Encounter Project

Taking professional dance training was a worthwhile investment

2011-12-16T08:01:00.000-08:00

‎42: 56 in... Anya Gallaccio talking about collaborating with dancers, the difficulties of working collaboratively, and choreographing her audience. A lot of her reservations, for me, stem from not understanding how to communicate with dancers, and possibly not working with dancers who have experience of collaboration outside of dance. Makes me very glad I took the time to do professional training and really understand the job of a dancer and associated thought processes.

Found an affinity with Lucy Skaer

2011-12-15T07:05:00.000-08:00

Lucy Skaer talking about her installation for the turner prize. She is interested in the boundary between 2D and 3D and here she describes how she 'orchestrates' her installations and talks about the idea of 'presence' I wonder how much of that came from her collaborative relationship with Gill Clarke (Siobhan Davies Commissions)? I identify with a lot she says here.

Tate Channel shedding some light on things

2011-12-09T09:51:00.000-08:00

I have been listening to the Tate Channel today in my studio. It has been such a relief to listen to artists talking about what they do in practical terms. It made me realise that you just do what you do, it doesn't have to be so complicated!

Jeff Koons, Paula Reago and Grayson Perry were my favourites so far, Grayson Perry: 'Everyone has a brand so I am the tranny potter, which isn't too bad'. Brilliant!

http://channel.tate.org.uk/#media:/media/26522806001&list:/channel/playlists/41803706001&context:/channel/playlists

I have rejoined the Axis community

2011-12-08T11:37:00.000-08:00

Axis is a great community of artists and curators, I have just signed up again for another year:

http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=12243

I'd like to know about you

2011-12-06T16:02:00.001-08:00

I often wonder who all those people who look at this are.... drop me a line zelda_stevens@hotmail.com

: )

Cognitive wholes, embodied cognition

2011-12-02T07:35:00.000-08:00

In the studio today listening to this affirming talk about the cognitive whole that mind and body forms and how this affects learning. The educations system's lack of awareness of this is why my mother chose to teach me at home, and thank god she did!

Although this explains why I have never quite felt on the same page as other people until I met contemporary dancers.

The late Gill Clarke, dance artist and Guy Claxton, learning scientist in conversation as part of The Independent Dance Crossing Borders and PAL talks:

http://www.independentdance.co.uk/rsc/MP3s/CB2011/GuyClaxton_11Oct2011.mp3

The bit at 54.35 secs about how we understand perception is enthralling: Guy tells us how the old model of the mind held perception at the fore and action at the back, action as a response to perception with intelligence in the middle. The new model is not linear however, it places doing at the forefront.

He goes onto talk about vision as the prototype for perception, when in fact it is touch.

Visual perception is a visual process of tapping the world. What is more perception is not building up a big composite picture. In fact you only have the detail, which enables you to build up expectations of the world, built by touching it.

Artist statement

2011-12-01T05:31:00.000-08:00

It is four years since I started this blog and the new lines of enquiry that are now starting to take shape. To pin things down and move them forwards i have written an artist statement:

I make room filling installations, objects and drawings (drawing spanning traditional media/dance/assemblage). Between 2004- 2008, I extended my painting practice driven by my increasing realisation of the role of the body in perception. Because my experience of the world is highly sensory, visual and crucially mobile, I felt my work couldn't continue to serve the eyes alone. It remains important that the form of my work encourages spatial participation from the viewer.

In deconstructing painting I increased the scale of the work to encompass the viewer entirely and extended the work into their territory, requiring them to interact with the it on spatial terms. The architectural boundaries of the space replaced the 2D frame as a compositional device, and the work was constructed of painting materials. This work was often site-specific, always responsive to the exhibition space and sometimes related visually to the space outside the gallery/site. It was largely informed by the experience of moving through urban landscapes.

Having made this departure, since 2008 I have increasingly explored ideas relating to movement and by extension, natural forces: balance, tension/oppositional forces, exertion of force on a material of space, rhythm and energy. The work is informed by physical practices including contemporary dance/movement and direct observation of humans in movement and natural forms and forces.

Influences include Phylida Barlow, modernist painter Peter Lanyon (master of articulating sensory, mobile, landscape experiences) and contemporary choreographer Siobhan Davies, a pioneer of the body as a source of information for making visual art.

