Filming and performance research in mature growth forest and on heritage coastlines. Followed by video screening and experiments with performance installation.
A collection of items made from things destined for the landfill. I asked Alena to make a collection which can be ambiguously worn -- which means that the dancers have a certain amount of freedom as to what goes where.
We looked at camouflage and shapeshifting animals, and iconic images of climate change. I wanted the costumes to be changeable in that they can look like a mysterious organic something, or a pile of garbage, or a fashion silhouette. They give a huge amount of sensory feedback to the body, which informs how the dancers move.
Combining this with the sensory feedback gained from landscapes, (wind, sun, air, sand, waves, tress…) I was hoping to understand something about my physical response to climate change. Where do I feel on a bodily level my response to what is happening -- whether that is overwhelm, grief, fear of loss, love of consumer goods and technology, shame, etc.
Image: Laura Doehler
Image: Anne Gäelle Thiriot
Photo: Alena Kudera Image: Deborah Black
Photos by Mark Loudon and Noel Jones
Episode i
2019
may 27th- June 1st, 2019
Filming in mature growth forest, Llandysul, Wales.
june 24-29th, 2019
Filming on Jurassic heritage coastline, Dorset, UK.
Sept 23- October 4th
Residencies in LJMU Sudley Theatre, and Unity Theatre, Liverpool
Sept 23, 2019 ‘rough cuts’ screening of video shorts at Metal Culture
Oct 4, 2019 work-in-progress performance installation at Unity Theatre
Thanks to Eeva Mutka and Andy Paget, Anna Best at Penpynfarch and Anna Best at The Mothership residencies.
Thanks to Liverpool John Moore’s University dance practices and Unity Theatre.
Costume collection and styling : Alena Kudera
Project Direction and Video Editing: Mary Pearson
Filmed and performed by dance research collaborators: Anne Gaëlle Thiriot, Anya Cloud, Deborah Black, Karen Schaffman, Laura Doehler with Mary Pearson
Music: Barry Han
Project Advisor: Kate Elswit
Graphic Design: Doug Kerr
Photography: Alena Kudera, Noel Jones, Mark Loudon
2020
August 31st - September 12th, 2020
Ponderosa Dance, Stolzenhagen, Germany.
Residency culminating in site-specific outdoor performance.
Thanks to Stephanie Maher for residencies at Ponderosa Dance.
Costume collection Alena Kudera
Project Direction Mary Pearson
Performed by Anne Gaëlle Thiriot, Laura Doehler, Mary Pearson, and William Lang
With dramaturgical support and set design by Yoav Admoni
Somewhere in the gap existing between screen addiction and a disappearing wilderness…
What have we become?
Surrounded by products
We are by-products; landscape becomes by-product
Technology mediates experience
Visibly altered bodies
making visible the impact of the material world on self/body/animal.
Sensing contradiction in attempts to make contact with the landscape
LOSS
of presence
of sense of back body
of responsiveness to what surrounds me
of orientation in space
I am somewhere else
My attention is somewhere else
I am with someone who is somewhere else
Slowing down
(Re) Orienting, sensing, tracking:
Where am I? What is happening to my body? What surrounds me?
Memory loss.
How to survive?
My body remembers. I can negotiate with forest, fields, coast.
Being with/in a place, located.
In a demanding world, threat is pervasive and can be abstract.
Is the predator my inbox?
What are we trying to heal?
amnesia, anaesthesia, overstimulation, contamination, toxicity
overwhelm, anxiety, alienation, disconnection
normalised in an overstimulated culture
Selfie culture
I saw it = I can have it
overwhelmed systems shut down, space out, keep vigil
In trauma, there / then disrupts (the possibility of) being here / now.
It was/is too much, too fast