Creative and curious illustrator with sights set on portraying the way I see the world in a way it sends a meaningful and global message whilst creating beautiful aesthetics.
For my illustrated segment, I looked at movement tracing technology. I find beautiful how the vectors become one with the movement and the limbs of the dancer as well.
The fluidity of the movements was something I wanted to achieve, not necessarily through illustration, but through sound. Since last year I really have delved into the different aspects of performance, and what stands out is how sound or the lack of it gives it an entirely new dimension. I knew from the beginning that we would create a piece of audio to go alongside the rotoscope, it was simply begging for it, in particular, due to the source of our inspiration: language.
It has magic. ¡Tiene duende”! Is a very well known expression in the world of Flamenco. It is said of the person who possesses a special talent, be it singing, dancing, playing the Spanish guitar or the percussion box. To have ‘duende’ could be compared to having a soul. It speaks of the sentiment of the artist turned into pure art. His or her talent is borderline perfect, it is magical and authentic.
In our poem, on a segment Lakhi chose it read as follows:
I had no bones. Not one bit of me
was firm or harsh. I was air
itself. I was becoming pure performance.
The underlined section falls beautifully of the sentiment of ‘tener duende’. I suppose this project was something we became quite precious about, and it did become extremely hard to detach ourselves from the irremediable fluctuation of direction, from Amy, to us, back to the girls and us again. What I want to say with this, is that we didn’t feel we were in complete control of the events, nor the space or time in which we could work, thus being incredibly frustrating, in particular post session 2.
These are two examples of rotoscope animation , rather complex and advanced, but so simple and beautiful, we wanted to draw that simplicity into our animation.
Self Evaluation line work:
Here is a sample of the animation I produced, which unlike the rest of my team, was made with after effects instead of photoshop. The reason being I did not feel confident at all in using either program to edit 300 frames, so I decided to stick to the most practical option, which was after effects.The reason being was that I was also working on a video animation for DPS which required me to use after effects with a degree of proficiency I would not have had otherwise (I spent 48 hours animating and working with after effects). This is why I asked Marco to help me do a quick rotoscope/animation tutorial, and my practice with the program where the 48 hours spent on the animation. After effects does not offer only a more controlled effect of line work, it is very much like illustrator in the way its vectors are easily adjustable. My only complaint was the reduced amount of effects and the rigid looking lines, I would have wished to have more control over my line work and be able to create more sketchy fluid dynamics. Nonetheless, I’m very happy with how I have used the time and the project to improve my basic animation knowledge.
Audio is something I am very intrigued by the way that certain frequencies can make your hair stand on end, or how pitches and rumbles and beats can be felt from the bottom of our stomachs. I especially feel intrigued by the queues that sound provides in social interaction, in translation. Sound is not essential but it creates a completely new depth to the two-dimensional existence of images, in particular animation.
My initial source of inspiration in terms of audio research was Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s ‘The All hearing” (2014), a piece on noise pollution in the city of Cairo, which coincidentally records a mosque preaching,more like booming, their antipollution sermon through speakers, mixing in with the rest of the Cairo cacophony.The piece lives in the context of overcrowding, and Arabic Diaspora, with 350 million various ethnic and religious voices, all overlapping over each other.
I first saw his work at the Whitechapel Gallery last year and was struck by the different layers of meaning a simple video like this actually entails. I find it quite funny how I’m not particularly religious as an agnostic person, but I draw great inspiration from the practices of different religions from over the world.
To quote Spanish writer Valle Inclán in Bohemian lights
“A blind man sees the world so clearly, Eyes are but credible deceivers”
The next artist is also drawing inspiration from her culture’s religion.
Hamanot Tesfa is a brilliant composer, who working through SOAS has performed Amharic religious songs in combination with experimental modern sounds like electric guitar and han. I attended this event in person, and was an out of body experience, a trance like a state. Every pluck of a string or every hum made the body of everyone present react. Like sensors, our minds and bodies were completely directed towards the music, which due to the foreign nature of it, and the lack of understanding felt eerie, alien, warm welcoming and so much more. This firsthand experience pushed me to search for the closest possible through production.
From these two sound artists, I have drawn the force and passion to instil into new audio work. I know I have a long way to go technique and skill wise, but I’m determined to make amazing soundtracks for simple objects. (I have to admit I’m less keen on audiovisual and more so on audio and visual as separate elements)
Other works which have informed the mood and the overall mental image I kept in mind to relate the animation to the music were the following:
Wael Shawky III- Arabe al Madfuna
The eerie and surreal ambience in this video, paired with a monotonous monologue,the slow letany of his delivery hypnotizes the viewer, if not already trapped in the inverted colour videoclip.
Speaking of having magic within, I channelled a lot of this ‘anger’ that seems to consume dancers, the soul being poured into the singing. It’s not singing in my eyes, it’s modulating this very surreal energy which comes from within.