Siobhan Davies pays tribute to Gill Clarke

2011-11-17T08:09:00.000-08:00

Siobhan Davies today made this statement about Gill on the facebook page of Siobhan Davies Dance:

‎'Gill Clarke, co-director of Independent Dance and founding member of Siobhan Davies Dance, died in the evening of November 15th.

She was simply a really fine person and I have lost a great friend who knew me well. I shall miss her terribly but her understanding was that we would all have a little of her within us and she hoped that we would evolve and in different ways carry that part of her along. She was typically modest imagining it was only a small part, I know how much of her is embedded in me and that will continuously give me energy and questions.

Gill loved dance with an intelligent passion. She intuitively appreciated that there is a knowing in our bodies that too often we are not in touch with. Her lifelong work as a performer, teacher and researcher was to reveal the mindful intelligence of the moving body and what that means to all of us as people, our relationship with others and our place in the world.

She is irreplaceable, but she prepared us all. Fiona Millward at Independent Dance will continue with its extraordinary program and there are many others in place who will carry on and grow through Gill's spirit and enquiries.'

- Siobhan Davies

RIP Gill Clarke

2011-11-17T06:24:00.000-08:00

I am deeply saddened to hear that the dance world has lost one of its greatest souls, a great artist and one of its most interesting thinkers about what it is to move in a body.

Independent Dance, of which Gill was Director has issued the following message today:

Gill Clarke died on November 15 2011 as she lived, calmly and with great poise.

ID has lost a wonderful director and inspiring artist. However, we have been working together to ensure our vision of ID continues to grow.

We have already been receiving some beautiful messages and this has given us the idea to create a place where we can hold them, and to consider appropriate ways to share them.

So, if you would like to send thoughts, memories, or images of Gill, please email them to: gillclarke@independentdance.co.uk

Here she is, doing what she does best, may those who knew her and her work grow the seeds that she planted:

Mind in Motion by Gill Clarke from HZT Berlin on Vimeo.

Alexis investigates, article five: A conversation with Siobhan Davies about dance thinking

2011-11-04T05:27:00.000-07:00

Recently choreographer Siobhan Davies has seemingly turned curator, commissioning four new collaborations between dancers and visual artists, the results of which are being shown in an exhibition titled Siobhan Davies Commissions, running from the 4 –13 November at Bargehouse, London (www.siobhandavies.com/dance/dance-works/sdc.html).

This will be the third major show in visual arts territory from Siobhan Davies Dance following The Collection at Victoria Miro Gallery and IKON Gallery Birmingham in 2009, and ROTOR at Siobhan Davies Studios and South London Gallery in 2010 (touring in 2011 to Whitworth Gallery in Manchester and Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh). Of the four commissioned dance artists, Henry Montes, Gill Clarke, and Sarah Warsop are partnered respectively with video and performance artist Marcus Coates, Turner Prize-nominated Lucy Skaer, and craft artist Tracey Rowledge. The fourth, Deborah Saxon, is working with Henry Montes and Bruce Sharp, who works in video, sound and drawing.

As both visual artist and dance maker, I was interested to know why cross art form dialogue has become such a key part of Siobhan’s artistic output. We met for an hour one crisp October morning in Siobhan’s glass fronted office in South London. I talked with Siobhan about how curating had become an extension of her own choreographic trajectory, why collaboration is important to her and how all of this relates to her personal campaign to promote dance thinking as a generator for ideas in other art forms. Talking with at times her eyes shut, hands floating back and forth, Siobhan gently uncovered the words to give me an insight that I share with you here.

So what does happen when a choreographer is situated in the role of curator? Read the full article here: www.danceuk.org/news/article/alexis-investigates-article-five-conversation-siobhan-davies-about-dance-thinking

This is the fifth in a series of articles that I have written about art and dance having a dialogue. Read the rest here: www.danceuk.org/news/article/artist-alexis-zelda-stevens-writes-series-articles-dance-uk-about-art-and-dance/

Invited to write about Siobhan Davies' new commissions

2011-10-20T11:27:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday I went down to see Siobhan to talk to her about her recent commissions where she becomes more curator than choreographer. Her team have invited me to write abou the work and I am looking forward to talking to some of the dance artists involved next week.

Of the four commissioned dance artists, Henry Montes, Gill Clarke, and Sarah Warsop are partnered respectively with video and performance artist Marcus Coates, Turner Prize-nominated Lucy Skaer, and craft artist Tracey Rowledge. The fourth, Deborah Saxon, is working with Henry Montes and Bruce Sharp, who works in video, sound and drawing.

