I really work with what is in front of me when I am the choreographer, so to rethink movement relationships that might interact, when in online rehearsal they are confined to the screen and often to boxes within the screen, is very hard for me. Is this a lack of imagination? (from Conversations 2021)
imagination on movement for me is very important. I imagine my body like scanning through my mind’s eye, then use my muscle to associate with. Sometimes environment matters in this process(ex. When it‘s open space then imagining body is bigger so it is becomes bigger structural movement but not necessary bigger movement feeling inside can be bigger not the movement itself, when space is smaller and cluttered that will change my imagination to the body) and I enjoy those different spaces to work with.
Choreographing/creating on somebody’s body is different: I imagine the body of dancers more than environment and space in between.
For me imagination is an alternate reality to what exists in the moment. My imagination is constantly at work conjuring all kinds of possibilities of ideas, movement, intentions, etc. So, what actually presents itself in the moment is often different from what I may initially have had in my mind’s eye; which can lead to surprising discoveries about self as choreographer, interpreter.
When imagination has room to take flight anything is possible – including finding useful, creative, meaningful ways to engage with movement online. I think imagination asks us to work with what “is” while still being aware that any limitation online presents, is an opportunity for discovery and adaptation the creation process embodies.
My experience of imagination exists in my minds eye. For me it results in visualizing - visualizing memories, visualizing the future of what I want to create or experience in dance.
When participating online I often find myself visualizing memories from previous experiences in class, workshops, or meetings with others, to inform what I'm doing in my living room. For example, if I'm taking a dance class on zoom from a teacher I've worked with before - I'm imagining I'm in a class I took with them in person before.
I don't know what imagination is but it's happening all the time. it's associative but extra-dimensional, i think there are an infinite number of forms of imagination but i outline a few here that i experience:
(a) a stream of thoughts that arise without prompting to take me outside of the specific conditions i am or to reflect on where i am,
(b) an intentional attempt to do something that feels fresh or surprising. Imagination is a layering on of other frames of reference that might or might not have a physical response
(c) something is happening between us or between me and the objects around me that I cannot grasp but activates a narrative related to my identity and existential beliefs. if i choose to and work to reframe my own narrative, the imaginative spectrum changes.
...
e.g. I see you making shapes in space in your room and i am following you. Or I am feeling an excitement that takes me in a different direction from you and yet has been inspired by you. I have a sudden dream around your action in space. This moment of catching your flow is overtaken by a flow in my own body.
e.g. in moving very slowly, i see my space very differently, the curtains flatten out and the floor becomes round. I am really focused on what is happening in my body suddenly. I am mobilizing body parts and I don't know why, but it feels right-complete-connected... I feel in the moment that the body is following an image that I cannot see.
I believe creating happens when you (choreographer, director, interpreter) are preparing and collecting your idea in your mind as well as perhaps with physical objects(not books, music etc). Receiving happens when those ideas come out from your mind and pass down to others (dancers, actors, audeience etc.) I think this process is same as online and studio, but often receiving takes more time online and recivers creativity and imagination often merge with "creating" with thier own interpretation.
Lo wrote about Imagining in another post (in listening with one's body): "I believe my memory is enacting remembrances of being with people moving. (Lo)"
In the rehearsals I have, we are translating, imagining what we see on the screen to being in the studio/performance space, because we are rehearsing online in preparation for live production. (from Conversations 2021)
..so the images on the screen are more like prompts for imagining what might be in the future? you are not so much working with what is but with what could be...? funny how what is happening at the moment ( us with each other through the screen) becomes the lesser, less actual, than what has not happened yet, what may be.
If we consider the screen as an entry point to a complete environment then all the choreographer’s concerns of space and time/rhythm form shape dynamic etc. still can operate on-screen and between the online and the offline, that then together become the performance place. (from Conversations 2021)
I really work with what is in front of me when I am the choreographer, so to rethink movement relationships that might interact, when in online rehearsal they are confined to the screen and often to boxes within the screen, is very hard for me. Is this a lack of imagination? (from Conversations 2021)
imagination on movement for me is very important. I imagine my body like scanning through my mind’s eye, then use my muscle to associate with. Sometimes environment matters in this process(ex. When it‘s open space then imagining body is bigger so it is becomes bigger structural movement but not necessary bigger movement feeling inside can be bigger not the movement itself, when space is smaller and cluttered that will change my imagination to the body) and I enjoy those different spaces to work with.
Choreographing/creating on somebody’s body is different: I imagine the body of dancers more than environment and space in between.
For me imagination is an alternate reality to what exists in the moment. My imagination is constantly at work conjuring all kinds of possibilities of ideas, movement, intentions, etc. So, what actually presents itself in the moment is often different from what I may initially have had in my mind’s eye; which can lead to surprising discoveries about self as choreographer, interpreter.
When imagination has room to take flight anything is possible – including finding useful, creative, meaningful ways to engage with movement online. I think imagination asks us to work with what “is” while still being aware that any limitation online presents, is an opportunity for discovery and adaptation the creation process embodies.
My experience of imagination exists in my minds eye. For me it results in visualizing - visualizing memories, visualizing the future of what I want to create or experience in dance.
When participating online I often find myself visualizing memories from previous experiences in class, workshops, or meetings with others, to inform what I'm doing in my living room. For example, if I'm taking a dance class on zoom from a teacher I've worked with before - I'm imagining I'm in a class I took with them in person before.
I just imagined...
Is it possible that we are imagining that online interaction so very different...just saying...
I don't know what imagination is but it's happening all the time. it's associative but extra-dimensional, i think there are an infinite number of forms of imagination but i outline a few here that i experience:
(a) a stream of thoughts that arise without prompting to take me outside of the specific conditions i am or to reflect on where i am,
(b) an intentional attempt to do something that feels fresh or surprising. Imagination is a layering on of other frames of reference that might or might not have a physical response
(c) something is happening between us or between me and the objects around me that I cannot grasp but activates a narrative related to my identity and existential beliefs. if i choose to and work to reframe my own narrative, the imaginative spectrum changes.
...
e.g. I see you making shapes in space in your room and i am following you. Or I am feeling an excitement that takes me in a different direction from you and yet has been inspired by you. I have a sudden dream around your action in space. This moment of catching your flow is overtaken by a flow in my own body.
e.g. in moving very slowly, i see my space very differently, the curtains flatten out and the floor becomes round. I am really focused on what is happening in my body suddenly. I am mobilizing body parts and I don't know why, but it feels right-complete-connected... I feel in the moment that the body is following an image that I cannot see.
I believe creating happens when you (choreographer, director, interpreter) are preparing and collecting your idea in your mind as well as perhaps with physical objects(not books, music etc). Receiving happens when those ideas come out from your mind and pass down to others (dancers, actors, audeience etc.) I think this process is same as online and studio, but often receiving takes more time online and recivers creativity and imagination often merge with "creating" with thier own interpretation.
Lo wrote about Imagining in another post (in listening with one's body): "I believe my memory is enacting remembrances of being with people moving. (Lo)"
In the rehearsals I have, we are translating, imagining what we see on the screen to being in the studio/performance space, because we are rehearsing online in preparation for live production. (from Conversations 2021)
If we consider the screen as an entry point to a complete environment then all the choreographer’s concerns of space and time/rhythm form shape dynamic etc. still can operate on-screen and between the online and the offline, that then together become the performance place. (from Conversations 2021)