Ali Farka is one of my favourite musicians, and deserves due mention in this segment due to the continuous exposure to beats, sounds and different ways of materialising sound.
Here we can find some of that hibridity I have been exploring for the past two years…nothing is new and nothing is original, it is all a due translation/transliteration.
Here are some South American sampled music which is also another source of nurturing for my audio practice.
The self-awareness of the dancer in this context is complete. She knows how dance defines her, and where she starts and dance ends is unclear, like a lively jig she uses dance and dance uses her.
When we realised what an utter failure the green screen had been, we had two options:
To work with prior sessions video/to work with raw footage
To edit individually each frame so we would clean up the background
Unfortunately, due to the crazy ridiculous amount of work done, we chose to edit them. In hindsight, I’m still not sure whether that was the right decision, but the valuable lesson learnt also weighs up to expectations. At this points we where experimenting some serious team difficulties, where I was ill, overworked and simply drained from being a leader in a not so grateful team, so Lakhi stepping up was life-saving. Like somebody who’s been stunned by a sound grenade, I was struggling to make decisions whilst playing diplomat and chasing after people. I knew I could blindly deposit my trust in her to keep us afloat, to ensure we all got a portion of the project to work on and to continuously keep on top of who had done what and where the rest of the files were, as keeping a grip on the rotoscope concept. I’m incredibly grateful and as much as I hate that she took all the stress on herself, I couldn’t have taken up any more work with the audio as well.
I do not want to go into too much depth because it was extremely tedious,eye-wateringly boring and simply not what any of us wanted to do. Drawing frame by frame blew past like a breeze despite technical difficulties, but editing our frames to make them decent enough was time-consuming, and team dividing. The fact of the matter is nobody wanted to put in the effort, was disheartening.
Please find developmental tracks above, including the final audio piece before edited into the final one, which matches the video as well as being a bit longer with an add-on at the end.
Due to unexpected video length issues, the final cut of the audio has developed.Please find that below:
I found it really hard to translate(that word again) ideas and visuals to sound, I tried doing sketches to do that but it wasn’t exactly helpful. I had in mind to record Victoria’s idea of sounds and hard pronunciations, but due to time we did not, so when looking for animalistic/alien sounds, I had to look within the audiophile archives and played around with cleaning the original tracks. Editing them on their own as well as trying effects was interesting, but the best bit is when you lay them in the editing workspace and quite literally bend, morph and cut and paste into place. I felt a bit like Dr. Frankenstein during the process. I’m lucky to count with a musician/sound producer at home, as one of my flatmates has a band. He helped me clean out the tracks due to the lovely police sirens omnipresent in E&C
The cohesion between us was at times undermined by the excess of opinion and the lack thereof. To explain that, I would say that there were moments where we all had input and built upon this chimaera of ideas which grew and grew without shape or delimitations, and there were times where not enough questioning occurred, allowing for a specific line of work to carry forwards with some developmental issues.
An array of issues where part of this, amongst them time, the desire to be organised and execute a plan, the fear of misrepresentation, lack of technical skills as well as the unwillingness of dedicating a portion of time to physically coming into college to work.
In hindsight, I believe everyone worked hard, but It is hard to be equitable in terms of who put in most or least, as much as it is not humble to say, I feel Lakhi and I were extremely burdened, and it reflects in flaws which are evident after hand in…
To make up for the fact that the videos shot in the second session were barely usable due to the screen and the quality, Lakhi took upon herself the gargantuan task of organising the frame edition work. After putting them back together, it turned out that our video was too long, almost double than what was planned, affecting us all and it transferred onto the final edition of the video and sound which I did. I sped up the video to make it a minute, minute and a half, which was what my audio was prepared for, even slowed down the audio myself on premiere to compensate for that fact. I’m not super proficient with the program, but no one else wanted to do it so I took the responsibility and have failed Lakhi tremendously as it apparently cut off her animation in the process. I feel like I have undermined the entire project by making that mistake, but to be completely critical of myself and the rest of the team, no one checked it after I edited it and uploaded. They truly depended on each of us doing our jobs perfectly and blindly accepted when work was done for them, rather than going the extra mile of work to ensure it was correct. It happened with the green screen decision, it happened when Fran left us on the spot, it happened when not a single person apart from myself tried to make up for the loss of a partner on the session.
Victoria put together the animated video with the audio in the morning of the crit with movie maker because she said she was proficient with it, and could effectively and quickly do it to take over me. I was exhausted after working all night on the audio, and she said she could match it to the video. In order to do that she changed the audio to adapt to the longer video, in the process cutting my audio track out and editing her own version. Literally 20 minutes before the crit. For the sake of the project, I looked another way and told her to upload and present. For some technical reason it did not upload the audio and we had to present our work separately during the crit, which mortified us beyond reason.
