My first video exchange occurred with Natasha, who I’ve found to be a very eclectic artist with a penchant for collaboration. Before we created videos, we emailed back and forth a bit, and she revealed that she is currently practicing Butoh dance, which I knew would set the tone for a totally different “conversation” than I will have with my other contemporary/modern dance collaborators.
She sent the first video and worked it around text from her poem titled “After Skin, After Stone,” which is part of a “multivalent collaborative project involving artists from all over the world,” according to Ms. Marin. What was born is the following:
Natasha hit me with a video that was dually impressive and unexpected. I wasn’t anticipating so many effects and fewer full movement phrases, so upon viewing, I had to step outside my box a bit to create what I thought was a “proper” response. I wrote to her:
So, I decided that because my conversation will naturally be different with each collaborator, the best way to respond to your video would be to approach it like a show and tell session. You showed me the medium in which you currently work, and in response, I’ve incorporated a couple of different concepts I’ve been exploring. On my own, I’ve been working a lot with perspective. And with Jigsaw Soul, another collaboration where I work, we’ve been doing a lot of filming focusing on specific body parts and their unique movements, which we will be incorporating into our live show. The result is the following:
I find it interesting that I felt the need to change the way I would “speak” to Natasha, based on the way she began a conversation with me. Was I afraid she wouldn’t understand me if I simply choreographed or improvised a full movement phrase as I had originally planned? Was I afraid she wouldn’t fully accept me as an artist if I didn’t prove I was capable of making my projects multimedia? As a real-life example, this reminded me of a friend’s story about changing the way he speaks to his Muslim friends, as he’s afraid they will judge him negatively if he, a former Muslim, divulges the details of his now-atheist lifestyle. It seems to be human nature to constantly find commonality with strangers in order to form bonds and avoid risking rejection.
I’m curious to see how my conversation with Natasha progresses and if I we will both continue to approach it similarly as the weeks go on. Will we continue to reach for common ground or simply speak in our own movement languages? Can we properly react to each other if we simply use our own respective movement vocabulary?
Until then, I eagerly await my next video …
