EPHEMERAL ART PRACTICES AND DOCUMENTATION
Summer 2008
Instructor: Annie Strader
Assignment 1
Take a typical day of the week- how about tomorrow- and carefully observe the specific routines that make up your day: waking up, eating breakfast, shower, toilet, walking/riding to work/school, class, lunch, etc., all the way to getting into bed and falling asleep.
Take notes on your routines and rituals.
Be painstakingly specific in your note-taking.
Create a 2-5 minute performance/presentation/prayer/event based on the notes and observations of your daily rituals.
This performance should include three things:
1: Routine and/or ritual.
2: Myth.
3: The breaking of the routine.
Start with the routine/ritual from your life… and then incorporate the idea/story/metaphor/archetype of a myth into the performance. And then, find a way to BREAK the routine. This is often what a good story thrives on– SURPRISE
When creating and shaping your performance consider different approaches to exaggerate routine: repetition, rhythm and speed change, body movement, inappropriate/ridiculous emotion, props, sound, language, audience… Try using the absurd. Try using a non-sequitor – flights of fancy, gross exaggerations, complete fabrications, beautiful images, stark confessions, brilliantly told truths and blatant lies are encouraged. And, again, be brave. Try being uncomfortable.
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
Is there power in the mundane?
How does a private ritual (as simple as brushing your teeth) change when enacted in a public space (brushing your teeth on the bus)?
Is there power in fairy tales, myths, fables?
Can you find connections (subtle? not-so-subtle?) between your everyday-life and the larger-than-life world of myth?
What happens to break the routine in your performance?
What surprising, unexpected, alarming, disturbing, softly poetic, shocking, sweetly transforming, metamorphosing, lovely EVENT – as big as a planet, as small as a breath – will break the routine that you’ve established?
How does the person immersed in routine react to the break in routine… what are the results? aftermath? outcome?
STRUCTURAL POSSIBILITIES
A-B-A. One of my teachers told me that if a story ends where it started everybody thinks it’s brilliant. It’s an old, cyclic story structure called A-B-A. How many movies and plays have you seen like this? The story starts in A… let’s say A is Chicago (metaphorically speaking of course). Then we travel all over the planet, into the Milky Way, under the ocean, to Hell and back… let’s say all of those travels are B. And, finally, we wind up in the same chair, at dinner talking with mom, in Chicago. We’re back in A, but now, because of our travels, we have transformed/evolved and, somehow, A just isn’t the same as it was at the beginning of the story. A-B-A is simple and satisfying. Like fresh baked bread.
You can think of a lot of pop-music as using a version of A-B-A structure… verse, chorus, verse, chorus. The verse changes. The chorus is always the same. Every time you come back to the repetitive chorus, the lyrics from the ‘verse’ section has changed your relationship to the chorus – transforming, enriching, entangling, complicating, illuminating your understanding of the story being told.
On Wednesday you will prepare a rough draft of your performance- you will get feedback from the class and have until Friday to refine your piece.
You will each have a partner who will help you document your piece. On Friday at the beginning of class you will have 10 minutes to meet with this person to give them directions. Think about what is important to the piece- should the videographer be worried about getting close ups? Is it important to get a shot that is from the back, side, or all around? Should they be including the audience or not?
Consider what your piece needs? They will all require different thoughts.
You will have 5 minutes to set up, 5 minutes to break-down (while the next person sets up). If you have other endurance based ideas that will require different “time parameters” talk with me.
RITUAL, ROUTINE and MYTH
EPHEMERAL ART PRACTICES AND DOCUMENTATION
Summer 2008
Instructor: Annie Strader
Assignment 1
Take a typical day of the week- how about tomorrow- and carefully observe the specific routines that make up your day: waking up, eating breakfast, shower, toilet, walking/riding to work/school, class, lunch, etc., all the way to getting into bed and falling asleep.
Take notes on your routines and rituals.
Be painstakingly specific in your note-taking.
Create a 2-5 minute performance/presentation/prayer/event based on the notes and observations of your daily rituals.
This performance should include three things:
1: Routine and/or ritual.
2: Myth.
3: The breaking of the routine.
Start with the routine/ritual from your life… and then incorporate the idea/story/metaphor/archetype of a myth into the performance. And then, find a way to BREAK the routine. This is often what a good story thrives on– SURPRISE
When creating and shaping your performance consider different approaches to exaggerate routine: repetition, rhythm and speed change, body movement, inappropriate/ridiculous emotion, props, sound, language, audience… Try using the absurd. Try using a non-sequitor – flights of fancy, gross exaggerations, complete fabrications, beautiful images, stark confessions, brilliantly told truths and blatant lies are encouraged. And, again, be brave. Try being uncomfortable.
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
Is there power in the mundane?
How does a private ritual (as simple as brushing your teeth) change when enacted in a public space (brushing your teeth on the bus)?
Is there power in fairy tales, myths, fables?
Can you find connections (subtle? not-so-subtle?) between your everyday-life and the larger-than-life world of myth?
What happens to break the routine in your performance?
What surprising, unexpected, alarming, disturbing, softly poetic, shocking, sweetly transforming, metamorphosing, lovely EVENT – as big as a planet, as small as a breath – will break the routine that you’ve established?
How does the person immersed in routine react to the break in routine… what are the results? aftermath? outcome?
STRUCTURAL POSSIBILITIES
A-B-A. One of my teachers told me that if a story ends where it started everybody thinks it’s brilliant. It’s an old, cyclic story structure called A-B-A. How many movies and plays have you seen like this? The story starts in A… let’s say A is Chicago (metaphorically speaking of course). Then we travel all over the planet, into the Milky Way, under the ocean, to Hell and back… let’s say all of those travels are B. And, finally, we wind up in the same chair, at dinner talking with mom, in Chicago. We’re back in A, but now, because of our travels, we have transformed/evolved and, somehow, A just isn’t the same as it was at the beginning of the story. A-B-A is simple and satisfying. Like fresh baked bread.
You can think of a lot of pop-music as using a version of A-B-A structure… verse, chorus, verse, chorus. The verse changes. The chorus is always the same. Every time you come back to the repetitive chorus, the lyrics from the ‘verse’ section has changed your relationship to the chorus – transforming, enriching, entangling, complicating, illuminating your understanding of the story being told.
On Wednesday you will prepare a rough draft of your performance- you will get feedback from the class and have until Friday to refine your piece.
You will each have a partner who will help you document your piece. On Friday at the beginning of class you will have 10 minutes to meet with this person to give them directions. Think about what is important to the piece- should the videographer be worried about getting close ups? Is it important to get a shot that is from the back, side, or all around? Should they be including the audience or not?
Consider what your piece needs? They will all require different thoughts.
You will have 5 minutes to set up, 5 minutes to break-down (while the next person sets up). If you have other endurance based ideas that will require different “time parameters” talk with me.