Karen Nelson’s “Tune a Banana” Workshop
Karen Nelson came to the Bay Area March 2011. It was a wonderful immersion; we lived in the embodiment of CI into Material for the Spine rolls into her unique sensation and design that is Tuning. You can really see the practice in the forms thru our actions in the image space- that clarity that comes from the specificities of rolling with Steve’s “perfect forms”. On the second day, we ended up in a run that had a delightful score; it had an accumulation from a solo who called “begin” into a pause – an invocation for the next to enter in…. Here are some of the pics from that finale:
pics by the group
must tune again.
Tuning Lab 2010
Ray Chung and I put together a tuning lab for the month of November in the Bay Area. It was great to have the opportunity to work consistently with a group of core people, to get into the scores in an introductory kind of way, to feel the time-sense of tuning and to work with the single image score as a trajectory. It’s a good part of the process of building the ground here and having a way to practice tuning at home. I took some pics the last night, which was an intimate group of Jai, Abby, Mara, and myself. It cut close enough to holidays and flu season that we were 4. Our work was its own kind of culmination.
Something about being behind the lens; I literally am moved to make an image from the view of the viewer. My own motion and framing are elements of my trace in the image.
Indeed, new language develops, even that which is nascent. In the end of our final lab, I was invited to mention some other ways we could be working, and we took the bite and closed our eyes and said “go” – the world opened up.
MPLS Tuning Hardcore
Minneapolis, September 2010. KVL presents. Photographic images are so selective. They require the recognition and desire to pick up the camera, the camera being readily available. They show an individual’s momentary eye, and possibly the whole organization and flight. These images invite so many more moments: duets, the soft skin of partners, of the roughness of the brick walls, days of working, the development of our scores. These pics are a small offering to jog the sensorial in a project – enter into the movement, bring on the deluge.
We were delving into what it means to make a phrase from the multisense, using solo propositions, replays, holding back on the calls over and over, working with “phase” and “phrase.” We discovered a “resituate” call after the solo situates itself in a single image, before the the mover calls begin as a way to show the communally-observed image space. Found the desire to remove it once shown, then to remove it altogether. Pairing down. Little by little the tuning grew. A big hearty group in the middle of the country – the generosity of an independent dance scene felt in the daily practice. -mg
solo replays:
calling “phase”:
on break:
In the replay of Morgan and Chris’ memorable duet:
Final Evening. As I recall, this below was a version of solo replay wherein once the solo was established, an individual could enter to make a duet, after which “end” would be called. I entered with the camera… then later came a replay, or was it a replace, where Tristan decided to remain in the image? The simplicity of the initial proposition, after the wild physicality of a hair duet with Robert dancing, perched above on a radiator:
September Tuning HardCore Participants:
| Arwen Wilder |
| Chris Schlichting |
| Cindy Stevens |
| Deborah Jinza Thayer |
| Hannah Kramer |
| Jeffry Lusiak |
| Jen Johanneson |
| Jennifer Arave |
| Justin Jones |
| Karen Sherman |
| Kristin Van Loon |
| Margit Galanter |
| Megan Mayer |
| Melissa Birch |
| Molly Van Avery |
| Monica Thomas |
| Morgan Thorson |
| Robert Haarman |
| Sam Johnson |
| Sarah Jacobs |
| Sophia Rog |
| Taja Will |
| Tara King |
| Theresa Madaus |
| Tristan Koepke |
TAC – 12/18/09
Eyes
Jack London Square. The cabin – a little historic remnant looking out towards the bay – was irresistible when it came time to try out the role of mover (watched by the “reader”, i.e. Margit).
When you look for a nice length of time at an image, noodling through it, returning to different aspects of it, you find that it has lodged in your mind’s long-term memory banks. It’s an image in the bank – you can return to it and muse some more. Similarly, moving in response to the space around me has taught me things about those spaces that I carry with me. For the long haul. I know some things about the surface now of the rock next to the cabin, and I know you can swing from one of the logs of that ersatz cabin (built from half the logs from the original one). And what it feels & looks like to march and hop along its walls, world jiggling around.
Each time I “tune” I find the selective nature of the exercise opens up a rush of appreciation for each sense that we are exploring. The muscles in my eyes were thanking me for finally moving them in their radial paths, eyes closed, feeling the multitude of possibilities there. Kind of ache-y, kind of pleasant, working those muscles. Eyes open, glomming on to objects and moving around them – close up, far away, jumping, lying down. I got to thinking: how we are constructed has everything to do with how we construct our reality.
Weirdly, I don’t remember ever having thought about how my eyes move in tandem, except when cross-eyed. Like driving a car for the first time, a little hard to control every nuance of movement. Eye dances.
I was looking at a clock today that had the seconds ticking off – using numbers flipping by. What a reminder that our time on this earth is limited – there go the seconds – flying by. So with this in mind, “tuning” in feels like a crux of something. A meditation: these perceptual specifics… from which cascade our experiences. So, everything since each tuning can start to feel like a waterfall, except one that radiates outward and the spray can go on forever, if you keep the experience in mind, as a lens through which to view one’s everyday life. Presence.
