Process: Shoe balance

A test run of a shoe balance, performed across four phones. Making a single figure travel across multiple phones will require more precision in both filming and performance. ie the film playing on the far right will need to have stillness for the amount of time each figure takes to walk across. Also, I’ll need to add seconds to each film to represent the time it takes for the figure to travel the ‘space’ between each phone (even though this ‘space’ doesn’t actually exist!) More complex than it seems perhaps?

Whereas for the last dance project, each video going in and out of sync worked in its favour, it may not be quite right for this project.

I’ll need to start doing more tests, and perhaps choreographing the movements so as to keep them in time. It would be really satisfying to watch a figure walk fluidly between devices, as if each device were merely a window the viewer is looking through.

On another note, there seems to be a narrative to this piece, although I have yet to pin it down to a title yet. The shoes all have some significance (as shoes surely do), as does the process of balancing on shoes I can’t actually walk very far in. Femininity, ability, moving forwards, trying not to fall…etc

 

More work to do…

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Document, document, document

First attempt

So, the main trick to tight rope is…not falling off!

Resist the urge to fall!

Yeah. My first attempt wasn’t particularly bad, though I didn’t manage to make it all the way. I’m awaiting my next opportunity to practice by walking up and down a makeshift pole in my living room, and doing various core strengthening exercises.

This month I’ve had to temporarily move out of my studio, which has made it a bit difficult to make work so I’m mostly testing out miniature ways of projecting at home at the moment. I’m interested in using digital techniques to ‘perform’ pieces I’ve been testing out, such as this piece where I walk along a line of shoes…

A test run of a video of the same piece, played inside one of the shoes.

Whilst I’m going through the early stages of research (and also recovering from a cold!) I’ve started a Pinterest board of where my mind is going. Take a look if you like…

‘Balancing|Projecting’

I’ve decided to start keeping a blog about my final year project process – I already do fairly regular updates on social media, but as part of this course, we’re asked to keep a blog or journal…so here it is.

I’ve begun traipsing further into performance-based, digital work- my penultimate project ‘#dancingontheinternet’ combined two major interests of mine: contemporary dance and the internet. Or more specifically, smartphones and social media. Over the course of the project, I learned two contemporary dance sequences, and ‘performed’ them on smartphones, using a video looping app. The movements went in and out of sync with one another- like on social media, the moving parts joined up whilst remaining separate and disconnected.

#dancingontheinternet

For this new project, I wanted to take these ideas further. For my process, I have begun learning how to tightrope walk. Ever since I first saw a woman walk in high heels on a thin wire at NoFit State Circus I have wanted to be able to walk a tightrope. In 2017, I managed to crowdfund enough money to do a tightrope challenge for the circus’s charity, but was unfortunately too unwell to be able to do it. I was heartbroken, and since missing out on this, I have thought of little else.

I’ve also thought a lot about balance, and the physical and mental implications of the word. Balancing my emotions, my diet, my relationships, my work and social life is an ongoing challenge, especially as I am often unwell, and so the meditative process of physically balancing I find particularly interesting.

In addition to this, I’ve been researching projecting, and starting to experiment with simplified ways of projecting: shoebox projector, Pepper’s Ghost, and other ways.

I’m hoping that these two processes can be merged somehow in a way, and this blog will be how I begin to do that.

‘Crystal ball’ with film projected inside.