At this stage in the process I’ve been asked by my mentors and professors to “dig into” my work and expose the true intention behind what I’ve created. Since the beginning of this process I’ve been resistant to this step of defining what is happening for fear of getting stuck. Sometimes assigning meaning can be useful, but other times I find that it prematurely solidifies something that still needs time to grow and change. I’ve been focusing on following my intuition and allowing my body knowledge (whatever that means…) and my subconscious to tell the story of my identity. However, with the winter performance coming up it is time for me to take a step further into the work and start digging around. Although this seems like an easy step to take, I AM STRUGGLING WITH IT! I can’t seem to share exactly what I am trying or want to say or rather what I am feeling in the piece. Lab 4: is about trying to understand what my motivations are for “digging in” and how I feel about being stuck.
RQ: How to create meaning that is not representational of an idea, image or memory, but rather an experience that generates the feeling and intention of a creative intention?
Prompt: Use elements and objects such as the silver unitard to explore the relationship to the environment (i.e. internal vs. external self).
Outcome: The confrontation and struggle I faced while trying to move with the silver unitard still attached to just my hands and feet was genuine. The materiality of the unitard was both bound and elastic generating a complex physical experience for me trying to escape its grasp. Although I willingly entangled myself with the unitard, the experience was simultaneously unsettling because I was searching to let go of my attachments to it. My relationship to the unitard developed in this experiment provided a strong undercurrent of dependence and identity in both works.
I feel like I need to be triggered (not in traumatic way, but in a way that allows me to access my feelings about what I am doing)… but I am not exactly sure how to make that happen. This is what I am hoping to investigate next!
My current state of confusion and stuckness also relates to Anne Lamott’s text Shitty First Drafts. After reading her work in which she discusses the challenges of writing, I feel as though her process is directly related to the way in which I choreograph a dance. I’ve been following my gut and allowing the “child’s draft” as she calls it, to bear its head. However, I am not sure if the current draft of my work is as “raw” as it should be. I still feel like there are parts that are unexplored and unclear, which is why I might need to widdle away at the ideas that are already present in the space. Writing and choreography feel intrinsically linked for me.
