Aesthetics - Environment Final Paper

Aesthetics - Environment Final Paper
S. Asher Gelman
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011
Aesthetics - Environment
Maida Withers




    I don’t know if I can really “define” my aesthetic yet.  But this course has helped me to realize that that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  I feel that I explored a lot about myself during the past few months.  What was fascinating to me was just how much I could do with sometimes very little (sometimes no) preparation.  People want to see dance, even if they don’t know it yet.  Every time I performed, I found myself surprised by how often people stopped to watch, and even participated!  I was both intimidated and inspired by this course.  I felt that a lot of the assignments really put me outside of my comfort zone. 

    The Invisible Dances assignment was a wonderful tool.  I felt that it allowed me to really figure out what performance is, even if no one else knows it is performance.  It was a very interesting way to begin this course, because it set the tone for the rest of the semester.  It forced me to ask myself several questions which I continued to ask throughout the semester:
What makes a performance?
What identifies oneself as a performer?
Is it a performance if no one else knows about it?
Is the simple act of deigning something a performance enough to make it so?

    These questions (and more) ended up shaping the rest of the work I did this semester.  Another factor that I had not considered was the use of a video camera.  I soon realized that although this was a distance-learning course and the only way to share my experience was through video, the very act of video-taping effectively altered the performance.  Consequently, I often chose to not video my performances, for fear that the videoing of it would alert others to the performance.  Many of my performances (especially at the beginning of the semester) were subversive, under-the-radar, performances.  One of the first performances I videoed was a piece I called “Streetwalker,” in which I used mostly pedestrian movement with some more stylized movements spliced in between while walking back to our hotel room in New York.  What I noticed was that people seemed less interested in was doing once the camera came out.  Perhaps that was because the simple act of being documented somehow erases what I like to refer to as the “crazy factor.”  The crazy factor exists when one is simply performing solo, but as soon as one has an accomplice of sorts - either another performer or a documenter - suddenly the crazy factor is lost, because you were able to at least sane enough to convince one other person to partake in said activity.  Truth be told, I kind of love the crazy factor.  I loved just going out and doing something spontaneous without anyone else being the wiser.

    There were certain scripts that I felt would have been ruined by the use of documentation.  One script in particular - my “Just Say No” script entitled “Parasite” (although technically done for the Choreography course) - would have been destroyed by the use of documentation.  The entire point of that performance was that the audience (a friend of mine) was unaware that it was a performance.  The presence of a video camera would have immediately alerted her to the fact that my constant eating from her plate was a performance, and she would not have reacted the way I wanted her to. 

    I felt that certain artists we explored also really spoke to me.  I was fascinated by Jill Sigman.  I thought her work was so bizarre and wonderful, and furthermore I appreciated her stance on interpretation, how she felt that it was okay for the audience to glean different meanings from her work and that it wasn’t important to “get it right.”  To me, that very much speaks to my own personal aesthetic.  It is less important to me that you understand my work; frankly it is less important to me that even I understand my work.  What is important to me is that it stirs something inside - inside me, inside you, inside my performers.  I did not decide to become an artist so that I could make nice pretty dances that pleased the eye and didn’t require you to think too hard about them.  I did not decide to become an artist so that my work could be forgotten moments after being viewed.  I want to make a splash.  I want to be noticed.  I want to be remembered.

    My personal aesthetic - how I achieve those goals - is less clear.  To me dance is about people, not just the bodies.  When I dance (or choreograph), I am looking for relationships between ourselves and the people, places, and things around us.  That is where this course in Environment comes in for me.  While I have dome a lot of exploring regarding the people aspect, I have, until now, done very little exploring regarding the places and things aspects of performance.  What is the difference between performing a piece in a dance studio or theater and performing that same piece on the street or in a lobby?  What does the place do to the performance?

    By far, my favorite assignment from this course was the yellow box project.  I found a great deal of difficulty securing a business that would let me perform in front of them, due to the fact that it was the middle of the holidays here in Israel.  I ended up reverting to my Plan B, which ended up being a blessing in disguise.  I took the assignment to the middle of the highway on Yom Kippur - the only day of the year when no one drives in Israel.  I set up my one meter yellow tape box in the middle of the highway and had my fiancé film me from the overpass.  What transpired was nothing short of performative magic.  People around me who were walking and biking on the highway stopped to film and photograph me.  Several people started “planking” (see an excerpt from “The Office” for an explanation) behind me.  Then those same people started actually dancing!  I was really impressed by the outcome and felt that the project said a lot about many issues, but my favorite aspect was using a very tiny space in this huge expansive area to create my performance.  I believe that I was able to really accentuate the dichotomy I created regarding scale.  I felt that my most effective use of environment was with this piece.

    Although I felt it had less to do with environment, I also really appreciated the Choreography in Performance assignment.  I really enjoyed exploring the concept of the act of choreography being its own performance.  It was interesting being the creator and the subject in the same instance, and led to some ideas that I may end up using in the future.

    My only disappointment in this course was my final project, which I felt did not reflect the work I had done previously.  As I stated on my blog, I was not thrilled by the final result.  I felt that I was capable of doing something amazing, and instead ended up with a mediocre product.  I believe I was both simultaneously too inflexible and too flexible.  I was inflexible regarding the fact that although it should have been obvious to me that I needed to change my idea, I was too stubborn to change it, since I had already committed to the idea months ago.  I was flexible regarding the fact that despite the fact that literally nothing panned out the way I wanted it to, I still found a way to create a performance.  Given the opportunity to do this assignment again, I would have taken more time to get to know the space I was using.  I would have really taken advantage of the space and the wonderful possibilities that lie within it.  I felt that my ideas about making our first cooked meal together in our new home into a performance was an interesting idea.  I thought there were a lot of places I could have gone with this idea, yet unfortunately I was not able to explore them.  I believe that, due in large part to the unlucky circumstances I faced, the performance was alright.  I, however, am not content with alright.  I ultimately felt that this project did not reach my expectations, and I felt it was not worthy of being called my “final project” for this course.  I felt that I did some pretty incredible work this semester, and that the final project was sub-par.  I would like to work on a similar project once the apartment is complete, because I believe there is a fantastic dance to be made, and unfortunately, it did not happen with that performance.

    In summation, I felt that I grew a lot this semester.  I felt that I was not only able to identify my successes, but also my failures.  I believe that being honest with oneself is crucial.  I probably could have defended my final project in a way that would have made everyone buy into it, but the truth is that I didn’t feel it was worth defending.  I am very interested in how my work relates to its environment, and sincerely look forward to the plethora of dance opportunities that I can create for myself in interesting and fantastic locales.