Landscape Form︎︎︎
The Landscape Form is currently in an early stage of development. We include it here as an example of how an ensemble comes to identify and define the building blocks of a form.
Over time, within our practice, we began to notice recurring patterns that reflected the structure of natural landscapes. In the spring of 2010, we organized a small working group to explore what structuring principles are at play when these images arise in our perception. We began by identifying visual patterns that are commonly recognizable as a landscape. Then we looked for structuring principles that could guide the ensemble’s attention to these patterns during an improvisation. These principles included spatial relationships, texture (weight, qualities of movement), amplification, repetition, and nesting. Finally, we observed how constraining our improvisation to these compositional elements would affect our composing.
Structuring from the visual into the language of EI:
Visual Image: We begin by looking together at a visual image of a landscape—a photograph, a painting, or a view of a real natural setting. We identify the essential compositional elements of the image, which might include foreground/background, pervasive textures, and spatial relationships.
Identification of Structuring Principles: We translate these elements into structuring principles that can guide the movement vocabulary and interactions of the dancers. Textures within the image might suggest particular qualities of fluid states to guide the movement vocabulary. Spatial relationships in the landscape might guide the ensemble’s use of space. The elements of the landscape image might also suggest a nature of relationship between events, e.g., the passing of time (i.e. washes, retrogrades, rhythm, or theme and variation).
Practice: We enter the improvisation using the structuring principles as constraints.
Adaptation: Once the ensemble has experienced the landscape from the initial structuring principles, we enter a process of selection through repeated practice—adapting and renegotiating the structuring principles to best capture or embody the nature of the landscape. This phase involves consideration of what degree of constraints enables us to repeat a specific landscape while offering the greatest possible freedom of choice-making to the performers.
Application: The ensemble can apply the constraints built in this process to recognizing and developing landscape images within open-ended improvisations. Setting up a pathway, a strong fore- ground/background relationship of contrasting textures, or a solo that amplifies gestures of other dancers throughout the space can become signals to the group that a landscape form is emerging.
Welcome to mapping collaboration, a toolbox for workshopping and creating across disciplines...
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
The inspiration for this project came from faculty and students at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts where BFA, MFA and PhD programs in Dance, Theatre Production and Design, Visual Art, Film, and Music and Sound all work together in studio settings and playfully experiment with processes of art-making.
We wanted to create a database of projects, assignments and theory that we collect inside the studio and from research happening in other places. We are curious about how we collaborate and how structures reoccur, translate and deviate from one discipline to another.
Composition is central to these processes and offers a base for our approaches and experiments. We are excited about what our students are doing and inspired by the new languages in contemporary art and performance we continue to see develop.
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
