Along the 6 performances we kept trying out different compositional structures considering the feedback from the audience and Dansateliers. We also got to perform the piece in Deventer and Arnhem in 2016. We were recorded by Paul Sixta on the 3rd performance from where we extracted some pictures and made the trailer:
One Nights Dance 2015: Dramaturgy/artistic advice: Kristin de Groot (Artistic director Dansateliers) Advice concept development: Konstantina Georgelou Technique: Edwin van Steenbergen Feedback: Konstantina Georgelou, Merel Heering Production-leader: Hanna Eijlander PR: Lody Meijer Business leader: Johan Cuperus Photography: Liza Szabó Poetry: Anne van Winkelhof Video: Paul Sixta
One Night’s Dance 2015 is made possible by the backers on the crowd-funding campaign on VoordeKunst.nl We thank them for their support!
The creation process of Collaging took place at Dansateliers (production house in Rotterdam, promoter of the anual project One Night's Dance) and the facilities of ArtEZ in Arnhem. After one month of investigation, rehearsals and feedback sessions, we got to perform Collaging. Together with the other 4 dance performances created by the other makers selected for OND, we performed with full house 6 times in two consecutive weekends in December 2015.
Along the process the photographer Liza Szabo followed our research closely and tried to, in one image, reflect our research:
At the waiting room, before the performance, we installed a "collaging table"...
Once we had collected the material that the last post talks about, we analyzed and distributed it according to some of its properties. (Meanwhile, it got dark in Rotterdam...)
Dansateliers had organized special dates for the participants of One Nights Dance to share their processes and receive feedback from each other.
The more we looked at our charts we were creating, the more related the dances seemed to become. Following the path of our concept, it made sense for us to attach the dances to each other, using the famous visual arts technique of collaging. Our friends at Wikipedia describe it as a technique of an art production, where the artwork is made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. Having 5 dutch dance patterns and 12 world dance sets of movement felt like having the pans and the ingredients. We went on distributing this 12 sets in the 5 patterns, coming up with the following chart that includes both:
(At some point, superior powers approved our project sending direct sunlight)
After all, this is a project of a Portuguese and a Mexican, who have met in The Netherlands - a small country in the center of Europe, known for welcoming cultures from all over the world for many centuries. It made sense to represent this by creating a collage of dances, gathered all over the world and glued in Holland. Hence the title: Collaging.
Dance processes can be quite fun. When creating Collaging we decided to each bring a proposal: João proposed learning dutch dances from text - no videos, no photos. Julia proposed learning world dances from a 10 sec. youtube clip - no other sources. We then gave a chance to both proposals. Finding written Dutch dances was not easy. Especially as we were more interested in what could be found online (thus avoiding Dutch libraries). After a while, we found Elsche Korf's website. Elsche is a specialist in Dutch traditional dances and has been teaching them since 1973. In her page we found a list of various dances, most of them with a PDF where their description can be read. We then selected five dances: Riepe Riepe Garst, Baonopstekker, Slaapmuts, Olde Step, and Ijswals. Let's take a closer look to the beginning of Baonopstekker, as described by Korf:
Understanding how the bars/counts related to the actual movement was not complicated. Finding the movement out of the written words was sometimes creative, but often we just simplified it: 8 walking steps - yes, there are many ways of walking, but we kept it casual and stripped out of cultural values. Now, what was a real challenge for us was understanding CW and CCW. It took us 30 minutes to figure out. Can you guess? Will reveal it in a P.S.!
For Julia's proposal it was slightly easier to find material. We had to make sure we would cover a wide range of the World's surface, so that distinct cultures could come together. Here is the map of the countries we covered:
Canada (Inuit), D. R. Congo, Iceland, Israel, Hungary, Mongolia, Oman, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Porto Rico, Russia and Zimbabwe.