Siobhan Davies Commissions continues Davies’ approach of creating work to be seen at close range, and based on a dialogue between art forms. All of the pieces, including performance works, are on show for five hours daily, and visitors are free to arrive and leave as they please.

Siobhan Davies Commissions will be open from 4–13 November 2001 at Bargehouse, London

www.siobhandavies.com/dance/dance-works/sdc.html

They say your brain shows you a memory rather that what your eyes really see

2011-09-30T08:34:00.001-07:00

As soon as my pencil touches the paper things come spilling out, my voice wants to speak.

But to say something new, feels like I have to stop my eyes from seeing what they always see and look further.

It feels like I am pulling it out of the dark, trying to see round what I know which is obscuring everything.

I now have a .com

2011-05-26T16:16:00.000-07:00

I have pulled all of my work since 2005 together here, take a look:

www.alexiszeldastevens.com

The pile of drawings is growing

2011-03-28T14:44:00.000-07:00

Things are starting to come together with the new body of work.

New images uploaded today:

https://picasaweb.google.com/Alexiszeldastevens/Drawings?authkey=Gv1sRgCJjbkN-M3Jyhcw#

New series of drawings in the making

2011-03-18T12:00:00.000-07:00

I have been in the studio every Friday since the beginning of March, making a new series of drawings.

They explore the movement patterns, forms and shapes of crowds converging and dispersing.

I have decided to give all of my blog followers a sneak preview here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/Alexiszeldastevens/Drawings?authkey=Gv1sRgCJjbkN-M3Jyhcw#

Do forgive the picture quality, work in progress : )

More 'Alexis Investigates dance and visual arts' Article four: Catching movement, painter Peter Lanyon now live on Dance UK website

2011-03-18T11:52:00.000-07:00

Here is an excerpt:

I first came across Peter Lanyon's paintings over ten years ago. At the time I had a conundrum, I was looking at a career in the visual arts but my natural affinity was with moving in the world, not looking at it. My only arena for this was ballet and I was awful at it, my teacher often having to disguise her horror at my imprecise joy in throwing myself around. There were no release based contemporary dance classes on the Isle of Wight where I had grown up or things may have been different. I spent a lot of time outdoors on the beach and I wanted to paint how it felt to physically be in landscape, rather than what it looked like viewed from a fixed point. Lanyon did just that and I felt such an affinity with him that at 18, I made a decision. I moved 300 miles away from home to experience what he had, paint what he had, and immerse myself in his homeland, Cornwall. I was subsequently reffered to by critic Max Andrews in New York Arts Magazine as part of the St.Ives New School (read the article here). Tate St. Ives has recently held a restrospective of Lanyon's work called Peter Lanyon, which ran from October 2010 to the end of January 2011.

Read the full article on the Dance UK website here:

www.danceuk.org/news/article/alexis-investigates-dance-and-visual-arts-article-four-catching-movement-painter-peter-lanyon/

www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/797558/0/1/asc

Siobhan Davies article re post request from Jade

2011-03-12T09:57:00.000-08:00

I have recently been contacted by Jade regarding the article

Alexis Investigates: Dance and Visual Arts. Article One: A Visit to Siobhan Davies Dance Company.

This article is not available online, at www.danceuk.org/news/article/alexis-investigates-dance-and-visual-arts-article-one-visit-siobhan-davies-dance-company/

It was temporarily offline due to a data transfer error .

Apologies to all those of you who have been trying to access it, all back to normal now.

Yvonne Rainer and my divorce from painting

2010-12-14T14:19:00.000-08:00

The Big Intensive has been mind shaking so far. Words about that are on the way, in the meantime, Dance UK, the national voice for the dance sector, have published my third article about visual arts and dance.

Here is an excerpt from the article, titled Falling in Love With Another Artform, Yvonne Rainer and My Divorce From Painting:

'As an artist with integrity, you have to be prepared to follow your line of enquiry to the end wherever it may take you. This very situation stared me in the face three years ago, and it was heartbreaking to realise that my love affair with painting was over. After basing my identity, and whole world around striving to be the next great painter, I had fallen for another art form - dance. What is more I wasn’t trained in it and I was 25. However, as anyone who has fallen out of love will know, you just can’t ignore that pull of something that makes you feel life is meaningful again, offering you possibility to move forwards. So in 2008 I shut the studio door, leotard in hand and ran away with dance.

