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h & lev 2

summer / archive

Summer is here and everyone is taking a break. I am spending some time planning, sorting, organising; archiving. There is so much that needs saving, rearranging and all this is giving me ideas about new projects... in the meantime, enjoy the summer, relax, think, read, design, sketch and have some fun too.

amanda briggs - experimental research

ar⋅chive

  noun, verb, -chived, -chiv⋅ing.

–noun

Usually, archives documents or records relating to the activities, business dealings, etc., of a person, family, corporation, association, community, or nation. (source: www.dictionary.com)

Authors' last words....for now.

Please read the Performance East blog - more recent updates there (the two go hand-in-hand). Also YouTube will be updated soon. I will continue editing/uploading some more and will keep the blogs active for a while longer, but perhaps with less regularity now.

Tea break...

110/H.Saarinen

More blog ideas are being planned, as I write this... so keep visiting for news.
Hei

Final 'Performance East' project presentations

umit

Presentations took place on Thursday 21st May 2009 at University of Hertfordshire. There was indeed a wide selection of ideas and choreographic journeys... that I will need more time to document it all. As I don't wish to leave the memory to linger with no evidence of it, I will here post a random selection of images. Recordings of selected video footage is being put together for relevant e-channels.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable day, as, really, the idea was to experiment, explore and see where that took you - and, indeed, it did take you places.. myself, Anne Tilby and Benedict Anderson all agree. I hope you will use this experience and remember how wonderful it can be to step outside that expected box... Enjoy.

More later when I have the opportunity, with more careful time, to edit the footage.

H

Stephanie

Ahmed

Preparing for presentations

Everyone is working really hard right now on final preparations for the Performance East critique on Thursday. This will be recorded and used for the purpose of the site-seeing project. We hope you guys in Cape Town are developing your projects in interesting directions - have been checking out the blogs you have set up. Encouraging to see the blogs and various channels starting to grow. This should continue somehow... Hopefully everyone is getting something out of this, a learning experience; realisation of how possible it is to communicate in this way. Yes, it requires commitment and time (can be very time consuming - but also rather addictive..).

Our project has taken us from a short improvised performance/idea, through experiments with video, photography and more performance. Spatial connections have been woven into the fabric of the choreography (placed back, finally at the Whitechapel Gallery) - working out ways of experiencing a space 'through new eyes'. As designers, this skill of conceptual and improvised techniques, using ourselves as a tool to test spatial qualities - and how we, as occupiers of space, connect when we use or pass through space, is a valuable one to nurture.

Students have used a range of techniques; from graceful cartwheels, jumps and mimicry, poetry, dance, measuring, drawing to observations and recordings... and found, through this journey, the joy of the accidental discovery - as we now have evidence that the creative process, specifically through random and improvised initial experiences, has given the final outcome a raw, beautifully unique quality, yet carefully developed and individually performed.

It has been, and will continue to be, an experience to observe, from where I stand, the growth of process, the ideas and discussions, the laughs and 'happy accidents' that made it all a memorable project.

After Thursday's presentations we will report back here on e-site-seeing and then continue to keep our collaborative sites open for a while longer. I would encourage students to carry on using blogs and other communication e-channels.

More later......

14th May 2009 - link to other and your own Blog...

                                                                                                                       Amanda, analysis

See also the Performance East blog - these blogs do have overlap - so you need to be checking both. Now we have some new followers and this is a good way of keeping in touch with interesting blogs - you can now create your own BLOG - why not give it a go? Then become a follower of the e-site-seeing/Performance East blog and it will create a further layer of contacts and sharing. 

Students - any video files - send them to me and I can upload via youtube - I have some files already from the presentations today and will select random Work In Progress.

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11th May 2009 - progress and investigation

                                                                  Page from Martha Graham's notebook (Elena's research)

11th May

Progress is happening in the form of sketch ideas - now developed into further performances, some recorded on video or camera stills. Movement / spatial connections are analysed, searched and established through a range of media and experimental tests.

Students - please send images and WIP details so everyone can share, enjoy and discuss your progress! Our google group is growing slowly but surely, students, get signed up and start getting involved.

Yi/Research