This project has presented hurdles at every stage, with small yet significant attempts at what I hope is involuntary, sabotage. Everyone has made mistakes and good work, hence why I believe we were lacking cohesion and unanimity of intentions towards it, not necessarily bad work, but,
like with the Tower of Babel, we were speaking different languages
which we tried to bypass and continue to tackle forwards, but scarred the final product. In many ways, it is like persistence and determination of getting to the finish line primed over disbanding and failing, yet the outcome feels like a discombobulated chimaera which no longer feels the way we intended at the begining.
I feel like we have committed and compromised to this project, to being more flexible and capable of letting other ideas change the project, but I also feel shortchanged as they deposited trust on myself and Lakhi to deliver, yet I did not feel I could do the same conversely. That has left me with a bad aftertaste and ignore where I could have done more, or where they could have done more. I feel it is necessary for an external party to unpick what went wrong and truly allow us some insight into how we could have made this better for each other.
What defines which subjects or what lens you view life from? It is a varied array of things which make your identity, and create the process of conscious and subconscious decisions that will define your position towards certain topics and life itself.
For me, an unquestionable fact is my partially Christian upbringing, I was baptised and did my first Communion, and I managed to skip catechesis lessons because I really didn’t care about being a good Christian, which my parents saw as the compromise they had to make in order for me to follow the family tradition. I studied and was lectured about the lessons of the Bible. If anything, I cared about having a certain set of values which happen to beshare with a good christian’s morals: honesty, fairness and having sympathy and empathy towards my fellow living beings. From then onwards I have found myself to be rather critical of the institution, not because of their mythology or beliefs, but due to the man- run institution which represents in my views, a hypocritical judge and jury of the core which they believe in. I do not like the way in which it is unquestioned, for answering absolutely every matter of the face of this earth with a biblical metaphor, thus leading to the sheepish following without any sense of individuality or reason. In my view, they create misinformation and a voracious anthropocentric ego which feeds into the institution of power-driven rhetorics. I view the Bible as a “harmless” text written in riddles, a metaphor if you will of the very real events which occurred to man and had to be explained or used as a warning for future generations. Taking the Bible literally, is, Id comparable to worshipping someone’s personal diary which could simply be a novel or a personal reflection of his or her views on the society at the time.
This being said, I do not deny of my upbringing, it has informed my critical thinking process from early on as well as providing me with my own path upon which I look at the different forms of worship and life. The beauty of religion is that like Greek mythology has produced a flooding of rational, spiritual, political and moral thinking. Artists have for centuries created a pantheon of ‘superheroes’, who are still to this day remembered in some form, informing everything from architecture to philosophy and the very base of our consciousness as a collective. It’s not about the actual facts anymore, but it is about people’s imaginations and search for facts, looking for the answer as to why we exist. As an agnostic, I try not to close my mind to being informed by new elements of culture, with a particular accent in not buying anyone’s creed, but as a human being, mystery and myth ignites my imagination, even though I probably prefer to answer questions of tangibility and matter with science, I grow as a person by exploring our collective need for magic.
That bit contextualised, I would like to explain how the tower of Babel resonated strongly with the concept we where discussing after Anthony’s exhibition at the V&A.
In my view, (regardless of historical links to archaeological findings of Etemenaki, one of the greatest ziggurats of the time, whom Alexander the great intended to restore) the story of the tower of Babylon is a metaphor for human greed, ego and a rather intricate analogy of how humans can do great and terrible things when united by a common cause. It does not explain in any way shape or form how humanity actually branched out linguistically as it has done. In fact, my own recent research and discovery of the study of language have proven to me that language is a living thing, which adapts more to the environment and the necessity for expansion and modernisation parallel to man’s evolution. Thus, I view the chapter as a quasi-philosophical text, in which analogy is used to teach, not preach about human nature.
Threaded this way, I viewed it as a great platform which unites different contexts in which my colleagues and I were informed, and could potentially be a perspective easy to grasp for the audience. On that alone, and the incredible symmetry between “Babel” and “Babble” I proposed it as a solution from which to evolve our linguistic interpretation of the dance. Miranda even deepened on that divide by contextualising it in the modern day, with discrimination of foreigners and ‘otherness’. This for me confirms the way in which we can interpret and recycle ideas, not to preach to the dated choir, but to create our own examination of reality using a context that remains to be questioned due to its inconspicuous presence in society.
Miranda’s criticism towards the modern conceptualization of the fear of the foreign resonates for me a great deal with Brughel the old’s Flemish painting of the tower of Babel. The figure in the foreground is a bricklayer paying his respects to the King, with the background looking a lot lie Brughel’s city Antwerp. Indeed, it is about Nimrod, grandson of Noah and first sovereign of humanity, who seems to curse his vassals. Although the scene gives rise to speculations, I tend to think that it is a criticism of the stubbornness of the rulers who blame others for their delusions of grandeur. And this may make sense because many authors consider this work as a criticism of the Habsburgs. Brughel is using the tower of Babel as a platform to criticise society and political leaders as well as the ever-growing ego it foments.