Nowadays you quickly get to know other countries, cultures, through the internet. But is the information you gather there real? Is it trustable? We went on youtube and searched the selected countries mentioned above followed by the words "traditional dance". Often the results were from tourist recordings of some traditional dance performances - probably put together for them -, some other examples are of traditional dance companies that carefully assembled a video to promote their work in and outside their country. We liked this range of results, from trustworthy to unreliable, from too amateur to too professional - this is internet. This is the world of information we live in today.
Among these varied results, we would select only one video, often the first one, and extract 10 to 30 seconds of movement. It took us some time to understand some of the movements because of their weirdness (which attracted us) or because of their completely different cultural understanding of the use of specific body parts.
Overall, the balance seemed right: in one hand we allow our imagination to interpret written text, in the other hand we force ourselves to interpret movements that our bodies have never done.
P.S.: Still thinking what CW and CCW could possibly stand for? Clockwise and counter-clockwise!
Here are some terms that were important to take a look at along the creation process: culture, tradition, identity and traditional dances. We researched about those terms in the same way we have approached investigation in Blurry Identities project: approaching information through the Internet in the most superficial manner, trusting the Web to be the most popular approach to investigate and get to know about the world nowadays.
Culture: "The way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time" Cambridge English Dictionary "Social domain that emphasizes the practices, discourses, and material expressions, which, over time, express the continuities and discontinuities of social meaning of a life held in common." James Paul, Anthropologist "Glue that holds us all together" common say by politicians all around the world
Cultural values... What is important? Social interaction... collective individualism of uniqueness... is the connection that we celebrate... promotion of otherness... needing otherness.
Tradition
Wikipedia:
A tradition is a belief or behavior passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. Traditions can persist and evolve for thousands of years—the word "tradition" itself derives from the Latintradere or traderer literally meaning to transmit, to hand over, to give for safekeeping.
While it is commonly assumed that traditions have ancient history, many traditions have been invented on purpose, whether that be political or cultural, over short periods of time.
The concept of tradition, as the notion of holding on to a previous time, is also found in political and philosophical discourse. For example, it is the basis of the political concept of traditionalism, and also strands of many world religions including traditional Catholicism.
A number of factors can exacerbate the loss of tradition, including industrialization, globalization, and the assimilation or marginalization of specific cultural groups. In response to this, tradition-preservation attempts have now been started in many countries around the world, focusing on aspects such as traditional languages. Tradition is usually contrasted with the goal of modernity and should be differentiated from customs, conventions, laws, norms, routines, rules and similar concepts.
Visit Switzerland!!!
Visit Peru!!!
Identity
Wikipedia:
In psychology, sociology, anthropology and philosophy, identity is the conception, qualities, beliefs, and expressions that make a person (self-identity) or group (particular social category or social group). Identity may be distinguished from identification; identity is a label, whereas identification refers to the classifying act itself. Identity is thus best construed as being both relational and contextual, while the act of identification is best viewed as inherently processual.That process can be creative or destructive.
However, the formation of one's identity occurs through one's identifications with significant others (primarily with parents and other individuals during one's biographical experiences, and also with "groups" as they are perceived). These others may be benign—such that one aspires to their characteristics, values and beliefs (a process of idealistic-identification), or malign—when one wishes to dissociate from their characteristics (a process of defensive contra-identification) (Weinreich & Saunderson 2003, Chapter 1, pp 54–61).
A psychological identity relates to self-image (one's mental model of oneself), self-esteem, and individuality. Consequently, Weinreich gives the definition "A person's identity is defined as the totality of one's self-construal, in which how one construes oneself in the present expresses the continuity between how one construes oneself as one was in the past and how one construes oneself as one aspires to be in the future"; this allows for definitions of aspects of identity, such as: "One's ethnic identity is defined as that part of the totality of one's self-construal made up of those dimensions that express the continuity between one's construal of past ancestry and one's future aspirations in relation to ethnicity" (Weinreich, 1986a).
