Workshop: Day 15

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 , Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11, Day 12, Day 13,
Day 14, Day 15, Day 16, Day 17, Day 18, Day 19, Day 20, Main

(Friday) N is feeling low from a lack of support from the larger system. P comforts N by saying that what matters now is that it is going to happen and to concentrate on that. P also says that he does things as a maverick, which might have caused issues, and I say I wouldn't’t have it any other way --because it never would have been done otherwise.
Earth rehearsal: There is a nice experience working on Earth, an onstage character relationship begins to develop with Beth and Jimmy in Utah, M, and N around the death (and resulting comforting) dialogue. P suggests I say "bent back" rather than "bending back".	Earth Rehearsal Earth Rehearsal 2 Earth Rehearsal 3 Earth Rehearsal 4
K works with M on Air: K says to M, “Move slowly with pauses…moving quickly destroys the visual moment.” M suggests loosing the flute played live on stage (N disappointed). M wants to dance spasmodically during smog and natural disasters. K suggests that instead she works on hiding and revealing, opening and closing her wings. It looks magical. B is here. P gets a wireless mic for M to keep the sound loud enough for the bubbles to react. K notes how little is going on but how right and potent the image can be. She talks about not fighting the technology.
N, P, P, M, B all do the scrim tying, it's a great communal activity.
P tests the bubbles with his recorder. The bubbles are so sensitive that they react when N laughs. They remind me of fireflies now that they are small. We play in the space. (N invites A down to play. A picks up more posters.)	P with Air Air Test Air Test 2
Sensors: B and P are going to set up Max &Jitter on P’s Mac. B & P get tap-tiles to play. Getting the Jitter window to play on the sound monitor, so the desktop is not visible is difficult. B reworks his patch noting that "Max reads left to right and top down." B had to move the order of the patch, move screen, then full screen- saving the censor configurations.
Earth File exchange: B/P/N discuss keeping B’s Earth animation in the background . N wants to demonstrate the idea of animated scene painting shifting subtlety. We want to give the scenic design MFA people an example of movement in projectionist sets.
(Early on a professor mentioned something about each section having a lead artist, and N balked at that, not wanting one person’s vision to take precedence over another’s. We each work as a group to come up with the scene as a group. Well it has become as predicted: M's section is Air, N claimed Earth, Fire is K’s, and N has come up with an idea for water which K and E are sharing. In one sense A, B, Mk, and P are support artists---but no! There is something more to the process than that. Everyone's opinions and contributions mix. I take the opinions of B/P to mind in Water and K/E are more than half the content of the scene, I see M clearly working with B asking for bigger dots with color, and he gently reigning her in with the technical realities of the sound reactive animation’s effect on processor speed—and she adapts beautifully (eventually) to the shapes he presents her with (I still miss the large bubbles). A is working well on his own with the hamburger footage. Sometimes I feel as if I am at the center of the file swap—acting as a courier/ message hub—while P is the media conversion point. K and P have the most open, interactive, and giving attitude toward this new type of process. (See video comments.) So I guess, overall it did begin to work out—and I was so impressed and pleased with ourselves when we began working together as a team of artists/technologists and that we ourselves created something new in form and content…we made it happen on our mini ASU live space stage. Eventually things seemed to flow so well, it seemed silly that we had to struggle so hard for such a simple, short, well running show. But…it never was simple, we hit quite a few roadblocks with the space, scheduling, and soon tech. I kind of felt before the midpoint of rehearsal that dancers were just dancers, tech/artists B was just that, K was just a choreographer, A was just a old-school drama person, Mk just a sound guy, P was a talented technical director—all separate kinds of people who were barely sure why/how to be in the same room together---but no!- M is the first clue that we were all crossing over a bit, she was dancing, acting, writing, and even trying her hand at collecting images, likewise…I wrote, acted, created video, worked on technology, P ended up playing recorder backstage, creating art through video capture of the dancer on stage, Mk lent his voice to Fire dialogue—the cookout, and gathered video, as well as looked out for the production in terms of how we were relating to the center and sound staff, K had written and performed in her piece, lent her skill to M’s exploration of Air movement with wings and given me impetus to shape Water visually (which I began to be both open and protective of), A acted (against his initial impulses), worked with PIG equipment for the first time, did video work and began to loosen up and express joy. B was the most like a single type of person—but he was the hub of all interactive activity—our media glue—and in a sense, I felt he too – by the nature of being involved in a performance which involved other people (he became more flexible with his schedule after calling in sick and realizing how much performers and all depended on him being there)—became more integrated into the whole group – it as if we had somehow fostered the spirit interdisciplinary as we struggled toward innovation.)