Yvonne Rainer similarly moved from dance to film. She was co-founder of The Judson Church during 1960’s in New York, where she first became intrigued by the relationship between the performer and audience, the political and the private in everyday life. In the 1960’s she rocked the conventions of the dance world, introducing pedestrian movement and using people as props. Her works were task based and looked to the uneducated eye, like someone doing Ballet badly.'

All the three articles and the introductory text that goes with them are collected here on my Artists' Newsletter project blog:

www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/797558

Here is a video of Yvonne Rainer's Trio A in 1978:

Working alongside international artists at Sadler's Wells from the 13 December

2010-12-04T05:34:00.000-08:00

I have been invited by Sadler's Wells to be part of this year's Big Intensive from the 13 December 2010. The Big Intensive is a weeklong choreography lab. I will be joining 15 other international artists: Zoi Dimitriou, Mark Smith, Riccardo Buscarini, Charlotte Spencer, Arno Schuitemaker, Yuyu Rau, Linda Remahl, Nic Chalmers, Anna Melander, Lucia Tong, Flora Wellesley Wesley, Robbie Synge, Rachel Birch, Petra Söör, and Elena Jacinta who I trained with in 2008.

A weekend at the Southbank for 'MOVE:Choreographing You'

2010-11-28T03:39:00.000-08:00

I am just getting ready to go back to the Southbank for day two of MOVE: Choreoghraphing You, curated by Stephanie Rosenthal.

It has been an inspirational weekend so far, and it is drawing together people currently working in the field. Last night Susan Sentler (Laban and ex Martha Graham), Rosemary Butcher and I stood in the Siberian cold outside discussing the days events until we could stand it no more!

Simone Forti blew me away, rolling down and then up some stairs without changing her dynamic even slightly, and she is 75! More about her here:

Rosemary Butcher's reconstrcution of Alan Kaprow's 18 Happenings in 6 parts, was fascinating and very well done, more about her here: www.rosemarybutcher.com/

Anna Haplrin's show Parades & Changes, Replays, reconstructed by Anne Collard, was spectacular, funny and very high quality. The cast undressed and ripped up huge sheets of paper, furling it round them like a bunch of Reneissance cherubs, with gentleness and joy that I recently saw during a festival hay fight at the Secret Garden Party. More about Anna Halprin Here:

The aesthetic remindeds me of Jessica Stockholder, my favorite artist. More about her here: http://art.yale.edu/JessicaStockholder

I can't wait for more today!

Dance Uk publish my second article about art and dance

2010-11-23T03:11:00.000-08:00

www.danceuk.org/news/article/alexis-investigates-dance-and-visual-arts-article-two-coffee-stephanie-rosenthal-curator-move-choreo

Alexis investigates: A coffee with Stephanie Rosenthal, Curator of MOVE Choreographing You, Hayward Gallery. October 2010.

Dance UK publish the first article in my series about art and dance.

2010-11-08T16:42:00.000-08:00

http://www.danceuk.org/news/article/alexis-investigates-dance-and-visual-arts-article-one-visit-siobhan-davies-dance-company/

Alexis investigates: A visit to Siobhan Davies Studios. October 2010.

Three drawings made about the experience of walking at a pace through Venice.

2010-10-29T13:28:00.000-07:00

Dance UK To Publish A Series Of My Articles About Dance and Art

2010-10-29T04:20:00.000-07:00

Dance UK, the national voice for the dance sector, will be publishing a series of my articles about art and dance at www.danceuk.org/news. Titled 'Alexis Investigates: Dance and Visual Arts' the series offers 'ways in' to the complex conversation that is happening between the two art forms. The influence of dance on other forms of art has recently been highlighted by a series of major exhibition and events programs: 'Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, 1909 - 1929' has just opened at the V & A, 'Move: Choreographing You' is on at the Hayward Gallery and over recent years choreographer Siobhan Davies has orchestrated an ongoing program of events and conversations, including ROTOR -new work and commissions from artists working in other art forms which opens on the 3 November 2010 at Siobhan davies Studios and The South London Gallery.

I have worked and trained in both dance and visual arts, as a maker and also as a manager in both mediums. Dance is spending more and more time in the territory of the visual arts and what is more this started as far back as the 1970’s (some might argue long before that). I am writing this series of articles as a ‘way in’ to this particular area of artistic activity because I believe that dance is a highly influential media and that the knowledge base of its practitioners can bring insight to many other realms. Dance is evolving in many different ways and it is key to the growth of dance that we, the dance community, realise the potential in cross-disciplinary relationships.

