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Musings
July
8, 2010
Here's
a report written by an audience member (a university student) a while back in response to Ensemble
11's
performance (of which a few of us Contactors were a part of -- me,
Iylia and Dira):
Ensemble,
an assemblage of parts.
Minutes
before Earth Hour. Ensemble 11 performing at Black Box.
27th
March 2010.
LOCATION:
Black Box.
The
room was pitch black.
There
was a hurl of monotone humming that gradually continued into a mass of
voices belting out words that I could not fathom. Not literally words--
but sound with expressions attached to them. The 'voices' came from the
mouth of a woman in black tank top at the other side of the stage.
Then,
it was the sound of a somewhat electric frequency that was synchronized
with the movement of the hand that was moving on the 'frequency machine'. By looking at the
pattern of his movement, one could simply make an equation:
The
lower the hand gets to the machine = the lower the octave of the sound
The
higher the hand from the machine = the higher the pitch of the
resulting sound.
But,
I could be wrong.
The
'equalizer man' at the slightly far bit of the stage controlled the
sound outputs by tuning knobs, and increasing/decreasing the fixed set
of frequency ranges of the audio system. The mild visual soundscape
grew into an orchestra of sounds. Like a noise distortion, the sound of
the saxophone galloped in such a wild manner, accompanied by the words
and hums of the woman behind the microphone. After a while, 'dancers' (more like actors,
and I have lost count of them!) came onto the stage, swaying their
bodies to the orchestra of analog-digital reverbs.
The choreography started in slow, elegant
steps. Another girl came onto the stage, and preceded the other girl's
movement by leaping into energetic-yet-still-slow-and-elegant movements.
Looking at these 'characters' and the sound that was accompanying the
'theatre', it reminded me of a famous quote by Horace Walpole,
"The
world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those who feel".
The
visual and aural orchestra that was going on right before my eyes at
the time seemed to complement each other very well-- even though I
could not fathom a single word that was being murmured by the woman who
was standing right before the microphone.
The slow elegant steps of the dancers
alternated with wild acrobatic movements. The dancers' shadows casted
on the wall behind them made the performance a visual treat. The
audiences were left in confusion, we did not know which one to look at.
There were so many things going on at once! The visuals casted on the
wall were smooth and calming, in contrast to the hectic sound of the
orchestra. The sound in the background seemed to mock the people who
were 'dancing' on the stage. It was like a metaphorical drama, except
that there were no words, there were only sounds, and it depends on how
an individual in the audience interprets it.
The
performance did not end there. Time duration was projected onto the
wall behind the dancers. The somewhat countdown left the audience in
anticipation, again. Later, an image of a woman was projected onto the
wall. From one image, it multiplied into series of images. The image,
to me, was like a portrait. Like the famous saying,
"A
picture says a thousand words",
the
performance that was going on the stage was like the life that has come
out of the portrait. Instead of telling the story of her life
straightforwardly, the life inside her goes out of the portrait, and
tells the story to the audience through aural and visual movements. To me, the peak of the performance was when
the body of the girl dancer conjoined with the body of another dancer..
and their off-stage-rustling-towards-the-audience moment.
I
could not help but get the flashbacks of Björk's videoclip, "Where Is
The Line", from her 2004 album, Medúlla, stuck in my head. The sound of
Ensemble 11 was made by convergences of instruments, timbres and
textures of the human voice. The movements on the stage were like of
the video, minus the costumes and slime, which is a good thing, I must
say.
I
was one of the people in the crowd, and I believe the performance was
indeed a contemplative work of art. However, not everyone can relate to
the performance. I could tell from the looks on the faces of the people
near me. It is surely not a thing for people with short attention span.
One thing for sure, it was surely a unique Earth Hour experience. Like
the name 'Ensemble 11', the performance would be incomplete if one of
the 'parts' is missing.
Every
Ensemble 11 plays important role in the performance, and they did a
great job by 'holding on to each other's hands'. Kudos.
Sincerely
reported by,
Aisyah
Rahman
May
7, 2010
2010 has been a crazy year so
far for us. Although there hasn't been much in terms of jamming or
classes, there's been a bunch of performances that some of us
contactors have been a part of. These include performances in Say
Goodnight, Twitterverse at Cloth & Clef, Dancebox FUSED at Lot 10, and
as part of Ensemble 11 at the
MAP Arts Festival. Much thanks to Tshiung Han See, Bilqis Hijjas and Kok
Siew-wai for their
generosity in having us at these events. To see photos from these and
other events, click
here.
- David
November
9, 2009
In our last class, I had a
new student ask me about the history of contact improv and what it was
all about, amongst a variety of questions. She might've started to
worry if she was asking too many questions, but in fact, I was so eager
and happy to share what I know. Surprisingly, it was actually the first
time in class that I'd ever gone to great lengths to describe CI and
it's wonderful history. And the best short description for CI? "A
moving meditation". :-)
On another note, after much
deliberation, I've decided to increase the price of class to RM25 and
jam to RM10. For 2 hours of dancing & learning, that's still
considered very affordable! Hope you will continue supporting Contact
Improv KL!
- David
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