9 June
Hi Steve,
Attached some images of the Cioch (meaning "breast"...). In image "Cioch mist" - the ledge is obvious about 2 thirds of the way up.
"Cioch 360" is a still from the video I mentioned. There's a link to more of these 360 works here:
http://www.danshipsides.com/DshipsidesWeb/Pan%20360.html
This was in fantastic weather - but it's not so much fun in anything less - wind, rain etc - a little worrying - but fun...
It could be a great place to visit. I'm not sure about the naked part of your projecting ideas....but there's a lot of potential in terms of thinking about this space. My feelings about nakedness - aside from bashfullness - are it's clichedness at least in performance art and I imagine a little in dance too..?..no?
I would be interested in thinking and exploring about the space in terms of what it does to your movement - not just as it being a stage but as it being an object. The danger of it - literally is that it invites dare-devilness as a response - something I'm not so interested in as it's pretty dumb and we might get hurt - in a bad way.. but there certainly are ways of exploring this territory - both the real and as a studio based idea.
One thing you said which i'm responding to in my mind and think it should be examined - but i think you almost said this too - I really don't see the "neutral" space of the studio / dance theatre as neutral. I htink it's similar to the white gallery space for contemoporary art - it's so loaded that for me it becomes difficult to escape the aesthetic frame that brings. i reaslise there's possibilitioes of these spaces - and they are valuable - but I could never say they offer a neutral setting. When I use the gallery space i usual approach it with the intention of bringing a different set of aesthetics too it (climbing and the trappings of a life in climbing). This then offers the potential to foreground both the framing devices and conventions of the gallery and the aesthetic qualities of climbing - without reducing climbing to the point where it is no longer climbing...
I suppose I'm still suspicious of "art". I work towards an understanding where it is not separated or neutralised from everyday life.
This is where my uncomfortablenss with this project ending up wholly as a dance framed "dance" work. For me - as much of my work does - it has to lie outside or at least across "art" or "dance" or "climbing".
I like the idea then of looking at how this project might fit across a number of fields and "scenes". You mentioned site specifric - well actually it could be more useful for me to think about context specific possibilities too.
Enjoyed the climb yesterday - was important to fit it in - otherwise I'd be afraid of drifting.
bye for now,
dan
15th July 2010
Hi Dan,
finally get around to responding...... from an internet cafe in Moscow....
The cioch pics look great... I can imagine this place being inspiring...
Nakedness.... I wasn't so much thinking about a "naked event" or
performance... actually I was more interested in the effect of the
texture of the rock on the bare skin... more a close-up imprint as a
visible reference to the way in which an engagement with a landscape
"moves" the inner self... the heart beat, the chemistry (cortisol,
adrenaline, endorphins), the butterflies in the belly..... I actually
agree with you about the clichedness and the boringness of most
approaches to being unclothed in both fine art and in dance/theatre....
I am very "unbashful" about naked people so it doesn't in itself hold
any power of transgression or exposure so detailed purpose or irony are
the only attractions.
I imagined a close up photographic or video recording of the gradually
disappearing imprint of the rock texture on my back or sole of the foot
after lying or standing on one leg.
Other idea is to record a stream of consciousness during the climb and
on the "platform" and use this as a "score" or "template" for a movement
work (set or improvised).... and maybe as a soundtrack for its
performance... and attempt to revisit and to transform the experience in
another context.
Galleries, studios, theatres.... well... obviously they aren't
neutral... but I quite enjoy the strange filtering history that they
bring... the framing of expectations and the more and less conscious
filtering of experience that they trigger. I suppose I'm currently more
on the side of getting more of the attention to detail that I sometimes
find in art practice (mine and others) into everyday life rather than
being concerned with making my artistic practice relevant to everyday
life..... but I suppose that perspective comes from a deep and long held
suspicion, despair and rejection of the aesthetics, training methods,
conceptual apparatus and language of pretty much the whole of mainstream
dance.... It is as if I have been so concerned with re-forging the
relation of poetic-movement-art to the vernacular movement experience of
people (including me) that I now find myself at a place where I'm not
fighting that battle any more... I just do my art work with that
background view and practice totally integrated in it.
I don't want to frame our project in a purely "dance" way. I want to
meet the different rhythms and purposes, language and process that you
bring from your fine art context... specifically to have light shone on
to my particular way of valuing objects, events, and processes by seeing
them alongside yours. I mean... .... in movement we tend to a sort of
kinetic diaorreah... like verbal .... we want to cram more in to "do"
more.... the idea of one word on a hillside or a series of 1min30secd
spinning videos (or even a painting in a frame) as worthy is an
alternative which counterbalances the tendency to an entertainment
aesthetic... I accept this difference in "scale" as someone who engages
with and loves a lot of fine art stuff but in my own practice it is
challenging and deeply interesting to be in the process of being
concerned more and more with detail, editing, refinement... leaving
stuff out....
... and.... I have been enjoying the experience of a very
pulled/torn/twisted shoulder and upper arm since we climbed.... I have
really had to pay good attention to get through the Chess Piece and only
now it starts to feel better again..... I liked the feeling that my
determination was greater than my reproducible strength, forcing myself
beyond my "limit" ... rather than underestimating my power or
ability..... BUT.... I am pretty sure that liking that is a symptom of
some deeply unhealthy psychological traits!.... Anyway...
Moscow is sunny and humid.... and the festival beginning is enjoyable...
lots of colleagues and friends.... it feels like part of a long term
ongoing process...
what about August? I have time and flexibility after 23rd. Could we plan
something. Outdoors. Dance Studio. And think about beginning a more
organised and conscious form of documentation of what we are up too?
..... though the emails... at two ends of a digital rope... are neither
too slack nor too tight... but just right for me ... so far...
One question..... relating to the differing contexts of fine art and
performance/dance (though they are crossing over of course)..... What is
the status of an object for you in your work? ... a final piece... a
video... a collection of small objects spelling out "sorry" on a
hillside.... In movement art there is no "real" material.... the object
is a sort of conception of framed time... a memory... so even the
"final" work is a process.... maybe this is a limit and a liberation....
I miss the idea of a "thing" but on the other hand I also feel the
lightness of not having to conceive of process and product as in
conflict.... I ask this question because it seems that it might be an
exchange which helps to focus on how to record what we are doing and
what importance we attach to the recordings as objects or archives or
sources for further processes.
enjoy summer time
Steve