The first in the series will be about my revent visit to Siobhan Davies Studios to see rehearsals for ROTOR. Got to run- I have a meeting with Staphanie Rosenthal, Cuator at The Hayward Gallery, to talk about 'MOVE:Choreographing You'.

Sadler's Wells have selected me to train on The BIg Intensive.

2010-10-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

Very exited to be one of 15 people, chosen out of hundreds to undergo an intensive choreography lab at Sadler's Wells.

The Big Intensive is a December course for choreographers and directors to provoke ideas, provide inspiration, and illuminate new creative possibilities. This year's theme concentrates specifically on choreography, with speakers from the worlds of dance, visual arts, dramaturgy, marketing and theatre.

I get to talk to Liz Lerman and Martin Creed in the same week!
www.sadlerswells.com/jerwoodstudio

The beginnings of a film

2010-10-14T15:06:00.001-07:00

"How is this a drawing?"

2010-10-10T16:35:00.000-07:00

This video explains how my objects sometimes feed my larger works, taken as part of an artist consultation project for STBY- a creative research company.

This one reflects on how works evolve from the mess, the studio also cleans up for movement based work too.

You Will Find Me Dancing Round The Ceiling of Kensington Palace.

2010-10-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

I was recently invited by set designer Myridden Wannell to take the role of Princess Margaret and dance across the ceiling of the palace- in shadow form- as part of his design for Wildwork's 'Enchanted Palace' Installation.
There are some great images of the installation here:

www.myriddinwannell.com/#url

www.wildworks.biz/the-enchanted-palace.html

Choreography And Me.

2010-10-01T06:22:00.000-07:00

I have been investigating the relationship between my visual art practice and dance since 2006.

The influence of dance on other forms of art has recently been highlighted by a series of major exhibition and events programs. 'Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, 1909 - 1929' has just opened at the V & A, 'Move: Choreographing You' is soon to open at the Hayward Gallery and over recent years choreographer Siobhan Davies has orchestrated an ongoing program of events and conversations, including ROTOR -new work and commissions from artists working in other art forms which takes place this autumn.

For Dance UK, where I am Information and Communications Officer, I will be writing about this subject hoping to show dancers the importance of cross disciplinary collaboration, knowledge about other art forms and to highlight the strength of dance an an influential art form in its own right.

Tonight I am going to Siobhan Davies Studios to hear poet and novelist Lavinia Greenlaw and Sculptor Cornelia Parker discuss their creative process. Last year Siobhan asked Lavinia Greenlaw and seven other artists about how they saw choreographic practice in their work.

The articles (that you can view online here http://www.siobhandavies.com/conversations/about.php) encouraged me to answer the question myself below:

How do I recognise choreographic practice in my work?

Firstly I deal with meaning that is made up of a sequence of experiences as opposed to meaning distilled within a singular object: a sequence of made images and objects installed in a space/ shown on a film to orchestrate a particular journey through the space and a particular overall sense or 'meaning'.

My work is about how one thing 'speaks' to another, including the audience. Spatially I have an ongoing interest in obstruction and flow explored through various transparent and semi permanent materials and structures in space that you can move through, see through or that obstruct vision and your pathway, partially or completely.

In making my work I start with a situation, experienced with my mind and body in relation to exterior conditions and over a time base i.e. working in a cramped studio: me, the space the things, how I move, how I feel, or having an unhealthy relationship: what I do , what they do, how we interact, what the juxtaposition does in terms of energy.

Then in making the work I lay out 'things' in relation to another across a space and or a time base. I 'choreograph or orchestrate' the viewers experience of the piece, the (emotional) movement within them and the movement that they do in the space through a series of pathways and views offering places where things make sense pictorially and sequentially (in an abstract narrative) amongst those that don't.

I draw to remember where the weight was in my body after learning a new choreography in dance class and when I teach art I teach 'seeing' with the whole body not only the eyes.

You can view my work at www.youtube.com/alexiszeldastevens

'You Are A Lid To Me' was made in response to Cornelia Parker's '30 Pieces of Silver' in 2009.

NY Arts Magazine text by Max Andrews..

2010-01-15T11:11:00.000-08:00

This is text about my work published in 2005 and still gives good context to what I do.