It came as a shock when Victoria did not want to expand on an idea such as this merely because of a complete rejection of the symbology it might attract. I feel it was undermined and quickly discarded without too much thought, but discussing it with her I realised It might not be the best way to display equity across the board, and If a member is not willing to work on something that she categorically rejects as a person, who am I to decide for her what her work might be associated with?
It was an interesting conversation although heated, and I look forward to being able to have more discussions like these, with people patient enough to not just scoff and go away with their own views untouched, leaving mine scaldingly unrefuted too.
Nowadays I realise it is harder to have a diplomatic conversation in which all parties involved might disagree, yet endeavour to make their case and to allow cross-pollination of ideas shift perspectives, very much in a Socratic questioning manner. I will endeavour to seek out places and people who allow for this, and I will try to transfer this into my own life, infusing it in conversations which I have with people who reject questioning of their views. The ultimate goal is to expand one’s own views and perspective, and in the way, to affect whomever my interlocutor might be, the only way to give back my own passion for information.
The visual ethnography learnt in my Global Identities class inspired me to focus on the interviews in order to extract the clearest and most varied array of responses, as well as justifying the hows and whys of the different segments. For me, it was important to be able to tell apart when they reacted more naturally and more mechanically, as in my understanding it would be telling of how “alien” they felt towards the language.
It was crucial as well to be in control of the variables, as we live in London and the chances of someone being able to understand one of the 6 languages was quite high.
Because of the total lack of prior knowledge as to whom we’d work with, we made a few necessary assumptions, regardless, both of them spoke IndoEuropean languages, which made it easier for them to understand Spanish and Italian.
Here I will be focusing a search on Dance, what it represents broadly to the Spanish speaking community as well as in Spain specifically. Also, discoveries of poetry on the act of dance, and some existing examples of dance interpretations of poetry, like in the case of Gabriel García Marquez. Yumiko Yoshioka created this ‘100 years of solitude’ inspired piece of choreographed work, using the Japanese dance style ‘Butoh’. This piece is a fascinating interdisciplinary element of work, combining the historically relevant and highly charged with the emotion from the butoh dance.
Skin trembles and whispers
White wildfire of wrath
Powerful pounding at the temples
Gravity flickers and evaporates
Frenzied piroueting
Urgent and wicked
Nimble is the arrowhead on the scales
it does not lie
These are the poems which I was able to find relevant to dance itself.
Federico Garcia Lorca
La Carmen está bailando
por las calles de Sevilla.
Tiene blancos los cabellos
y brillantes las pupilas.
¡Niñas,
corred las cortinas!
En su cabeza se enrosca
una serpiente amarilla,
y va soñando en el baile
con galanes de otros días.
¡Niñas,
corred las cortinas!
Las calles están desiertas
y en los fondos se adivinan,
corazones andaluces
buscando viejas espinas.
¡Niñas,
corred las cortinas!Danza, danza en silenciosa armonía
en etérea coexistencia
en el desplome de precarias desavenencias
Fernando Bellido
danza en la luz primigenia
en el calor de la tierra
en algarabía, en muchedumbre celestial
danza al son del remanso
del nuevo amanecer
trino de ruiseñores
danza bella, sencilla, natural
al pueblo
al almácigo
al azul
a la lluvia
a la espiga
danza sublime, inconmensurable
dinastía del arte, del saber
de la luz
danza al tiempo
recónditos auspicios del arcoiris
que inciten
a vivir, luchar
danzar…
danza, danza siempre bella bailarina del amor
danza incluso
entre la pólvora, el alquitrán y
el terrible naufragar de los marginados
danza, danza siempre
ese mundo posible
ese resquicio humano que alumbre
aún
en sus más terribles tinieblas.
L. Ortiz
El aguaribay florecido
Muchachas de ojos de flores y de labios de flores.
En la sombra exhalada – ¿de qué su dulce hálito?-
los vestidos ligeros,muy ligeros, con pintas.
Arde de abejas el aguaribay, arde.
Ríen los ojos, los labios, hacia las islas azules
a través de la cortina
de los racimos
pálidos.
Ríen los ojos, los labios. ¿Véis las muchachas o es
la tenue sombra ebria
y bordoneada
que se alucina de muselinas claras
y de otras flores vivas – extrañas flores vivas-
riendo, riendo, riendo hacia las islas?
Muchachas de ojos de flores y de labios de flores.
Arde de abejas el aguaribay, arde.
