Salon
du Garage #2 – I Know – April 2013
Created and performed by Dawn Stoppiello (and with a
little help from her friends)
• • •
“I have nothing to say, and I am saying It.” – John Cage
“I don’t want to make a dance about something, I want to make a
dance that is something” – Susan Rethorst
The Salon du Garage evolved out of my present graduate
studies and is part of my research for a larger work that I am creating with my
primary collaborator Mark Coniglio for our company Troika Ranch. In typical
Troika Ranch fashion, our new work, entitled SWARM, will use sophisticated
hardware and software to track audience behavior and use analysis of that
behavior to recall and wirelessly transmit pre-recorded movement and vocal material
from a computer to earphones and head mounted visual displays worn by
performers; the performers do what they hear/see. The pre-determined materials
are held in a databank of possibilities but the audience’s distinct behavior during
each performance will generate a unique sequencing and a related but specific
drama each time.
Here in the garage, in an extremely low-tech way, I
am examining visual scores; things a performer looks at to determine his or her
next move. The elements of the score are manipulated, rearranged, and composed
if you will, by you the audience. Toward my research for SWARM, I want to
understand how a variety of sequencings of the same materials change the
dramatic affect. And how the involvement of the audience plays into that. In I Know, you compose some segments
through the rearrangement of objects and images or through a choice about
clothing or music. At one point the computer composes my movement sequence by randomly
choosing from a database of stick figure animations that I have not yet studied.
My skill in duplicating what I see improving over the course of the four
performances. The finale is an impromptu interpretation of the events of each
particular evening. Using my own memory as a visual score I will reenact what I
believe happened tonight.
I am running this experiment four times in hopes that
you will return to experience alternate renditions learning more about the relationship
of score to action each time. The mix of experienced audience members with
novice members will add another unpredictable element into the process. It is
my hope that after several “viewings” audience members who understand the
relationship of the score to the materials might actively collaborate to
compose.
In Salon du Garage the process IS the performance. You are part of it by design. I
know that sometimes you just want to watch, and you can choose that option. Or
you can choose to lend a hand in the process. While there is a light personal
narrative in the performance, there is no grand underlying meaning hidden within.
The performance is the result of our interaction in this designated space and
time, which is rife with meaning already. The compilation of scenario and collection
of individuals that come together draws out all sorts of unexpected musings,
responses and implications all by itself. Whatever happens tonight is the
performance as it was meant to be, an experience that we made together. And in
so doing we shared something of who we are. And that sharing, that coming up to
one another IS the drama both real and implied. That, for me right now, is the
point.
------------------------------
I Know - the score (haha, no pun intended)
Main garage doors are
closed
Preset knee pads and
gloves near computer
Computer to no sleep,
check stages and sound
----------
Audience is given a
program in the house. Beverages and snacks are
served. At time Shannon tells audience to follow her. She opens the “man-door” of
the garage to let them in one by one. Each
is asked to take a tool as they enter and asked to put it on the table and to
read the green tape.
----------
1) Table/Tool improv: Dawn is seated at the table. There is a tapeline along the front edge of the table longwise that
has the rules written on it: Place, replace and remove tools to this side of
the line (arrow). Already in progress as audience enters. Dawn is reading tools from left to right, if some
overlap or are stacked then she must try to do all of them with inspiration
from how they are arranged. Three songs = about 15 mins:
The Garage/Weezer, I Could Have Danced All Night/Louis Prima, They All Laughed
/Chet Baker
--- At end, “ok,
good” Dawn unrolls plastic sheet over bikes.
2) Clothing: Dawn turns on clothes rack light then asks someone to
choose an outfit. Once chosen she explains that these are clothes from my
closet that I have either never worn publically or have only worn once. (there are 6 outfits on hangers) Dawn tells the story of the
clothing while getting dressed. She then
says, “this is what goes with this” and improvises. untimed.
At end Dawn unrolls plastic behind clothes rack.
3) Deep Thought: Dawn changes
into white button down shirt, she turns
on chair light, ask someone to pick a
“thought” out of a hat, ask them to pick a hat to wear as they sit in the chair
and read the thought one time through. Stay in chair until I ask you to leave. The hat chosen determines a word that Dawn must use
in her Rap: Fedora= dangerous, Floppy= calm, CalArts=creative, Straw=enlightened. The Rap includes whatever the “thought” was, she rotates in a
complete circle and once facing the chair says and now it’s time for you to
take a piece a paper off that clothesline and follow the directions in small
print on the back, Go.
--- While the Word
Pairing is happening Dawn unrolls plastic
behind chair then plastic at back near door.
4) Word
Pairing: Ask audience to please take a piece of paper off the clothesline and
follow the directions written in smaller type. Audience pairs up (or triples
up) to make a full word(s). Introduce yourself. Use your word in a sentence
with each other.
--- When it feels right
Dawn interrupts and states that we will make an “exquisite poem” and they do.
When complete she says “and now I am going to do a little reading of my own
with some help from you”
5) Clothesline improv:
Dawn is reading the images from left to right, orientation of image effects her
interpretation. Play with timing. If a word gets hung on the line then take a
journey through the space and back to line. 10-min
timer.
---At timer Dawn unrolls plastic on wall over the freezer then lets
screen down and plays film (while this is happening Dawn is changing into final
outfit)
6) The Film: These are clips
of Dawn doing domestic things in the outfits that hang on the rack - washing
dishes, brushing dog, vacuuming, walking dog, mowing lawn, doing laundry –
edited together, Talking Heads Once in a Lifetime is the music.
---At film end, Dawn
turns on Animation light and Animation auto-starts
7) Animation
Improv: Animations are projected so the audience can see too. Frank Zappa’s Joe’s
Garage is the music for this. At end she unrolls
plastic at the wall there and at the computer.
8) No
Manifesto; during the Animation improv Shannon handed out the No strips.
Dawn
asks people to read the No’s in order of the number on them. After final one (moving or being moved) Dawn says
“Yvonne Rainer, No Manifesto 1965. Dawn speaks of a Yes Manifesto for the
night, three new ones each night.
Last request is to
please collectively choose the final musical accompaniment.
Dawn is opening
garage doors and stands in center at the ready, on cue Eric types in song
number and Shannon turns on x-mas lights,
9) Last Solo:
Dawn performs outside the garage,
audience remains inside.