Do we need a national Identity? No... it's part of the modern world... it's potentially empowering... it's excluding... it's narcissist... its fascist... flags... destruction... created aggression... clashes... it's a false premise... you can have a cultural identity, global identity, religious identity...
Traditional dance... ??? Folk dance... ??? Ethnic dance... ???? Tribal dance... ??? Religious dance????
...???
Wikipedia: In artistic contexts, tradition is used to decide the correct display of an art form. For example, in the performance of traditional genres (such as traditional dance), adherence to guidelines dictating how an art form should be composed are given greater importance than the performer's own preferences.
There are different ideas about what constitutes "folk", "ethnic", "traditional" dances (etc), much of it adopted to further a political agenda. The categorization by Richard Dureeis the one that seemed to us more suitable to what we needed to label.
"Ethnic" does not mean "non-white."
"Folk" does not mean "rural."
Ethnic or traditional dance:
Its any dance form which can be identified as originating with an ethnic culture and expressing the movement aesthetics of that culture. It includes all ethnic cultures, whether European, American, African, Polynesian, Asian, Middle Eastern — all of them. It includes village folk dance, urban popular dance (swing, tango), classic dance (Kathak, Bharat Nayam), tribal dance, tap dance, and many more, It does not include the classic theatrical forms of ballet, jazz, and modern dance, but notice that there are theatrical forms included. The primary criteria is simply identification with an ethnic culture of origin.
Ethnic dance includes several sub-categories: "folk," "theatrical," "religious," "tribal," "social," and so on. Our major interest is to Folk dance, but we'll take a quick look at the others.
Folk dance:
It requires not only an ethnic identification, but a "participatory" and aesthetic tradition. It is dance that is an integral part of the culture, thus the traditional village dances of Europe, the Hawaiian hula, the American clog, the Mexican Hat Dance, and the Argentine tango are "folk" dances.
Theatrical dance:
"Theatrical" forms of ethnic dance are well-known, primarily in Asia, where professional dancers perform dances that are prescribed by tradition. The dances are found in India, Japan, and throughout Southeast Asia, and are highly developed with extraordinary costume, makeup, props, and sets, usually telling an ancient fable for the entertainment of select audiences.
Tribal dances:
Generally originates in a "pre-industrial" culture, created in a subsistence environment, and functioning as an integral part of life. The tribal dance is communication with the supernatural, a rite of passage, a courage builder for battle, a celebration victory, or a mourning ritual in defeat. It is serious and rarely performed as recreation.
Religious dance: It relates to certain kind of group or individual dance that takes the dancer into a trans. Usually, this kind of dances are supported by religious Institutions.
Here a list of ethnic and traditional dances all around the world by Wikipedia
SOME THOUGHTS TO MAKE IT CLEAR:
Ballet, jazz, and other forms of theatrical dance fall outside the umbrella of "ethnic" dance, because they are cross-cultural and have lost any ethnic identity they may have had. They do not express any ethnic identity or aesthetic, nor is that their intent; rather the focus is ever-more difficult and fantastic technical performance.
At "Blurry Identities" we research Ethnic or Traditional dances into Contemporary practices to analyzed concepts like cultural and body Identity in this Globalized world. This takes us to re-investigate dance compositional aspects, different understandings of the body as well as historical aspects of each dance we approach to.
Gaspar Fernandes. Music of the new world. Western and native cultures. Syncretism. Portugal. Mexico.
Nadaproductions. WAR.Chilean-Mexican choreographer Amanda Piña. Swiss visual artist and filmmaker Daniel Zimmermann. Hoko dances. Easter Island.7 complete traditional dances.
"I see pop and folk culture as parallel," That power -- to have the ability to encourage thousands of people to learn a Beyoncé dance -- that's something quite special and weird."
Eszther Salamon. Monument 0: haunted by wars. 100 years. History of wars. tribal, folk and popular dance. Conflict zones. five continents. Changing clothing: Decontextualisation.
