An introduction to the performance
“Visual Splice” (2013), Friday, August 9, 2013, 20.30 in Käina
Huvi- ja Kultuurikeskus, compiled by Gerhard Lock (musicologist,
composer, music critic).
Since its founding in 2010 by young choreographers from the Tallinn University Department of Choreography, the Hiiumaa Dance Festival is known for its special atmosphere and a broad spectrum of courses, events and performances featuring both young choreographers and recognized professionals. Having collaborated with choreographers and dancers like Florent Hamon (France) in 2010, Cid Pearlman, David King and Alexis Steeves (USA) in 2011 and 2012, also 2013 an internationally renowned dancer and choreographer, Gerry Morita (Canada), is among the course teachers. This year’s festival features a performance by the Canadian company Mile Zero Dance with scenographer Patrick Arès-Pilon and Tallinn-based Canadian composer Shawn Pinchbeck.
Mile Zero Dance (MZD) is
an Edmonton, Canada-based, non-profit charitable organization founded
in 1985, committed to the cultivation of original contemporary dance
for more than 25 years. The interdisciplinary collaboration between
Gerry Morita, Patrick Arès-Pilon and Shawn Pinchbeck started
approximately three years ago, and they will give their first
international premiere during the Hiiumaa Dance Festival.
Shawn Pinchbeck (picture pinchbeck.com)
To get to know more about
their recent projects, among them “Visual Splice” (2013) which
will be performed during Hiiumaa Dance Festival, I recently met Shawn
Pinchbeck in Tallinn and communicated via E-mail with Gerry Morita.
Both are widely recognized artists in their home countries and
abroad: Shawn has been tightly connected with Estonia as a teacher
(at the Estonian Arts Academy and Tallinn University Baltic Film and
Media School) and artist (e.g. cooperating with Fine 5 Dance Theatre
and new media artists like Piibe Piirma) since 2001. Gerry has been
working mostly in Canada and Japan and since 2005 she has been
artistic director of MZD. Patrick Arès-Pilon is a young emerging
visual artist who works with film and stereographic images organizing
so-called peep shows. His scenarios are rather strange and he uses
special effects like scratched film, drawings on film and burning
film live on stage (an effect which was also seen in the closing
performance of the 2011 Tallinn European Culture Capital).
Gerry Morita (picture pinchbeck.com)
Using a lot of special
technical equipment like tactile, old school hand-made films produced
by Patrick Arès-Pilon, which are shown with real film projectors
(nowadays quite rare), their performances are highly experimental and
interactive. Improvisation plays a major role in their concept of a
flexible flow of creativity, but the overall structure is
well-planned and organized involving prerecorded sounds and films on
one hand and improvised activity on stage including live-electronics
and live-film effects on the other hand. The structure of their
performances is kept rather clear, the syncronization of activities
on stage with the sound is important but not overemphazised as pure
effect. To my question whether their shows may be called contemporary
dance, theatre or dramatical, visualized radiophonic, embodied film
performances or something else (or all together) Gerry says that she
would simply call it performance and let people experience it openly.
“The main aspect of it for me is its liveness. You cannot
experience our work over the Internet or on your iPhone. You need to
attend a performance and be a part of a group of people witnessing it
together. Other descriptors limit the work for me and create a set of
expectations that may not be accurate”. Shawn describes that beside
Gerry, who as professional dancer uses also several objects like
iPhone or material stage attributes, also Patrick and Shawn himself
will be moving on stage in accordance to their conceptual functions
and technical possibilities. Aiming to enhance the liveness, several
film projectors will be carried around on stage by Patrick in order
to elaborate projections, perspectives and light effects. Shawn will
be triggering sound effects using sensors, contact microphones and
iPhones and, as a surprise, playing an object to be chosen for every
show newly to make unexpected sounds caused by movement live on
stage. Indeed, today’s electro-accoustic, electronic and even
laptop music scene has been evolving strongly into interactivity and
live aspects because of improving possibilities of technology. Shawn
underlines that he always tries “to have a performative aspect”
in his projects. Gerry points out that she “loves this ritualistic
aspect of live performance”. And indeed, the things that drive her
to create performance “is usually something around politics, (lack
of) communication, or ritual”.
Gerry has been active
both as choreographer and dancer, she mainly uses scores and methods
of improvisation when she creates work herself, because she is more
fluid that way and can find unexpected things while in the moment of
performance: “So my method of choreography is improvisation. I
allow for chaos to erupt in my surroundings, and the piece is
constructed in a way that allows for or even encourages this aspect.
I got this from my time working in dance in Japan.” The Japanese
influences are very strong in her work, as are the works of Pina
Bausch, DV8, and Mary Wigman. She underlines “I am less drawn to
American modern dance, although I have studied much contact
improvisation and postmodern dance from the Judson Church
originators. I am equally influenced by performance art. I find the
dance scene in Europe to be congruent with my way of working and
thinking as a dancer.”
Concerning
interdisciplinarity, interactivity and collaboration with her
artistic partners she describes her function and role in this work as
“changing continually and that is one of the things I enjoy about
working interdisciplinarily.“ She underlines that “how we work as
collaborators evolves with the work, and a language emerges. There is
a lot of interest for me in working with people who are so competent
in their own media who wish to extend their skills across to other
areas. That is an exciting things to do and be part of and to witness
as well.”
To conclude Hiiumaa Dance
Festival 2013 invites the interested audience to be curious in
awaiting the international and Estonian premiere of “Visual Splice”
in order to experience outstanding artists who, on the edge of our
time and technical possibilities, synthesize sound and movement,
images and dancing as well as objects and film into an extraordinary
live performance event.
Visual Splice (2013)
Gerry Morita, Artistic Director and
Performer
Shawn Pinchbeck, Composer,
live-electronics
Patrick Arès-Pilon, Film
Projections/Scenography
Friday, August 9, 2013,
20.30 in Käina Huvi- ja Kultuurikeskus
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