****
¿PARA QUÉ EL VINO, amigos míos,
si allí la luna, en las aguas, ebria, se despliega?
Id a la orilla y sed de ella, dulcemente enajenada
en su propio vals antiguo
de velos de silencio que se igualan al fin, tenues, a la arena…
Sed de ella que ya el eucaliptus está en ella, más pálido.
Y acaso, acaso, un momento perdidos, amigos míos,
os encontraréis de la mano, luego, en el centro de la danza profunda,
figuras intercambiables e increíblemente ligeras, al cabo, de la danza…
¿Para qué el vino, entonces, si así seríais más ligeros?
***
DULCE ES ESTAR tendido
fundido en el espíritu del cielo
a través de la ventana
abierta
sobre los soplos oscuros…
Dulce, dulce…
El pensamiento amarillo de allá
es nuestro mismo silencio casi póstumo
libre
sobre los abismos…
Dulce, dulce haber en alguna manera muerto
hasta el primer jazmín de arriba
que titila de súbito
en la misma brisa del poema que leemos…
Dulce, dulce…
¿Pero has olvidado, alma, has olvidado?
Dulce, dulce, bajo el vértigo
de las enredaderas celestes
estar solo con Keats,
bajo Keats, mejor bajo otra liana eterna…
Oh melancolía, oh melancolía que se enciende como un jardín
sobre la terraza que flota en una luz pequeña…
¿En qué urnas etéreas, alma
olvidaste tu tiempo y tu piedad?
Bajo la breve dicha algo en el aire:
las ramas de la angustia, alma, que llaman…
una angustia que quiere dejar de ser en todas partes,
en todos, en todos los grados de la soledad…
desde la piedra, acaso, alma,
hasta el ángel que se contrae herido…
La vida quiere unirse, alma, de nuevo, por encima de los suplicios…
¿No oyes los gritos profundos del edén que quieren ser
con la lucecita desvelada, sí pero tierna, sin el fruto de la muerte
y libre al fin de sí misma?
Alma, dulce es el sueño,
pero no se roba ahora, ahora, a la memoria del amor?
Ay, el amor, ahora, con los ojos abiertos sobre el infierno,
sin poder alzarlos, serenos, hacia el cielo de todos,
o bajarlos, serenos, hacia su cielo íntimo para más puramente devolver…
****
ELLA ANUDA HILOS entre los hombres
y lleva de aquí para allá la mariposa profunda
-ala del paisaje y del alma de un país, con su polen…
Ella hace sensible el clima de los días, con su color y su perfume…
a su pesar, muchas veces, como bajo un destino.
Testimonio involuntario, ella,
de un cierto estado de espíritu, de un cierto estado de las cosas,
en que la circunstancia da su hálito…
Pero se dirige siempre a un testigo invisible,
jugando naturalmente con la tierra y el ángel,
el infinito a su lado y el presente en el confín…
Más es el don absoluto, y la ternura,
ella que es también el término supremo y la última esencia
con las melodías de los sentidos y los símbolos y las visiones y los latidos
para el encuentro en los abismos…
Mas tiene cargo de almas, y es la comunicación,
el traspaso del ser, “como se da una flor”, en el nivel de los niños,
más allá de sí misma, en el olvido puro de ella misma…
Y no busca nunca, no, ella…
espera, espera toda desnuda, con la lámpara en la mano,
en el centro mismo de la noche…
****
SÍ, MI AMIGA, estamos bien, pero tiemblo
a pesar de esas llamas dulces contra Junio…
Estamos bien…sí…
Miro una danzarina en su martirio, es cierto,
con los locos brazos, ay, negando la ceniza
y el crepúsculo íntimo…
Estamos bien…Cummings que se va, muy pálido,
al país que nunca ha recorrido,
mientras Debussy enciende el suyo, submarino…
Estamos bien…Pero tiemblo, mi amiga, de la lluvia
que trae más agudamente aún la noche
para las preguntas que se han tendido como ramas
a lo largo de la pesadilla de la luz,
con la vara que sabes y la arpillera que sabes,
en las puertas mismas, quizás, de la poesía y de la música…
Estamos bien, sí mi amiga, pero tiemblo de un crimen…
Cuándo, cuándo, mi amiga, junto a las mismas bailarinas del fuego,
cuándo, cuándo, el amor no tendrá frío?
****
AH, MIS AMIGOS, habláis de rimas
y habláis finalmente de los crecimientos libres…
en la seda fantástica os dan las hadas de los leños
con sus suplicios de tísicas
sobresaltadas
de alas…
Pero habéis pensado
que el otro cuerpo de la poesía está también allá, en el Junio de crecida,
desnudo casi bajo las agujas del cielo?
Qué haríais vosotros, decid, sin ese cuerpo
del que el vuestro, si frágil y si herido, vive desde “la división”,
despedido del “espíritu”, él, que sostiene oscuramente sus juegos
con el pan que él amasa y que debe recibir a veces
en un insulto de piedra?
