#geeksdanz

TOMORROW!!! Geeksdanz returns with Manifestations III: Nightmare Hauntings! Come to the Glitter Box and enjoy a selection of Halloween vignettes woven through with witches, zombies, beasties, and various and sundry other nightmares. 6:30 and 9:00 pm! https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/manifestations-iii-nightmare-hauntings#/

Hey you! Yes, YOU! Do you want to be in a future Geeksdanz? We're working on expanding a Vault piece based on the finger pattern in this video, and we need your help! We want to include shots of as many people as we can in our video, so if you want to be part of it, here's what you do: learn the finger pattern in the video, and then go to some location you spend a lot of time in, out in the world, and film yourself repeating it a few times with a bored expression on your face. It can be sitting at a bus stop, in line at the grocery store, all alone or with a big group, you name it! Get maybe 10 or 20 seconds of footage, and Dropbox it to us at [email protected]. We'll use it in the video!

"Embolden, Enhearten, Enliven" was one of those Things where a good idea suffered greatly for the lack of a studio space to choreograph and film in, and this version allows the choreography to eat up the space as it really deserves. Our studio space also gave us the chance to create a low-budget lighting effect - watch what happens to Patty as the blinds go up mid-piece!

The dancers of Geeksdanz interviewed each other about their lost childhood objects, and then rather than fabricating the objects tangibly, we created miniature dance solos to represent the objects and gave those back to each other as gifts of performance. We decided after creating and presenting the solos that it would be more impactful to present the solos before the interviews in the final video, so that viewers could contemplate what kind of object each solo might represent. the second half of the video is our interview exchanges. The music was chosen by each choreographer using my iPod's music library, and the choices were made quickly due to the time constraints in the studio. The choreographers also chose where the object owner should sit, and we made sure all object owners were in frame in some way so that part of the impact would be watching the owner watch their gift. We considered re-recording the solos formally, but decided that it was important to keep the recording of the first time the object owner witnessed the piece to preserve their reactions. We thought a lot about the multiple translations that the object went through during this process, from the owner's memory of the object, to how they choose to present that memory, to how the interviewer perceived their descriptions, and then finally, the interpretation of that memory into physicality and movement. I found it surprising that all of us had varying levels of gesture in our pieces, and that almost all of the pieces had quiet, pensive tones and involved gentle, calming music. We also found it a cool coincidence that between the four of us, our objects represented a piece of clothing, a treasured soft item, a crafting supply, and a technological entertainment. In a way, we had four different categories of object represented, and enjoyed pinpointing the similarities and differences between them.

For our response to "Find Your Band," the dancers and I did an improvisation focused on listening to the sounds in the room and reacting to them, "joining in" by adding the sounds of our movement and breath to the soundscape. Halfway through, when the music comes in, we switched to a new score, but I left it in the video because the thread of breath and sound continued to carry through the rest of the improv.

Character art by Alex Mitchell (https://www.facebook.com/alex.mitchell.357).