"Poking through a gash in the canvas, the candy-pink branch marks a conceptual transition for Stevens' in her installation at ArtSway. Puncturing the picture-surface started off as a silly, wonky gesture that seemed to mock the seriousness of the task at hand. But it was also a serious provocation to the authority of the canvas, and the breakthrough to the third dimension. "... more

2009-12-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

Ocular-centric culture

Culture which favors the visual over the physical.

In which case calling myself a visual artist is misleading.

Darwin, Attenboruogh, Bauhaus

2009-10-06T15:06:00.000-07:00

'The meaning of any structure is to found by inquiring what the forces are to which the creature possessing it is reacting so that it can maintain it's own existence.

Force must be met by force, and the structure evolves as the forces are balancing''

Mabel E Todd.

2009-07-14T15:03:00.000-07:00

Jose Limon- another dance inspiration... started out as a painter.

there must be some sort of connection here .

Rudolf Laban

2009-05-01T15:25:00.000-07:00

I have just read the story of Rudolf Laban and there are many similarities between his story and my own. He began his planless adventure in painting, was fascinated by circus and human interaction and most importantly he had no fixed plan. His nature and agendas are so close to mine from what I have read.. He embodied things and regurgitated them to understand, the Picasso of dance. We even appear to have the same hat.

I don't think I have identified with anything quite to this extent before.

Interestingly he was also involved in temporary anarchic communities such as Ascona, which put me in mind of the connections that I have been laterally making between Black Mountain College, and my own involvement with festivals. It strikes me that certain festivals are sustaining the arts through providing creative people a lawless playground, packed with stimulation, adventure and a like minded temporary community. Something every critique group aims to be and always fall short of.

2009-04-20T12:41:00.000-07:00

Sculpture- a physical encounter between an object and an embodied being in an environment.

Sculpture must, occupy, interact with or enclose actual space.

common methods are; carving, modeling, construction, reproduction, ready-mades.

Dance- Movement material derived from human movement and behaviour, developed and presented to give emphasis, in a time based structure, with a visual, sonic and dramatic element. Choreography being a scaffold for action.

Performance Art- a form involving the artists body, time, space and an audience, and/or derivatives of these things.

Live Art- "Live Art should not be understood as a description of an art form but as a strategy to ‘include' a diversity of practices and artists that might otherwise find themselves ‘excluded' from all kinds of policy and provision and all kinds of curatorial contexts and critical debates." [Live Arts Development Agency] Temporal, time based.

Although I find definitions hugely uninteresting to discuss [ I prefer to discuss possibility and boundlessness, rather than limitations and edges], I am posting these definitions to indicate what I understand them to be. Now we are on the same page.

To get these out I put in to my brain machine the following;looking at rock structure, rep and contemporary class with Angela Praed & C-Scape.

2009-04-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

2009-04-20T12:30:00.000-07:00

www.youtube.com/alexiszeldastevens

Click on "Contact-Squash-Catch"

This is my first exploration of these objects along side movement, a sketch.

2009-04-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

2009-04-20T12:23:00.000-07:00

2009-04-20T12:18:00.000-07:00

2009-04-20T12:12:00.000-07:00

2009-04-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

Compress-Squash-Flatten

2009-04-20T11:58:00.001-07:00

Since late 2006 I have been researching the effect of these three things on materials and landscapes.
I am now turning my focus to how these things effect bodies and relationships, physically and psychologically.

The form of this next exploration will be a performance, loosely a duet performed by two dancers on the 4Th of July 2009 in London. The piece was made partially in response to '30 Pieces of Silver' by Cornelia Parker and various Paula Reago paintings as well as the exploration in materials that I have carried out over the past two years.

You can watch some footage here www.youtube.com/alexizeldastevens. the piece is called 'You Are A Lid to Me' .

Encounter as a project wants to collaborate, and is the foundation of a collective.

The next series of posts present the most significant findings of previous research, and opens up my working process to my audience, that includes you.. by the way.

