Moving Space

The assignment title: “Moving Space.”

The objective: Make a film that explores the relation of the body to space. Some (but not all) questions that we raised: What is space? How do we perceive space? How does space change? What changes space?

This was our final project for Creative Technologies.

Due to the unfortunate events that happened on Monday, November 28th, we lost an entire workday, therefore we did this assignment in ‘Project Runway mode,’ as our teacher Sofie so hilariously put it. We had to brainstorm ideas and go out and film in groups of three, each of us creating our own idea and film utilizing the other two dancers in our group, each of us in a different location.

At first I struggled to come up with an idea—I thought, what about if I use stairs? Then I realized that the stairs in Sullivant are beautiful and several other groups were utilizing them.

This was my next idea—the idea of waiting space.

If I were to give my project its own title, and not just “Moving Space” or “Third Floor North Corridor” (where it was filmed), it would be “Waiting Space.”

I gave Emma and Lauren, the two amazing dancers who were featured in “Third Floor North Corridor,” quite a bit of freedom. I told Emma that I wanted her to act like she was choreographing with her headphones in or jam out or whatever she wanted to do. I asked Lauren to drum out a beat on her notebook, then act like someone was calling her on the phone, talk to them for a little bit, say something funny like “Okay bye Mom” and walk off screen. They both rose to the occasion and fulfilled what I asked for beautifully.

Starring in both of their projects, on the other hand, was really fun and interesting. Emma’s involved the use of stairs and she had Lauren and I do a lot of really fun things like bunny hopping down them and sliding down them. Seeing the way that Emma utilized all of the footage and edited it all together was absolutely amazing. Lauren’s idea was that Emma saw herself in a mirror or in the reflection of a window and started dancing around—more or less checking herself out—and then I started mirroring her and dancing behind her, until Emma caught me.

It was so incredible to work with them and see how all of our different ideas related and intersected, yet were completely original and unique. The way that I would think to utilize one space is not the way that someone else would think to utilize the same space, because each person will perceive it differently. Different bodies and different minds mesh together to make really interesting results.

“Third Floor North Corridor” is available below, including the poster that I put onto the wall in the corridor that it was filmed in.

#dance #video