Habéis pensado, mis amigos,
que es una red de sangre la que os salva del vacío,
en el tejido de todos los días, bajo los metales del aire,
de esas manos sin nada al fin como las ramas de Junio,
a no ser una escritura como de vidrio?
Oh, yo sé que buscáis desde el principio el secreto de la tierra,
y que os arrojáis al fuego, muchas veces, para encontrar el secreto…
Y sé que a veces halláis la melodía más difícil
que duerme en aquellos que mueren de silencio,
corridos por el padre río, ahora, hacia las tiendas del viento…
Pero cuidado, mis amigos, con envolveros en la seda de la poesía
igual que en un capullo…
No olvidéis que la poesía,
si la pura sensitiva o la ineludible sensitiva,
es asimismo, o acaso sobre todo, la intemperie sin fin,
cruzada o crucificada, si queréis, por los llamados sin fin
y tendida humildemente, humildemente, para el invento del amor…
Michi Cervantes
Mi oído escucha
mi corazón palpita,
el alma despierta,
mi cuerpo cobra vida y
¡se mueve!.
La música cual magia
me hipnotiza,
me hace vibrar
me hace sentir y,
¡bailo!.
El movimiento acompaña cada nota,
cada palpitación
cada respiro y
¡vivo!.
Y, a través del baile
doy las gracias y
a través del baile
me vivo
descubro en mi el amor,
la luz,
la alegría.
Brota de mi cuerpo una energía sin freno,
se desbocan los deseos y
¡soy música!.
Mi cadera y mis pies desobedecen,
cada uno tiene su propia independencia,
mis manos acarician el aire y
me disfruto a mi misma,
¡soy cuerpo!.
De pronto giro, siento que vuelo,
la música habla a través de mi
soy pulso, soy ritmo
soy armonía, soy sonido
soy imagen, soy movimiento
soy amor,
soy dolor
soy mensaje de gratitud
soy reclamo,
soy duelo.
La música me reviste
de lo que soy a pesar del atuendo,
soy nota musical,
soy instrumento.
Y mi cuerpo responde a la música
con amor,
con entrega
con voluntad.
Se transforma en mi palabra
en mis deseos,
en mis sueños;
el sonido me envuelve
la música suena, yo vibro.
Me trasporta,
me transforma y vivo.
Mi oído escucha
mi corazón palpita
el alma despierta.
Mi cuerpo cobra nuevamente vida y
¡se mueve!
Claudio Rodriguez
El Baile de las águedas
Veo que no queréis bailar conmigo
y hacéis muy bien. ¡Si hasta ahora
no hice más que pisaros, si hasta ahora
no moví al aire vuestro estos pies cojos!
Tú siempre tan bailón, corazón mío.
¡Métete en fiesta; pronto,
antes de que te quedes sin pareja!
¡Hoy no hay escuela! ¡Al río,
a lavarse primero,
que hay que estar limpios cuando llegue la hora!
Ya están ahí, ya vienen
por el raíl con sol de la esperanza
hombres de todo el mundo! Ya se ponen
a dar fe de su empleo de alegría
¿Quién no esperó la fiesta?
¿Quién los días del año
no los pasó guardando bien la ropa,
cuánto refajo de lanilla, cuánto
Cuánto manteo, cuánta media blanca,
cuánto refajo de lanilla, cuánto
corto calzón. ¡Bien a lo vivo, como
esa moza se pone su pañuelo,
poned el alma así, bien a lo vivo!
Echo de menos ahora
aquellos tiempos en los que a sus fiestas
se unía el hombre como el suero al queso.
Entonces sí que daban
su vida al sol, su aliento al aire, entonces
sí que eran encarnados en la tierra.
Para qué recordar. Estoy en medio
de la fiesta y ya casi
cuaja la noche pronta de febrero.
y aún sin bailar: yo solo.
¡Venid, bailad conmigo, que ya puedo
arrimar la cintura bien, que puedo
mover los pasos a vuestro aire hermoso!
¡Águedas, aguedicas,
decidles que me dejen
bailar con ellos, que yo soy del pueblo,
soy un vecino más, decid a todos
que he esperado este día
toda la vida! Oídlo.
Óyeme tú, que ahora
pasas al lado mío y un momento,
sin darte cuenta, miras a lo alto
y a tu corazón baja
el baile eterno de Águedas del mundo,
óyeme tú, que sabes
que se acaba la fiesta y no la puedes
guardar en casa como un limpio apero,
y se te va, y ya nunca…
tú, que pisas la tierra
y aprietas tu pareja, y bailas, bailas.
