Mark and Dawn are the absolut cracks (if I’m allowed to say so) and wonderful teachers, who open our perception of what is possible with software like Isadora (which Mark wrote and is constantly improving) and more importantly, remind us that it’s not about gimmicks but indepth research (and a lot of fiddeling around with parameters) to choreograph, whether we work digitally or in the analog world.

I made a pre-survey, so to say, to select some information of possible interested people. The thing is, I want to invite a Japanese teacher based in Germany and he is very expensive, so I am trying to figure out if it´s financially possible (with funding and workshop fees paid by the participants) to get him over. I am also looking into other possibilities, other Europe-based teachers with an international reputation. Also someone who might perform a solo to create a double bill-performance for one night, along with my plan to show short films and have a talk / lecture.

I envision it to happen early 2012, depending on availabilities of teachers, funding and sponsors.

Apart from that, Karen and me will show our film which derived from our TRY! residency at Mamuska Night in Birr, Offaly next Saturday.

apologies for sending such a mass email, but I am trying to reach as many people as possible!I am currently planning a small Butoh Festival and made a survey to figure out some possiblities. The survey should only take 2 minutes to click through and I would appreciate lots of responses! You can also get in touch by email, if you have any further comments.This link will lead you to the survey:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FXYYZ9W If you know any other person / group, that could be interested in the Festival, I would appreciate If you could forward this email. I am counting on viral spreading across the island!  Many thanks and with best Wishes,Katrin   Background infoHaving had the privilege to participate in a workshop with Master Yoshito Ohno and getting to know Austrian social anthropologist Michael Weiss, who wrote about Yoshito Ohno´s butoh and it´s relation to grief, I wanted to create an event that could open this art form to interested dancers, actors and non-performing artists in Ireland. As my participation in the International ChoreoLab Austria / Danube University Krems (where the workshop took place) was fully supported by the Arts Council, I would like to give something back to the Irish dance community and beyond. I hope to achieve this through curating an event with workshop, film-screening, performance and talk, hopefully padded by some nice Japanese food and maybe a small photo-exhibition along the way in a Dublin arts space that presents an intimate atmosphere. I am currently outlining the event to approach possible private sponsors and apply for funding to invite an international teacher for one weekend.My “target-audience” are dancers and “non-dancers” alike, as well as actors, authentic movement practitioners, improvisers, and anyone interested in movement based therapies or dance therapy as I believe facettes of butoh can have a therapeutic dimension.
  

click here to read if your interested.

A lot of questions were there during the process about the importance of dance in a piece. Could the dance only be there with the audience? would the piece work without anyone visiting? Trying to figure out questions of how to involve the audience (which I like to call authors, as they give meaning to what is happening, each one from their very own perspective, spatially and out of their history) without actually having a group of audience in the studio prove to be tricky, culminating with a showing that opened the Tipperary Dance Platform and the thought “ok, let´s try, maybe it fails, but at least we know that then”.

In the process, we filmed some footage to built an installation with two projectors (I brought one and Jazmin and Alex thankfully gave us one to use as well, which totally transformed the experience), covering one half of the space (a rectangular dance studio with 6 columns in the middle, creating a sort of runway), 3 walls, the columns and the ceiling. We wanted the video to be graphically altered, almost like a comic, black and white, lines. Here is one screenshot of one projection:

We filmed the footage at the local GAA Club´s beautiful green field and the fence behind the little stand. We wanted the images to partly cover the whole space, create different shapes and sometimes flickering sources of light and alter the experience of the space when walking around. A lot of time went into editing the material, which was equally important to the live performance, as it created the environment for it, together with music and the movement in the space.

When creating short movement phrases (we did a lot of them and then threw them all away after some time), we became very aware of our training of creating work for a traditional theatre setting. Quite often we stopped ourselves, discussed what we thought was important and how to achieve it the best way possible. All of a sudden the space had a “natural stage”, focus, spots that felt like performing on a stage in front of an imagined seated audience. One image we had to break that setting was a constant movement in the space – created by the viewers themselves. Also giving them some sort of task to activate their secret performer, when they might expect to sit and watch was another little scary thing we were eager to try. Throwing paper planes at them – that´s another story (it will take up some headspace and at some point, I will use it!). To wrap it all up, we devised a simple game, the audience being performers as well, walking, creating the environment for everyone else in the space, experiencing others in movement, being aware of everything that goes on around them.

The turnout was much better than expected, first we thought we should only let a maximum of 15 people in (as everyone was to walk continuously, there were a lot of shadows which is fine with the video up to a certain amount of bodies in the space), in the end there were almost 40, walking, dancing, watching. The video was more of a light background, the interaction between the group became more important!

Some things I learned from those two weeks:

Masking tape on the floor doesn´t stop anyone to stand right in front of a video projector, nor does explanations to not stand in front of a projector.

Don´t just imagine things, try them out. We had some great ideas that just didn´t feel right when executed. Always try and dare to fail.

Projector lamps have a natural life span, that might not come in handy when you want to use them in a performance.

It´s important for emerging artists to have a space to try out ideas. How the hell should we know what we do if we can´t do it?

Thank you Alex Iseli and Jazmin Chiodi for giving us this great opportunity to imagine, try, fail, believe and present!