Final week

It's hard to believe that this is the final week.  We are all trying to live in the present, but are pretty dismayed about the prospect of returning to the "real world".  Here is a picture of my day today:  yoga in the morning with Devavani and Sasha, downloading pictures that Devavani took around the property including numerous pictures of a banana slug that was the pinnacle of Devavani's walk with me yesterday, she even took a video of it.  Lunch with some residents, sitting around catching up on what everyone had done that morning.  Work in my studio after lunch, finished choreography to a poem by Pireeni with music by Ari and worked on some new phrases for my project in September in Long Beach.  Pireeni came to see the dance, talked with her about possibilities for future collaborations and performances.  She brought a CD of a project she did with her husband Colm, an exceptional musician. Titled Bridge Across the Blue it teamed poets and musicians from different cultures that normally do not work together.  We listened to a track where she sonorously read her poem in Dravidian (Tamil), English and ended in Gaelic (Colm's native language) accompanied by Colm's haunting music that marries Irish and Indian raga music.   Simply beautiful.  Dinner prepared by chef Dan - delicious vegie stir fry with tempeh.  Afterward walk to artist barn, take out my drawing material and begin sketching the landscape.  As it get darks outside, I return to my studio and listen to the rest of Pireeni's CD.  Is it any wonder I'm dismayed about the loss of all this time and interchange with others?  

Incubation

Take this image: a string seems to be unraveling from her body.  It is like a skein of silk looping out, unfurling as if her being was made of cloth and she sees that the fabric is made of a billion tiny dancers – each one of them now pirouetting, moving, leaping, tumbling – out of sync with each other – the central timing, cadence, rhythm falling apart.  That's from Devavani Chatterjea relating to immunology. A poem by Pireeni Sundaralingam that's so visual and kinesthetic that I see it in my mind's eye.  Music by Ari Frankel that spans from text integrated music to driving, pulsating energy to achingly beautiful.   Mechanized flip charts by physicist Jim Crutchfield that spin out patterns that leap, twirl and glide.  A 3- D vortex that you enter and become the center of by geologist Dawn Sumner.  Dreams visualized in drawings by artist Meredith Tromble will eventually be placed in the 3-D vortex.  I take the image, I have the poem, the music is on a thumb drive, I look over and over at the flip charts, I enter the 3-D vortex, I see the dreams.  I talk and see and listen to all of these scientists and artists, and the information incubates inside of me.  I don't know when or how it will come out, but fertile ground is being laid.  Like the fog that rolls in in the morning, eventually clearing to a breathtaking view, creation awaits.  This is the magic of this residency.

Plumbing art and science

Last night we had a discussion with the artists and scientists about art/science collaborations - what they are, do they work, who’s interested in them, etc.  Lively for sure.  The jury is out about these collaborations - 2 of the scientists think most scientists aren’t interested or don't care, 2 think scientists gain more from such collaborations than artists do.  All the artists seemed interested.  So I guess it’s a matter of finding the right scientists - no big surprise.  But we all agreed curiosity is the motivating force for both scientists and artists.

Immunologist Devavani Chatterjea and I have been talking about a melding of our practices.  I asked her to write down some images of the process of immunology, and when she gave them to me I asked for her to make them more pictorial.  She came up with a picture/story that is a wonderful script for a dance.  Meanwhile she came to my studio and did a movement exploration session with me.  So we are reaching some common ground that can be built upon.  Devavani suggested that to get a true idea of what she does it would be good to come to her lab for a period of time (week?) and not only observe but participate, and for her to do the same coming to rehearsals with me.  She teaches at a small college in Minnesota, so it's not exactly close, but doable.  We're having fun playing with different scenarios and she's adding more story images.

Today I'm meeting with chaos/pattern formation physicist Jim Crutchfield.  In his presentation to the group he talked about how he makes objects to help him understand the theories he's working out.  He showed this 3 column flip chart that has physics symbols on the face of each card that is in each column.  It's mechanical so he can turn it on and the cards all flip at the same time.  The most amazing patterns emerge - I of course immediately saw the potential for a dance based on the patterning of the flip chart. So we're meeting to determine if the patterns can be mapped out in a way that will enable me to work with them to put bodies in space.

In the end it doesn't matter to me whether or not most scientists are interested in working with artists, I just need to find the ones that are.  And they're out there.

Creating at Djerassi

Today I pulled out Carl Djerassi's (the founder of Djerassi) autobiography to browse.  I read the chapter where he talks about his daughter's suicide and how he subsequently founded this artist residency program in her honor.  She was an artist and among other things struggled with the commercial art scene.  He talks about the artists that have been here - both highly acknowledged ones as well as many who have not received public recognition- and the work that they created that only could have come from their residency here.  It got me thinking what I could create that was specific to this residency.

