming Sunday and check us out.

Thanks,

Jen Stone

Evaluation: 

What happened:

 When we arrived at the site I looked around at other site options then my first intention outside the yoga studio, but still in the general area where the yogis could see us. We decided to perform it where I had originally thought, facing the yoga studio.  However, when the time came that students were to be coming out of the class no one but the manager walked out. "I must have looked at the times wrong I told her." It was true, my audience that I was counting on, was not coming out. Luckily I had always thought the first performance would be down by the studio and the second one would be up closer to the road, all very close together, so any other outside people that received my invite would easily find us. As it was no one else turned up for the show for the first time slot, except my professor. She suggested we perform it in front of the seated Dean and De'Lucca people sitting outside on the tables. Having seen that space before I decided this would be better than my other idea of up near the street. So we moved to that space.

This Identity Project is and never was a piece about a space. It was about an idea of expressing human thoughts as honestly as one could in the moment. So luckily changing the space had little effect on the piece itself. The first performance was thoughtful and introspective, but dragged on a bit. However, I appreciated the openness of the performers and realized when performers slow their physical movement sometimes this enables a more open performance quality. The second performance I added back the urgency of the running and speed, as well as tuned into the other dancers more and limited the size of the space. This urgency gave the piece a sense of importance and immediacy which I liked. The defined smaller space also kept the dancers closer together which then in turn made tuning into each other easier.

Individually Lori as a performer was very open and clear, she spoke authentically about her internal thoughts and seemed open to being in the moment. Her introspective thoughts, however, needed to be spoken slightly louder to be heard in this space. Asher I felt took a more false identity approach to the performance which I had allowed. I appreciated his strong energy and his loud voice. After the second performance when he repeated an answer from the first performance I realized my interest for this piece is to truly be in the moment versus repeating an answer that “worked” earlier. However, the skill to truly be in the moment for some can be extremely difficult. But with exercises to increase people's ability to be in the moment, it can and does happen and is something I would focus on prior to the performance next time.

For me I was interested in people's honest responses, and Asher's first response as a banker was honest in the fact that he was honestly hiding something by telling the world he was a banker. My allowing for the false identities was on purpose. I feel often when people are pressured to speak the truth they “get stuck”, so allowing an open door to their imagination was a way to keep the performers freely associating and open. Our identities are based on our thoughts and what happens in our heads is what makes us happy or miserable in our life, whether or not what is in our head is based on actual truth.  I am interested in people’s approach to identifying themselves.

We didn’t this time, but after performing again with a new cast I would like to discuss the “questions” with the performers. I like the improvisational aspect of the performers being asked the questions for the first time while performing.  Perhaps a way to make this more of a democratic process is to have the performers write down on the clipboard three questions they would like to ask without anyone seeing them beforehand. 

The clip board character was created because in order for myself to be truly in the moment I needed to not have to hold onto these particular quesitons in my mind.   I constructed a clip board lab coat person that would have the questions on the clip board for us to freely read when we were ready to take over that position.  I as a performer thouroughly enjoyed the lab coat position. It was a position of power, of control, of a non revealing character.  A safe position.  I enjoyed playing with the audience, speaking to the audience directly as well as speaking directly to the dancers. I questioned how far I could push the dancers in the position.  I believe next time I would aim for this piece to be 20 minutes long so more development of the relationshiop of the lab coat person and the dancers could be established.  The lab coat person could be an open minded scientists, an all knowing doctor, or someone as powerful as one who decides who gets an donor organ first.  The role of that character needs time to develop in each of our dancers minds.  If worked on again I would talk to the performers about that role.  Who is that role in their life.  How does it feel to be in that role.  What is the responsiblity of that role and how does that role show respect.   This role is in its infant form, but I'm very attracted to how it could develop.  Even perhaps as someone walking around into the audience and directly asking individual audience members these same questions.  It has the potentail to really break down the third wall.

Finding an ending in silence felt arbitrary in the dance. I would like to play with finding an ending by coming to a verbal climax instead where each of the performers are speaking loudly over each other coming to a verbal climax. 

 Audience Reaction: One audience member wanted it to continue longer.  Another remembered he had always wanted to learn how to fly.  Another enjoyed watching three separate performers not trying to connect, but being content in their separate Identities.  These are all responses that made me feel positive about the work.

 Future Possibilities: I would like to take this script to different populations and perform it in different countires.  I would like to work with non/dancers on this script.  It is an easy script to learn and I think has an interesting subject.  Most of the time people enjoy listening and learning about other people  and most of the time people like talking about themselves.  The process of identifying oneself is intersting to me.

Maida's Comments about outdoor performances:

"Remember that the human voice is easily lost unless you are in an acoustical site that helps. Otherwise the voice needs to be projected in a low range so it can/will be heard or megaphone or microphone. Music/sound is a good attractor to let people know something (performance) is going to happen. You can go through the area and have a “caller” “announcer” invite people to a performance in 10 minutes, etc."