2009-04-20T11:49:00.000-07:00

compress
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: compact, condense
Synonyms: abbreviate, abridge, abstract, bind, boil down, coagulate, concentrate, consolidate, constrict, contract, cram, cramp, crowd, crush, decrease, dehydrate, densen, densify, epitomize, force into space, make brief, narrow, pack, press, press together, ram, reduce, restrict, shorten, shrink, shrivel, squash, squeeze, stuff, summarize, syncopate, telescope, tighten, wedge, wrap
Antonyms: blow up, expand, extend, fill, increase, loosen, stretch, uncompress, uncondense

squash
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: compress
Synonyms: annihilate, bear, bruise, crowd, crush, distort, extinguish, flatten, jam, kill, macerate, mash, pound, press, pulp, push, put down, quash, quell, scrunch, shut down, sit on, smash, squeeze, squish, stamp on, suppress, trample, triturate
Notes: quash means to crush or to subdue or to suppress or extinguish summarily and completely, while squash means to compress, crush, or squeeze
Antonyms: fan, open, uncompress

Main Entry: flatten
Part of Speech: verb
Definition: level out
Synonyms: abrade, beat down, compress, crush, debase, deflate, depress, even out, fell, floor, flush, grade, ground, iron out, knock down, lay, lay low, mow down, plane, plaster*, prostrate, raze, roll, smash, smooth, spread out, squash, straighten, subdue, trample
Antonyms: break, elevate, make uneven, raise, round
* = informal/non-formal usage

And then THIS happened! ...

2008-11-06T15:17:00.000-08:00

I said in a very small voice, so as I wouldn't notice....

" I want to work in dance."
that,
I thought,
is very worrying..

So then gravely concerned.. I said in a loud voice so as Wimbledon College of Art would hear me....

"This MA thing, just doesn't really feel quite right to me, I v'e thought long and hard and have already that decided that this route is not going to my destination.... so it makes no sense to come with you".

I was stunned.

Then myself and everyone else looked at me as if I was mad...

and I said

"let's see,
just in case,
if i am really so bad at this dance thing...
lets see if I can get a handle on this because if I can I might just be able to realise my dream and if I never do I will wilt at the deadening hands of sculpture and whither on my own studio floor. I would rather fail spectacularly than fade away... and once I set off, failure is just not an option"

My honest and terrified refusal to accept my own untimely death convinced Birkbeck, and they jumped with me into deep, murky waters to see what we can find.

Over the next year this sketchbook with evolve as I venture into the depths.......

Halesowen College, and a trip to the beach with Dad.

2007-09-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

I am joining the Halesowen College teaching team as guest lecturer for the week, as they take thier foundation students to Godreavy beach.
Acccompanying them will be Basingstoke College of Technology , staring recently retired and legendary Brian Stevens... my dad. Getting my hopes up for good weather, and the St.Ives Jazz festival as well as some great rocks to look at and some new young people to get to know.

The last Couple of months in brief

2007-09-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

Encounter is the first piece in a body of new work that I have been researching since september 2006.
Previously I have made large scale architectural works which have altered the space of their surroundings dramatically and encouraged the audience to move around the space in an unfamiliar way and used colour to provoke sensation. See picture.

The notion of a work drawing attention to body and to a pattern of movement, both physically and spatially lead me to consider using movement and body more directly within my work. How would a dancer experience the work?

This new piece has come out of research into choreography in it's broadest sense and research into rock formation and erosion: form created by movement and natural choreography in the natural world. Here is a list of words that are associated with this piece, to offer a way in, or a starting point for thinking about it in an abstract way.
Converge,
choreography,
fragmentation,
match,
mirror,
replicate,
landscape,
explorer,
miniature world,
double exposed images of venice 2004,
deconstruction of a sequence of movement,
collage,
rehash,
accumulate,
collection of debris natural or manmade,
patterns of accumulation produced by movement,
material deposited by moving forces,
sediment,
rivers,
litter,
collect,
reconstruct,
reinterpret.

This text is not an explanation of the work, but a statement of concepts that were in my mind when it was created, a context perhaps.

The audience was invited into this intimate setting and invited to walk around the work, experiencing it at close proximity from different angles, at times objects within the space appeared in the video that was being projected onto them. There were moments of correlation, fragmentation, juxtaposition, clarity and lack of it, structured in much the same way a piece of contemporary dance.
I had a great response from the audience who found it engaging and it provoked discussion.

Working Holiday

2007-08-16T15:58:00.000-07:00

I have been on the beach for a week with a group of very talented dancers brought together by Attik Dance, on a creative holiday.
It was the best week I can remember, and there are so many ideas rushing around my head. Watch this space.

Chris Lewis-Smith, film maker and lecturer at Bath Spa has made a film about the week called 'Watergate Bay'.

LAST DAY TODAY 12-5. CLOSING CELEBRATION 6-9.

2007-07-30T04:59:00.001-07:00

To give some context for my show here is another interesting website www.choreograph.net, a site intended to extend our thinking about coreography...

