This opens up to conversations about dance for the screen....?

Consistently found it easier to work online with people previously known. This may be because there is much to figure out with the adjustments to being online and so getting to know each other articitcally and personally is not yet another thing. ...even the speaker view or pin view lacks detail and dimensionality and teh person is still so small, so knowing the person I fill in what I am missing- this is not always a good thing because maybe I am filling in incorrectly! so there have been times when I ask the dancer to demonstrate or work with a closeup camera so I can really see closely. This works. I can hold that information in my mind when we go back to a more open view. (from Conversations 2021)

Changes in flow of work time: I intentionally ask everyone to start close to their camera so we can "check-in" at the beginning of a session. (in studio people may be all over the room warming up, some chatting with each other, and I'd go up to each one to say hello). I can't sense when people are tired (mentally or physically) so I now pre-schedule breaks into my plan and I remind people to ask if they need a break (sometimes the pre-scheduled in not at a good time). The end of the session is always a shock. Even after a year and a half I have not gotten used to the sudden black screen and immediately being alone in my own room. (from Conversations 2021)

a practical response: It is very useful to be able to see people at a distance and switch to closeup (e.g. on zoom- gallery view, speaker view, pin several to see just a few simultaneously. This is similar to standing in the front/back of a room/theatre to get a wide view, walking close to someone for details, and narrowing my focus to see just a few at a time (or dividing them into groups). however the closeup is different online- I can see detail without intruding on the person's personal space. (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)

hmmm....your openness to the place, whatever it is, as a generative place... maybe your Openness is the place (i.e. place not being studio nor screen nor park...nor...)

You have been busy both with distanced rehearsals and live-stream and filming, AND with online interactions. Could it be that your "hybrid" creation locations are giving you a balance (not felt by those who are only isolated online) and/or...Are you able to fulfill your cravings through the work you are doing online?

@lo, she-her Maybe the interim step is fly away to gain perspective and to receive and gain knowledge with perspective, then, not stay away too long, return to be active.

Finding the dancer becomes an abstraction and so I see the material in a different way from how I saw it live, and this is proving useful. After studio rehearsals I have often looked at videos of the rehearsal to see if what we have worked on still holds my interest and what works or doesn't. When online a similar king of feedback comes from the screen in real time. (from Conversations 2021)

@maxine like forgetting about the flesh and blood and breath? the way gun shots are so clean on tv?

Generative space... I've been trying lots of formal approaches that I haven't normally used. There are many forms but I'll speak about one I tried. Unison. On Zoom there are all the boxes so we try the material in unison and I know it won't work because of all the delays and what-not but maybe we will discover something. We discover that as performers there is no difference between doing the material as soloist or in unison- we remain individuals and never become a group. On the screen, as a routine, there is also no group but individuals phasing in and out of each other's timing, and this has become almost a trend in online performance these days. So it seems that, from both the performer and the viewer viewpoints, the whole concept of Dance Unison, is dependent on being in the same place. This is interesting because the it leads to wondering "if not unison then what?" (from Converstaions 2021)

For me, as the dancer, a very set piece that is tightly choreographed is easier to work on online. I perform the moves and then can put myself into it, especially when I already know the other people in the rehearsal. But it's not direct. For me the problems happen because of technology, even with ones that I know, and changing platforms is more extreme than changing studios. For instance, sound and picture delay is a problem on a platform like Zoom. On Instagram you don't see the people but they can make comments. What I love about dance is that it is direct. How can we keep that online? (from Conversations 2021)

In the duet, we stayed connected through Concept and Theme and checked into each other through eye contact through the screen, but we were in two different worlds. When I wasn't watching the screen or if the sound was poor or off, I didn't have a clue what the other was doing. It was less dancing together and more providing content for the choreographer/director. (from Conversations 2021)

Can we describe how we perceive if we take away dominance of sight and hearing?

@Susan Lee You called us on the non-specific language- well done! Thinking back to that conversation, talk was around avoiding a non-determinable superficiality to the material being generated when working online, and "deeper" referring to "internal" or more complex than their tendencies to watch each other on screen and respond with shapes.

Sometimes I just wish maybe we all fly to space and create a new world and then we’ll proceed. (from Conversations 2021)

It's so different from the way I usually work in close contact with others. It’s in my body but out of our bodies; very intellectual, very demanding. Developing trust on the screen process is a big part of it, and trust with the collaborators that are on screen with me and with the director’s approach. It takes time which we don't always have so in the future I hope to be in processes that allow for that time. (from Conversations 2021)

As soon as we set up the video, I could enter – I could see myself entering and yet I didn’t feel like I was being watched by a camera – it was the same ritual that I do when I enter the stage – I prepared myself for that. While dancing I watched the video and he watched his video, we could see ourselves and each other from an outside view, and feel ourselves inside the dance at the same time. It kind of twisted our brain membrane backwards. Connected in a very different way. (from Conversations 2021)

Changing Choices: As soon as we set up the video, I could enter – I could see myself entering and yet I didn’t feel like I was being watched by a camera – it was the same ritual that I do when I enter the stage – I prepared myself for that. While dancing I watched the video and he watched his video, we could see ourselves and each other from an outside view, and feel ourselves inside the dance at the same time. It kind of twisted our brain membrane backwards. Connected in a very different way. (from Conversations 2021)

I still have no idea of the full scope and possibilities - I don’t know how to work code. I know what steps to be taken but I am really relying on the AR designer, the video designer, the sound designer to really put this thing together, but they are really looking to me to create that artistic vision of what the project is going to be... (from Conversations 2021)