A friend of mine from university is currently creating a work… Inspired by the Wizard of Oz and the idea of the Emerald City, choreographer Rennie McDougall is exploring the idea of visual, sound and movement saturation. This piece, “Supertone” is one in a series of development, aiming to be performed at the Next Wave festival in Melbourne, Australia.
Have a look here at a brief video clip of Rennie’s work.
It’s amazing to see those artists you know venture into the world, inspiring to see them create and look forward to the result, knowing their potential. This project is looking for donations, if generous souls out there like the look of this work… Though whether you donate or not; seeing, hearing and engaging with up-and-coming projects by up-and-coming choreographers is something, in my opinion, exceedingly special.
In the words of Rennie: “I have a love/hate relationship with dance; because I love doing it, and I love the experience of being engaged physically, but then, what is it to ask somebody to just sit and watch it… is it just about visual interaction?… Can it translate beyond visual engagement toward visceral engagement?…”
It’s an interesting conundrum – what creates a dance audience and how much can they step into your world? Is it governed by how much they want to be engaged? It’s difficult to determine; someone with training and a love of dance will engage more viscerally that another, and it can be tricky to determine and empathize with how to create a visceral engagement with those of no dance background.
Is saturation the key? In an everyday society where we’re bombarded with stimulation after stimulation, is saturation the way to engage an audience? To ensure their attention span and interest…? It’s something I’ve wondered over, because I feel that with too much over saturation, we don’t really connect with the messages given us consciously, stripped of the ability to delineate thought after thought. If the way is through saturation, then what can we do to ensure that there is a way of slowing down our interpretation of what we’re given? Or are we so conditioned that we can cope with such a bombardment?
Just a thought.
That’s a very interesting thought. Certainly had very little connection to the dance world before you introduced me to it, but I still probably wouldn’t have much.of a relationship with it. From a perective of such ignorance, I find I engage most with dance that expresses intense emotion, energy and power. That doesn’t necessarily mean fast, but charged. I love it when I see someone else dancing and my heart says ‘I too have that within me’
I guess in a way, what appeals to me in my ugnorance is similar to what appeals to me in gothic-style books – ecploration and expression of the human capacity for all-consuming emotion.
Oh goodness, I made some rather impressive typos. My apologies – I am typing on my phone.
I think as a viewer, I relate to the emotion behind dance also – much more than structure and form, though I appreciate that in it’s own right. It’s good to hear what you think – because it’s something all choreographers deal with… what is the best way to express your intention – where do you rest on the scale of literal interpretation to abstract and what makes it artistic?