"Choreography is not to constrain movement into a set pattern, it is to provide a cradle for movement to find its own patterns - over and over again - to prevent a body - whether bound by skin or habits -from stagnation and enable lightness, a primal energy and possibilities only to be found once relations start dancing."
Klien

Interesting project

2007-07-30T04:53:00.001-07:00

One of my plans with this site is to share my research process.
This of course is not just practical research, and I though it was about time I posted some of my reading matter.
I came accross this project a little while ago, here's and extract, and a lnk to find the full article by ALESSANDRA SUN.

"Choreographers and architects often say that dance and architecture share the same concern, and the shared concern is space; dancing bodies and the architectural built environment manipulate space.
But what is space? Is it static and always there, or is it ‘produced’ by movement and by construction? Is it three-dimensional as we commonly understand it, or is Time also part of the equation, as Einstein and the physicists after him have proposed – giving us notions of ‘spacetime’? Is it measurable, or is space itself a measure? Is it a conceptual framework, or does it have its own ontology – its own nature of being and existence? Is space a perception? Can it be owned or, what do we really own when a ‘space’ is ours?

These are not my questions; they have been, for centuries, part of the philosophical and scientific discourse about space. They make it clear at once that space and spatiality – or spatial property – are complex and multi-layered; the space which dance and architecture claim to share is not only physical, for there is more to space than we see in its physicality" Alessandra Sun

www.humanitieslab.stanford.edu/49/75

Encounter Closing celebration

2007-07-29T16:05:00.000-07:00

Join me for a drink and chinwag on monday the 30th of July in the project space 6 -9pm. There is also a great jazz/funk band playing next door in ben's cafe from 9pm. Love to see you there.

Images

2007-07-29T10:22:00.000-07:00

2007-07-29T10:18:00.000-07:00

2007-07-29T10:02:00.000-07:00

Correlate

2007-07-28T04:37:00.000-07:00

correlate.
I spent a lot of time as a child doing matching games, fitting together parts.
Correlation between shapes and colours appears to be a running theme in my work.

Converge/Diverge

2007-07-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

Converge,
coreography,
fragmentation,
match,
mirror,
replecate,
landscape,
explorer,
miniture world,
double exposed images of venice 2004,
deconstruction of a sequence of movement,
collage,
rehash,
accumulate,
collection of debries natural or manmade,
patterns of accumulation produced by movement,
material deposited by moving forces,
sediment,
rivers,
litter,
collect,
reconstruct,
reinterprate ?

More playing around with the projector has lead to a departure of sorts.
The film here is projected across various objects, some featured in it, some not. As a reasult the movement is fragmented and the piece become more like a dance.
The thing that interests me in dance is moments when shapes and forms emerge as the dancers arrive at a position or converge with oneanother, which then disolve as the movement sequence continues.
Something similar is beginning to occur here which makes sense.

I have had some great feedback from my visitors too, lots of reference to collage, and a little bit of resistance.
I wonder if it is a natural thing to be frustrated by a language that you don't speak, and to seek to define and form a solid opinion about something unknown.

Showing work to the non art public can be like speaking french to someone who doesn't speak the language and has never been to france, perhaps met a french person once and though they were nice but a bit odd.

foreign.
other
uknown
risky
frustrating

I remember thinking contempoary art was a load of incomprehensible rubbish at one time, before I realised the potential of an unlimited journey wtih my imagination.
I am beginning to think that all opinions and viewpoints must be temporary if you are to really descover what your imagination holds.

26/07/2007

2007-07-26T05:19:00.000-07:00

Over the last two days I have been trying out different projecting options... here some images of the first of these. Today I am putting my mind to creating new additions to the installation to project onto, mainly replacing the polystyrene surface which is currently suporting most of the image with a fabric sheet running form floor to ceiling which the projection will go through onto the back wall. This should extend the peice into the rest of the space as currently stops in the middle of the space.

Encounter opens 24th of July

2007-07-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

Come along and see my new show. This is a new direction encompassing performance, movement, dance and film. I will be showing work in progress informally and inviting discussion and feedback. This is a great opportunity to see the creative process as it unfolds and have access to the artist in person to talk about the work.

ENCOUNTER, a body, a space, some objects.
24th -30th of July Project Space W15a The Old Grammar School Redruth.
12 - 4 weekdays 12-5 weekends.

This project is part of More cornwall, a summer season of artist lead initiatives across Cornwall.
Please see www.morecornwall.org for more information and spread the word.