Danceworker

A woman performs movement tasks... (excerpts)

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 4 months ago.

19 movement tasks are shuffled randomly by a computer program. The dancer/ choreographer embodies the tasks as they come. Her goal is to freely interpret the language in each task by consciously letting go of any specific patterns that may derive from her previous performances of it.

This live interpretation together with the random shuffling of the tasks delivers a different chronological order and movement content (arguably, a different meaning) each time she dances it. 

Title: "A Woman performs movement tasks in random order"

Choreographed and performed by Mariana Lucia Marquez

Costumes by Monica Soto Paredes

Computer programming: Hakan Ensari

Notes: Deborah Hay's quote is from her book "Lamb at the Altar", Duke University Press (May 1994)

(view the full version on my portfolio by clicking on my name above or my photo on the left)

Last rehearsal before NY

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 5 months ago.

Nondescript/ Woman (possible title)

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 6 months ago.

I had a fantastic feedback session with Jacky Lansley. Following her input, I decided to go totally random on the tasks and to allow more time for the performance of each.

Also, I'm dropping pink and switching to dark blue. The dress is not ready yet, so I am wearing this fabric just to see the colour in motion.

With video projection and voice

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 6 months ago.

After writing the score for the whole 2 minute phrase, I broke it up into small sections and managed to distill several distinct movement tasks.

I practiced these tasks daily in a set sequence. The second half, I perform the same tasks but in random order. I had "Fred" (the computer voice) read them out so I would know what to do. In the second half I also added some thoughts relating to my experiences as mother/wife/dancer/woman.

A "eureka" Moment (finally)

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 6 months ago.

Bored with the phrase but at the same time having an attachment to it (for it was my only tangible material so far), I tried something out.

I wrote the score of the phrase and then went back to performing the movements from the written description rather than as I had learned them.

It proved to be VERY useful in finding more possibilities and "unfixing" the material.

Just in time, I got Deborah Hay's book "Lamb at the Altar" where she describes the process of creating one of her large group dances. Reading the innumerable philosophical/artistic points that she delivers in only 136 pages, I was reminded of the joy in being alive while performing that I experienced in her choreography workshop last September.

Pretty in Pink

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 6 months ago.

At this point I have a 2-minute phrase and I'm not really sure what to do with it. I feel like I have hit yet another dead-end.

But I like this look for the costume.

In the company of Fred

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 6 months ago.

I continued expanding on the phrased material but became bored with it already. It was fun to work on it all this time but again it started to feel less than alive. At the same time, I changed Fred’s timing to have more space in between commands.

I keep thinking about how to make phrases that have performative options built into them, so that I stay alert while performing them. This way I could have room for interpretation of the phrase but without falling into improvisation.

Nothing wrong with improvising itself, it’s just that I tend to become absent-minded after a few minutes and I am trying to stay away from automatic-pilot dancing.

Awareness at work

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 6 months ago.

Started mixing the phrases, that I’ve made from a purely aesthetic perspective, with some of the material I had from practicing the score with the questions. At this point they look like two different things. I feel the “salsa” and the “cleaning the floors” come across as different from the other movement. I want to avoid distinctions.

For me, what differs most in these two approaches to making work is where my awareness lies. When making a phrase I find my attention is fully on selecting and remembering the material in order to be able to repeat it. Conscious taste is at work. Instead, when I work with tasks I am in a state of observing my body’s solutions to the “problem”, I don’t engage choreographic memory, I don’t edit and I don’t purposely repeat anything. Although I am aware of what I am doing and I can repeat it if I want to, I could not do it verbatim.

Though they are "static", I still love making phrases

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 8 months ago.

Dec 16, 2009

I have officially put score-writing aside and have began making movement phrases that are somewhat coming from the score's material, but they are mostly just whimsical choices based on my personal taste.

I am realizing that movement taste, just like any other taste, is something that one develops over a lifetime for very personal reasons. I see value in that.

When all else fails, I go for Wuthering Heights

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 7 months ago.

Dec 3, 2009

Very frustrated. I realize that I need concepts but I cannot separate myself from images. I am not that abstract, I think, but it might be because I am too attached to the idea that when I get on stage is to TELL SOMETHING. There is also the issue of creating work that would keep me alert as I perform it. Phrases, as I know them, don’t make me alert. I find them static.