IGNACIO RODRÍGUEZ GALVÁN
Bailad mientras que llora
el pueblo dolorido,
bailad hasta la aurora
al compás del gemido
que a vuestra puerta el huérfano
hambriento lanzará. ¡Bailad! ¡Bailad!
Desnudez, ignorancia
a nuestra prole afrenta,
orgullo y arrogancia
con altivez ostenta,
y embrutece su espíritu
torpe inmoralidad. ¡Bailad! ¡Bailad!
Las escuelas inunda
turba ignorante y fútil,
que a su grandeza funda
en vedarnos lo útil,
y nos conduce hipócrita
por la senda del mal. ¡Bailad! ¡Bailad!
Soldados sin decoro
y sin saber nos celan,
adonde dan más oro
allá rápidos vuelan:
en la batalla tórtolas,
buitres en la ciudad. ¡Bailad! ¡Bailad!
Ya por Tejas avanza
el invasor astuto:
su grito de venganza
anuncia triste luto
a la infeliz república
que al abismo arrastráis. ¡Bailad! ¡Bailad!
El bárbaro ya en masa
por nuestros campos entra,
a fuego y sangre arrasa
cuanto a su paso encuentra,
deshonra nuestras vírgenes,
nos asesina audaz. ¡Bailad! ¡Bailad!
Europa se aprovecha
de nuestra inculta vida,
cual tigre nos acecha
con la garra tendida,
y nuestra ruina próxima
ya celebrando está. ¡Bailad! ¡Bailad!
Bailad, oh, campeones,
hasta la luz vecina,
al son de los cañones
de Tolemaida y China,
y de Argel a la pérdida
veinte copas vaciad. ¡Bailad! ¡Bailad!
Vuestro cantor en tanto
de miedo henchido el pecho
se vuelve en negro manto
en lágrimas deshecho
y prepara de México
el himno funeral. ¡Bailad! ¡Bailad!
Ramon Lopez Velarde
¿Dónde estará la niña
que en aquel lugarejo
una noche de baile
me habló de sus deseos
de viajar, y me dijo
su tedio?
Gemía el vals por ella,
y ella era un boceto
lánguido: unos pendientes
de ámbar, y un jazmín
en el pelo.
Gemían los violines
en el torpe quinteto…
E ignoraba la niña
que al quejarse de tedio
conmigo, se quejaba
con un péndulo.
Niña que me dijiste
en aquel lugarejo
una noche de baile
confidencias de tedio:
dondequiera que exhales
tu suspiro discreto,
nuestras vidas con péndulos…
Dos péndulos distantes
que oscilan paralelos
en una misma bruma
de invierno.
Ricardo Hernandez Bravo
El ojo se hace fuerte
El ojo se hace fuerte tras la máscara,
furtivo en el festín de los escotes.
Tienta en el cruce de miradas,
puntea los sentidos como cuerdas
en la noche de alcohol.
Bebe en los pasadizos de la música,
en los desagües de la piel
enfebrecida por el baile.Busca en el destape
la intimidad perdida.
This is a post in construction, the general outlines will be established, but the content of the B-Day (briefing day) and the general ins and outs of getting ourselves organised will be added little by little.
Uno came to be as we realised we needed a name, we joked around about the fact that we all speak 6 different languages or more, yet all speak one common language. The sheer production of a word that would encompass that also gave us our first real thread to begin our project with a fascinating subject, language & translation.
So UNO it is, and our first group task was to voice (after an initial mad verbal storm where we chatted about interests, ideas, previous work we had done individually, place of origin, real pronunciation of our full names, even what kind of weather we preferred) our flaws, our skills and technical aspirations as well as what areas we would like to improve or try out.
In terms of communicating as a group, without any intentions of shutting down the creative process or individual voices, I feel we could improve the way we direct our conversation, since there are a few of us who are very vocal and quick, yet others need the space to calmly express their mind. A very useful experience to draw from to improve communication was our session in DPS with the groups, and since Lakhi and Victoria are also in it, I hope they see the value of that method and support it as well. I feel that an initial mad and energetic mind storm is perfect to get everything rolling, but I also think that rhythm is not necessarily helpful, especially not if we need to follow a single or parallel trains of thought simultaneously (it’s hard to keep up if the ideas are new or hard to understand).
After establishing which areas everyone individually wants to pursue, or excel at we voiced our weaknesses and by unanimous decision appointed me as Team Leader and Victoria as Team deputy.
Victoria is extremely opinionated and trained in fine art. Her work normally revolves around the human body and has previous experience photographing in the style we’d like to experiment with and her expertise in body language will be of great use for the project.
Miriam is a well-spoken gal with a very clear sense of direction. She will listen and take in the information and perfectly take note of key concepts that are essential to distinguish from alternative or not as viable ideas. We all agreed that Miriam had excellent planning and organising skills and decided that she’d be a great support to the group’s plan of action.