Last thought: walked along the Truckee River and visited Donner Lake over Thanksgiving break and had fun using movements to explore both spaces. Again, spaces lodged now in my whole body memory.
whole body home movies
This is mg. Today we met at North Jack London Square, at his heartland; half of his log cabin sprouting, palm trees in rows, a saloon – the wild wild west simulacrum. It is a great space to dance because the sun shows up, very open, sand floor with a solid base, some human traffic but not too much, an occasional holy whistle of a train, a theater. Part of this tuning exploration for me is learning about this great place, Oakland. Nothing like investigating a space by tuning in.
Today, we extended the inversions from last week (subject-object through haptic/touch) into eyes + vision and moving in space- what it means to feel the movement of your eyes in their sockets, what you see when you move them, and then extending into creating dance phrases with your eyes- little home movies, eyes open and closed, the stillness and movement. Then entering the movement of our body to support it the living pics. Through movement we became the movie makers. To quote Pearl Ubungen, “see eye”. (riff on CI). Hard to explain. Better to do. I felt when I moved my eyes, I was connecting into the (re)wiring of my being, like the loooong hearty stems of a lotus into the depths of wet muddy earth.
How does and doesn’t the stillness signify the end of a phrase? Tracking my desire to move and to be still, letting the images arise, and its kind-of converse, to enact it (in a more conscious way)? When the public entered in, when did they become part of the scenery, less in my conscious phasic attention, and fade into environment? How do I bond with the objects with my eyes open in seeing? When I shifted my focus to “space” rather than object, I found my whole embodiment shift into a spacious periphery-esque feeling, and I had to conscously shift my focus to experience the image as outside, the view, rather than telescoping into my sensing.
When you take it into the image space, the world seems to dimensionalize even further, wow- the world opens up. Bring in the camera, and a whole other element emerges- it made some of these attributes hyberbolic, narrowed others, due to the parameters of holding the camera … of viewing through a lens separate from the round eye … of considering that an image would be fixed, an exponential set of layers of observation.
gothic
We walked up to Liz’s house, and already a scene was set for us to live up to: massive trees, gusting winds, a set of stairs leading up to a huge house, patchworked and a garden filled with so many delights – rosehips, flowers I have never seen before, cracked sculptures, strange nooks with ponds, and the rain was beginning. Luckily, the apartment on the first floor was indeed empty and we had this old set of a maze of rooms to play in. really unusual home, all cleaned and ready for someone to move into, tin cans of varnish and curtains and paint smell aside.
We worked this first day with haptic sense, with touch, with the unique peculiarity of the subject object pole- what does it mean to touch to feel oneself, and to feel the other? I was very aware this time that my speed and pressure have a big effect on where my attention turns.
solo, in collaboration with the space. partners. building from movement and stillness into later a more open run, where we could work with the calls “sustain”, “reverse” and “pause”. really all u need. I danced with Mario. The first time, it got going just as I was noticing the set of glass beads that looked like leaves on strings or grandma’s trousseau (something from a past that isn’t mine). Is memory synonymous with imagination? I heard Lisa say this on the video with Marlon the other day. I am going back into the material, craving some kind of depth of research, so grateful to have this opportunity to work with these uniquely creative folks, each from a different domain of my life experience. Coming together.
The calls started right from the beginning and it was the calls that recognized we were going, was the calls that gave the looking and reading thru touch a sense of dance. Was it reverse, that first call? So early, made the mundane (if multisensoriality can be so) come alive into this.
The house was deceptively sweet. Something so warm about it, or is that Liz’s hospitality? Is there an or when we are dealing with space, with imagination, with experience? Seems that the or just opens up another doorway to a point of view.
when we returned and watched one another’s partners, it was so nice to see such a different way of working. to remember that we had a score- when in doubt, touch to feel yourself, to feel the other. just something that simple, so deceptively rich with complexity, can get the motor running.
In that room, we like atoms, bouncing off and into and through, making dance.
Jai’s reflections from 11/20
I recall that Margit shared something from Gibson about “sense/sensation creates image.” This is how I remember it.
I was struck by the idea of creating an image of self through movement, through touch, through exploring the environment–or architecture, as Mario put it. That all of that could actually shape you. And that you could work toward it.
For me an image of self has been completely illusive. However, recent events in my life have shown me a path toward a true image of self, to which I am working toward. It occurred to me that tuning scores could help me define and refine that image on a moment-to-moment basis, that I could use it to help me become more clearer to myself. This is my hope.
I found myself referencing “moving to sense self” and “moving to sense the environment” when I went out dancing the other night. I explored the steps that led up onto the stage. I spent a lot of time making contact with the walls, then the walls and the steps together. I experienced the texture of the floor. When it got too crowded or the beat became too repetitive, I returned to “moving to sense self,” or I made contact with something.
That contact, now that I think about it, could also be the physical or non-physical contact with other people dancing.
For me the tuning scores seem to be another way to approach contact improv. We started individually and then worked in pairs and when I watched the others I remember thinking, “that looks like contact.” Contact improvisation, for me, has always been somewhat difficult, because it involves touch and trust. I get so anxious and hold so much fear about my body coming into contact with another body that I lose focus and become lost. The tuning scores can provide a different way into thinking about touch and sensation, in which the body of your partner is just as part of the environment as the floor, the ladder, the curtain rod. The body is a structure that holds information to be read, which then shapes you. For me the tuning scores maintain a boundary between self and other, which actually makes me understand contact better, which actually makes me less afraid to come into contact.
-Jai
Begin
Here is a space for those in the practice of tuning to report through writing. Instigated here in Oakland, Ca, where we just started a series. As and if more want to join, we can moderate u in!
mg