Random Judgement

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 8 months ago.

I changed Fred's commands so that some are recognizable modern dance terms (like "contraction" or "right leg swing"). I also included judgements like "I love what you are doing" or "no, not like that").

The Computer is Your Friend

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 7 months ago.

In order to bypass the "solo-itude" (and thanks to my programmer husband), I started experimenting with Fred. Fred is a script that runs on the Mac OS X command line. It randomly picks lines from a list of words (body parts and movement qualities) and speaks them aloud.

I want to have the pie and eat it too

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 7 months ago.

This week I gave myself the task of making an “emotional” phrase of movement using all the material I have been working with. I like the idea of mixing these two ways of creating (meditation/task-based and set choreography that is phrase-based).

In the process I discovered that I like “sequencing” or “the order of things”. I find it better to be able to play with that order of things rather than it be given by chance.

Art and Profit

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 7 months ago.

Last week I sat at a whiskey bar with a filmmaker, a choreographer, and a visual artist in Glasgow. Our informal talk rapidly took off. Noticeably, the main topic was not art, art-making, or the philosophical questions that define our work, but rather money-making, production, and networking. The names that came up were artists known for their financial success rather than their contribution to their fields. This made me wonder: Is an artist finally noticed when she manages to sell her work? Are we judging an artist’s work based on how much it sold for? If so, where does that put performance and other intangible forms of art works?

What the young/emerging generation seems to be obsessed with is not how to become excellent at what they do but rather how to sell it, since money will by definition prove that they are great. Money is success.

I plead guilty. I am part of my generation and do participate in these debates with the same worries. Still, I can’t help but notice how this was not such a defining concern for previous generations. Perhaps the institutionalization of art in academia has also produced a preoccupation with making money out of art? Education is now an investment in a career, and profit is expected out of any investment.

to set or not to set

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 7 months ago.

I keep toying with the idea of putting set choreography in this part that I call "the adagio". I mostly feel lost in it, like... what am I doing? The score is something about being in two qualities at the same time.

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I added this to Deborah Hay's set of questions that I've been working with: WHAT IF the audience had no pre-conceived ideas or expectations about what they came to see? What if what I AM is what they need?

The killer

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 7 months ago.

I finally gave in to my curiosity and broke up the score into parts to write down an “interpretation” of its meaning. The next few times I practiced the score it felt dead. I think I have killed the dance. Somehow, having all these ideas in my head made my performance of the score even narrower than before.

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The written score needs refining. I still need more “open” words that are evocative rather than descriptive. It all has become too straight forward.

Questions Questions

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 7 months ago.

Today I feel lost in the process. I’m craving for meaning, as in, what is this dance ABOUT? This rational questioning is impeding my performer creativity from emerging when I practice the score. I feel monotonous, dull, just repeating the same movements I have attached to each part of the score. I want to explore more of the “unknown” in this score but I don’t know how to (Is the score just an excuse for the performance to happen?). Also, I have trouble going into “performance mode” being alone in the studio. No other people, no synergy to bounce off of, just me. No adrenaline from social interaction.

My language for the score is not open/ evocative enough. I feel trapped in the words, finding the physical descriptions too narrow. As a result the score is slowly shortening.

Sept 23, 2009

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 7 months ago.

I realized that technique, or learned dance behavior, simply floats out of me when I practice the score. I have a “dance” stance and a “dance” way of holding my arms up, everything is somehow beautified without me noticing most of the times. These behaviors are deeply ingrained in me. Not sure how to dismantle.

I observed I have sunken into a predictable timing when practicing the score. Each part lasts about the same amount of time.

It’s great to see how the body does the editing and all I have to do is be there.

Sept 14, 2009

Mariana Lucía Marquez posted this video 8 months ago.

I started working on this new solo based on some material and score I created in last week’s choreography workshop with Deborah Hay. I'm most interested in the process of going back and forth between practicing the score and writing it, and how these feed each other.

It's the first time I start a dance without an idea of what I want to make. My goal is to follow the process and witness how the dance creates itself.

Throughout the week I added material based on written phrases I found randomly. I’m trying to remain impersonal. At some point I needed to break the score into 18 bullet points to make it easier to remember, and this made the whole thing choppier.

I'm loving this “salsa” moment.