Jak is humble and down to earth guy who wishes to participate and explore his own voice as a breakdancer and is happy to assist in translating concepts, the way of working and mentality of the dancers as well as helping in several areas, such as filming, drawing and photographing.
Fran has previous experience in setting up her own exhibition, has typographical and rotoscope animation experience that will be very handy as we intend to work in a video format towards the final piece.
Lakhi is a great illustrator who wants to learn more animation and how to translate from the stillness of a page onto a moving image, and also push her skills behind the camera herself.
About me, I like seeing work perfected, pushed and polished. Because of that curatorial skill, I like to think that I have a voice worth listening to, as well as having a diplomatic nature capable of laying out things as they are and getting through to people by being realistic in order to achieve a greater goal. My weakness lies in my introverted nature, which suffocates my first intentions. To improve on that I wanted to become the main spokesperson, the messenger of our ideas… Due to that, I feel they might have seen drive and passion as well as some sort of leadership skill in me which led them to believe in me as a leader.
Jak In-house Choreographer Translator/Reliable art Worker
Fran Art Director/ Final product Exhibition Director
Portraiture in Dance by Anthony Crickmay seems like an excellent starting point for drawing theorisations from an organic and speechless discipline such as dance, and thats where we headed on Wednesday morning.
Walking around, drawing some poses and reading a bit on the historical perspective of dance, performance and opera one is presented with similar content that varies slightly as technology changes and as trends come and go. Talented dancers singers and actors have been photographed both for portraiture and as part of the performance, and there is a common ground between the two which I personally drew: They are vessels of emotion, agency and intention, a reflection if you like, of the desires and expectations of the audience. This thought passed me as a result of a comment made by Laura Aldrige;
the audience expects to come in and sit and observe the performers in a binary preexistent setting; a stage and a spectator seated area. We strive to break that and make them walk around dancers or vice-versa, we love challenging the preconception of how you attend to performances.
A barrier of silence and obscurity shrouds the audience in what seems to be a veil of privacy, so that the observer can retain the privacy and seclusion of his/her own emotion. The performers are shone in bright light, their movements exaggerated, their personas a hyperbole of whatever role they take inspiration from. In my mind, I see the performer as the puppet and puppeteer; they are the puppet the audience needs to use to express a range of emotion they cannot or will not show and the performers agency in how they push the pressure points in the audience’s minds to make them react how the choreographer wishes to is a fine art and the ultimate reason why it is not “just dance”.
This binary setting of the observer and the observed resembles in a more simplified metaphor, a mirror which translates what we see but cannot understand or explain.
In the ancient world of analphabetism, oral history and the beginnings of writing, those who held the power of the word held the power over the common people. IT is particularly so in the case of scribes in ancient Egypt, where not even the Pharaoh could read, thus relaying a fundamental trust in these men of words and transcription.
I was particularly keen on the first room, where a series of long exposures showed dancers in mid air snaps or in slightly blurred by motion static postures, enhancing emotion, movement and one of my favourites, suspension in movement.
Here are some of my sketches done in oil pastels and graphite. I assigned colour to a certain emotion, or tension and decided to draw the pose that reflected that sensation on my sketchbook. I also associated the blurred lines in each photograph with keywords such as push, pull, peace, crouching tiger etc in order to translate the quasi synesthesiac impulses that occur after a prolonged observation. In a particular image I even draw a clear mental comparison between the aggressively ragged edges of one of the photographs with a tuneless strum of a guitar chord. This synesthesia-like approach i took reinforces my reflection that performance is a translation of emotion, and precisley of translations we will be talking collectively as a group in our UNO meetings. Continue reading “Dance, through my eyes.”→
A group effort between illustrators, animators, video artists, break dancers and the Siobhan Davies Dance group young Choreographers
Motion/Gestures/ things to try
El Seed’s work was always fascinated me for its fluidity, like Chinese calligraphic paintings. I think his work is specifically in tune with the interpretation that is setting the tone for the project our group, UNO is currently working on. We have decided to invest in language, to explore what it means phonetically and tempo-wise to the dancers, and we then want to reinterpret what it means to us. Contrasting the two disciplines of conscious(us, the concept developers) and unconscious (them, the reaction dancers) reflection of different languages, we hope to catch a glimpse of what we as humans react to in ‘foreignness’ so we can speculate a theorisation of our own.
It is clear which direction my ideas at this point were anchored in mark making through exploring gestural movement, the flow from the mind and heart to limbs, as an extension of our abstract existence is materialising through our work.
Fluidity was where my mind was at, and, basing myself in one of the sketches Miranda made early on when talking about language, which reminded me of an animated series which draws from organic dance-like moves to create fascinating animations. Below are a few sketches of the series characters, suggesting the way in which I thought of applying it to a possible rotoscope.
Cloudiine 