So far, for the creation process of Diluting and Collaging, we looked at traditional dances as a cultural element that expresses different life logics from different countries. We were interested on the different manners each dance expresses a certain understanding of life and the world through the way their bodies are used: For instance, African dances usually have hip movements, Russian and ex-Sovietic countries have constantly a rhythm created by clapping or stamping with different parts of the body, some Indigenous dances in Latin-america are danced in a circle that transforms and moves... All this constants in every area of the world let us see cultural embodiment. It expresses through body language their beliefs and what they want to show as their particular identity... but after analyzing traditional dances from different perspectives we wonder what other physical practice expresses the cultural identity of each country?
I told João that in Mexico we have "Civic Ceremonies" in which each school honors the Mexican flag every Monday morning. Along the ceremony we salute the flag, we sing the Mexican anthem while unfurling the flag to afterwards say in chorus the Pledge of Allegiance. Everyday there is also something similar happening in government institutions and in the Constitution Square in downtown.
João told me he didn't know Mexico was such a militar country, he told me that only the military does it in Portugal.
After researching in the Internet, we found out that every country has specifications for patriotic symbols but that some countries do the ceremonies in more institutions and places than others. We also researched how do this ceremonies take place and how are the rules to approach the patriotic symbols properly: there is a special way to hold the flag depending on its size, a way to fold the flag, a way of walk to approach a flag, amount of people that takes care of the flag, positions to salute and sing the National anthem, different coordination of legs and arms to march, etc.
We looked at the flag protocol in Portugal and Mexico, the differences and similarities. At what time it should be raised, at what time should come down, how it should go up and down to be folded, etc, we extracted some text and interesting specifications on the relation body-patriotic symbols: shield, national anthem and flag.
This video is one of the most interesting ones, from where we analyzed
Mexican marching and how to unfurl a big flag
Each country has different ways to fold their flags regarding where is the shield
In the case of Portugal it goes like this:
There are also different rules to march, walk, stand, etc. which is normally for the military. This applies differently to every country. The following schemes are some images that show some of this regulations of Venezuela.
We then incorporated some interesting aspects of everything found here to our movement research. We mostly based our movement on the Mexican marching because when I was little I was part of the flag guard that marched every Monday, therefore I knew the regulations of this ceremonies.
After the creation process of the duets Diluting and Collaging. We felt the need of also finding a way to share all the information/analysis product of this Luso-Mexican research, Blurry Identities. We decided that Lecture-Performance is an interesting form to share all the research with speech, dance and visual arts.
Our current mentor on making at Artez, Jochem Naafs, gave us some texts that allowed us to make an analysis on Lecture-Performance form:
Extracts from On the opportunities of performative research in arts education by Jochem Naafs "the dance scene has found a form in which it’s able to communicate dance through words without losing some of its key elements: the lecture performance"
"Acknowledging the space, communicating what this will be"
"Quality of the words will affect the distance between the audience and performers"
"Lecture performance blurring the lines that separate it from talking about it. Art discourse."
"reflective/non reflective"
"force the artist into words, scholar research, inspiration that search for knowledge"
From Jan Svenungsson's The writing artist (2009)
"Expressive storytelling in first person - me me me us us us"
"Methodical revelation of (philosophical) truth"
"Systematic revelation of technical and pedagogical truth - explaining the processes"
"Performative experimentation, with content in the open and in disguise"
"Well-referenced academic lecturing with further ambitions - purposely bad-reference non-academic processes"
Quote from Associative Writing and the Lecture Performance by Jochem Naafs “I came to realize that it was not just a gimmick to present outcomes of a research project as a lecture performance, but that it was actually relevant. It offered the chance to do not only talk about the creative process (...) but to also demonstrate the process. Next to this it offered me the possibility to demonstrate how I influenced the process by being present and vice versa. An aspect of observing that is easily ignored.”
Artistic research takes emblematic form in the lecture performance—a widespread phenomenon on the international art scene of recent years. The genre has its roots in the performance and conceptual art of the 1960s, and balances on the boundary between art and academia. As a hybrid of research, lecture, visual art and performative narrative techniques, the lecture performance as format addresses key questions of the status and potential of art in knowledge society, as well as the mechanisms of producing and framing knowledge.
Inspirational performancesthat deal with lecture-performance that share a certain perspective of the world from their life experience:
Working together has always been fun, but it is not always possible. For working in Unfurling, because the invitation was a bit sudden, we had to work a lot through Skype, as Julia was working in Israel and I was working in Amsterdam.
Working through Skype means discussing a lot of the concept, inspirations, structure and most of all planning ahead, so that when we would meet in a studio we would go directly to business!
Working through Skype allowed us to think choreography as composition. Rather than working on movement, bit by bit, we worked on the consistency of the whole: How should we balance the dance with the lecturing part? How do we relate to the space? Etc.
It was also the moment to think of our inspirations again: What do we extract from them?
Online with our friend and composer Kaspar Fohres we discussed what we would like the soundscape and music to be like.
We worked on selecting the material from Diluting and Collaging that we want to show: some ideas of the earlier and fragments of all parts of the latter.
We have made some decisions (most of them over Skype) about the bullets we mentioned before:
- We are creating a piece that showcases our work and process in our previous duets, Diluting and Collaging.
It is time to think of our new piece! For this new project we have some ideas/plans: 1. This third piece that we create departs from the two previous pieces, Diluting (2014) and Collaging (2015). 2. Having heard the feedback that our work gains from informing the audience about our research, we are considering ways of achieving this in the piece: the format of lecture-performance. 3. We want to be more autonomous with our work by finding ways of bending technical and spatial needs, to allow future touring easier. 4. We want to remain curious about our concept and allow it to shift forms. Stay in touch to follow our process!