I decided that I would draw the contours of the landscape, what I could see from my studio and from the artist barn where my studio is located.  I put aside feelings of not be able to draw, and just tried as best I could, using pencil and paper.  I came up with a reasonable approximation.  I then mapped out my drawing in words that I could use to construct movement.  Here is the map:

Map of the horizon from my studio: in 3 movements

Movement 1:  walk - slight rise - small dip - small rise - big dip     Terrain

Movement 2: Blip (tree) - space - big block (trees) tapering down - space - blip - space - 2 blips - small space - small blip - smallish space - 2 blips - medium height block      Vegetation

Movement 3:  level line - disappear - long line of very slight undulations - disappear - shorter line with slight undulation    Horizon

I began working on the first movement today.  We'll see where it leads.

My Spot

I believe I have found my favorite spot on the Djerassi property. Cube in Redwood Stumps by artist David Nash, set amidst the forest.  It is so peaceful here, enveloping one like a golden-green cape with brown threads strewn through.  It feels old, but there are new shoots pushing through the dirt.

I have come here to read one of residents artists, Pireeni's, poetry anthology Indivisible - contempoary South Asian American poetry.  Why don't I read poetry at home?  I think it's because you can't read poetry fast, you have to chew it slowly and like a cow re-chew it to find it's essence or even to find some meaning.  But it's succinctness and brevity is refreshing - just enough cool to water to slake your thirst.  And no more.  You have to slow down to the cadence of the words, even if they trip and slide quickly you have to be able to catch and hold them.  Poetry for me isn't life in the fast lane and that's probably why in my no-time-for-many-things everyday life I don't read it.  But here, it's a gift that I'm unwrapping with care, taking pains not to tear the fabric of the language.

Maps

I'm consulting the map before I set out for my walk.  Yesterday I mapped out the structure of my dance Neighborhood Stories.  I'm thinking about all the people throughout history who have been map makers.  The explorers who drew amps of unchartered land.  The astronomers who mapped the skies.  The scientists who map the body and brain.  But maps aren't static.  If one part of the brain is damaged, another part can be developed to take over the function ordinarily associated with the damaged area. Or brain signals can get scrambled and there is malfunction like synesthesia.  Remarkably at our first Friday night dinner one of the residents had two guests at dinner who both had synesthesia.  The woman of the couple, who were married to each other, had all 5 senses involved, which is rare.  I couldn't imagine how she could cope without sensory overload.  You could be seeing and tasting at the same time, or hearing and kinesthetically feeling, smelling and seeing colors.  She told me they diagnosed her as a child when she came to school one day and asked if the teacher could hear the song that the grass was singing.  Whatever multiple combinations occur, she's always being bombarded with sensory information.  Must be like a constant drug hallucination.

Are we intrinsically driven to map out things to give order to our lives and the universe we live in?  If we didn't map, would we perceive life as chaos?  Humans are not comfortable with chaos, though chaos exists throughout, not only our planet but also in the universe.

Tools

Feeling stuck in my studio I decided I had to go for a walk.  The minute I started walking thoughts began jumping around and colliding.  I walked to the gate where I got lost before and saw that if I'd only pushed open the gate I would have been so close to my studio.  Argh!

So these are the thought crowding my brain as I sit on a redwood stump in a forest that feels centuries old with ferns scattered like bits of lace and the sun filtering through sentinel trees that reach up forever to the sky.

Last night one of the scientists, Curt, gave us a presentation of how he looks at art from a chemical viewpoint, analyzing the types of paint, surfaces, colors, etc.  He gave us the chemical composition of some paints used in famous paintings and where they historically have been derived from.  I was particularly interested when he said he is now looking beyond Western art to other cultures to examine the materials they use and how they have stood the test of time.

I am drawn to masks of different cultures and particularly to totem poles.  In British Columbia and Alaska I have gasped at the magnificence of these poles, standing in clusters or as a solitary witness. They are astonishing.   The elements have taken their toll on them, particularly because they are in wet, rainy climates.  Some list like drunken guardians, some are partially decomposed.  The ones that are painted are faded and weathered.  I asked Curt if he knew what kinds of paints they used, presuming they were derived from nature - plants, insects, etc.  He didn't know but said the key to retaining the color would be the type of sealant they used, and there were a few that could be made from natural materials.  It would be interesting not only to know what was used, but if certain tribes used certain materials or if it was shared knowledge.  Also do present-day totem carvers follow the old ways or use newer materials.

I've been exploring tools with collaborators Michael Masucci and Kate Johnson, using tools as one of the connecting themes in our recent project Fly By.  Scientists and artists both have a set of tools that we use.  In Fly By we used a flying camera as a metaphor of sorts for the Hubble telescope.  The Hubble offers us views of the cosmos that we would not otherwise see.  The flying camera (mounted on a drone) gave audiences views of the dancers (overhead, circling them from different angles) that an audience would not ordinarily see.

Tools can offer immortality.  A painting can exist for centuries i.e. the cave drawings in France, the sarcophagi in Egypt.  The images from the Hubble presumably can survive throughout time.  The dancer's main tool though is the body, which is not immortal.  Dance can be preserved through digital documentation but it is never the same as when experienced live, unless it is specifically made for film.  It is a live art because it involves an exchange of energy - between dancers and between dancers and audience.  That energy is not captured as a living, breathing thing on video.  Dancers learn of impermanence, of constant change, of loss, it defines their art.   Because the body is the tool and the body deteriorates.  That is both its beauty and its tragedy.