There are multiple outcomes for this creative research. So far, we have navigated our creative investigation around three main themes – touch, intimacy, and embodied narratives in the 3rd space. The objective is to explicate these three main themes through the performative components of video projections, creative movement, a live-composed soundscape, spoken text, and wearable technology. This pilot exploration culminates in our first multimedia showing on April 20 to be live broadcast on youtube.com from Singapore and Arizona. A live audience will also be witness to this performative act. The physical bodies of the audience in the performance space grounds the witness-participant experience in the corporeal body; their live response to our performance reiterates our main themes of touch, intimacy, and embodied perspectives. We are all present as artists in the 3rd space.
This project is unique for several reasons. First, this is a multigenerational collaboration across disciplines in the arts, humanities and sciences. Second, this project weaves cultural perspectives and embodied narratives from more than six different countries including the Philippines, Malaysia, China, Singapore, Bulgaria, and parts of North America. Third, this project is unique in that all participants share the role of artistic collaborators in this project.
We believe that our sovereignty in the 3rd space is performed and thus maintained by multiple modes of expression. Primary to sustaining our right to share free knowledge in the 3rd space is our ongoing exchange of information through multiple mediums. We are working from the perspective of our individual disciplines, geographical locations, and cultural viewpoints. From these places, we gather in the 3rd space to create a performative digital lineage that reflects our diversity and artistic agency. We exercise our freedom in the 3rd space to offer knowledge in the form of dream annotations, visual art, wearable technology and other animated forms of embodied wisdom that will emerge in spontaneous acts during a structured performance on April 20.
This project is both intellectually and artistically rigorous. A major component of our collaborative process is engaging in a critical response process to challenge and liberate the artist individual to return to his/her work with a spirit of adventure and curiosity. With this communal dialogue, we will make our work better. As a collective of artists, we seek to unearth unexpected discoveries during performance as our process continues to unfold, expand, and deepen in the 3rd space. The elements of cross-generational learning, risk and adventure reveal a dynamic shifting nexus of shared empowerment in our making process. Our telematic integration of diverse elements is just one approach to translating our creative research in performance.
A dancer’s invitation to touch yourself, each other, and the choreographer in the 3rd space:
Angeline, very compelling synopsis of our challenges and goals for Touch. You expressed in well, in terms of how we must integrate the technological, cultural, and aesthetic potential of networked performance in the third space. I am interested in building on your idea of sovereignty, how we might colonize, control, manipulate and organize the space for our purposes of forming movement and contact.
The student hyperessays are a treasure trove of information and ideas that we can now organize and put into action. I think the synthesize of your overall approach to movement together with their narrative aspirations will give us something very strong to build on, of course, in addition to Galina’s masterful design sensibility and my approach to telematics. Onward!!