JuxtaPositionally Mo(u)rning

From Kathleen Brazie/Purple Boots Creative

A Call for Movement Video Submissions

So. I’m doing a thing. Wanna join me? Let’s explore. And I’d better get more specific, because I know a lot of you, and if I don’t clarify “movement video submissions” very quickly and thoroughly, Imma gonna be in trouble! Although probably highly entertained!

Some of the best art and most meaningful experiences can arise from accident intersections and unexpected juxtapositions. IF we are open to them. That happens all the time in my choreography rehearsals. So, all you wonderful people who have something to express—and are willing to express with their physicality—ANY physicality—this is for you. I am collecting material for a virtually collaborative video piece temporarily called “JuxtaPositionally Mo(u)rning” and am looking for 10-30 second clips of individuals moving their own meaning, expressing their own experience. Whatever that means to you. The last section “Submissions”  at the bottom has details on the kind of footage with which we would like to start. I am hoping to integrate everything from humorous to rueful to terrifying to grieving to hopeful and everything in-between. How can we explore and experience and express the hope of morning simultaneously with the process of mourning, in an “and/also” rather than an “either/or” kind of way? What happens when we face uncertainty and seemingly contractions as active creators rather than passive reactionaries?

Project: “JuxtaPositionally Mo(u)rning”

Initial vision: A collaborative dance/movement video piece exploring the creative process as expressed IN PARTNERSHIP WITH and also within constraints. It may turn into a live performance as well once we can be together on stages again. This is about process as much if not more than about product. I want to explore how we can all add to and create with each other’s experiences, how one movement leads to another, how one visual complements or contradicts another, and how in all that, we create (or allow) experience, meaning, change, and cooperation. As well as art.

Who: This can be for anyone, dancer or not, of any skill level or ability, as long as you are expressing physicality and movement in some authentic way (remembering there is movement in stillness as well). So not just dancers, but yes, also dancers. Any style, skill level, or ability as long as it’s authentic. Diversity is welcomed and in fact called for.

If you don’t think of yourself as a dancer or a mover or an artist, consider this: Movement in any form–physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, political, energetic–by definition involves change. From one point/place/identity/habit/idea to another. And change needs an openness, an uncertainty, an allowing of space into which new forms can emerge. So all movement is change, and all change is creating something even if just by allowing space. We are all creators, we are all artists, we are all movers.

What are we exploring here: I am exploring the beautiful unintended consequences of sourcing material of all kinds from all over—then finding the similarities and differences, the overlaps and the oppositions—and using those to create a short (?) film piece juxtaposing all those “differently similar” and “similarly different” expressions in movement. How can we move deeper than words into authentic, embodied expression of whatever you are experiencing right now? What matters most to you? What do you want to release? What change do you want or need? And what is the relationship between change, creativity, and movement–on or off the stage?

For those of you who were in my last Arts Academy class before everything shut down, or who have co-created choreography with me in rehearsals, you already know my interests in shaping movement in different ways in order to allow new unexpected results to occur. For those who may not know me or my interest in the creative process:

Background and Inspiration:

The creative process can require a release of what we think we know, of our attachment and need to force a certain outcome. The creative process requires a tolerance for and willingness to explore the uncertain, the darkness of the not-knowing, the fear of learning to actively un-know what we assume or take for granted. Creativity requires exploring those uncomfortable places of “not knowing”, of opening up space and letting it be empty for a bit, to allow the emerging unexpected, the emerging unknown to come forward. And THAT requires letting go of what we THINK we want/need a final product to be. Only then can beautiful accidents of creation truly and easily flow.

There’s a lot we don’t know right now. But truthfully, there’s always a lot we don’t know. It’s just an inescapable experience at the moment. It’s like having cancer…we all KNOW we will die someday and could at any moment, but that fact has a very visceral reality to those of us who have faced death, and do on a daily basis. That visceral reality has a much different feeling than simply “knowing” it on intellectual level. It changes your reality. There’s a certain loss of innocence and naivete that needs mourning. And at the same time, it opens up so much more to be experienced. Perhaps that’s we are on a global scale right now. I dunno. The secret of life, as I discovered in my long brutal cancer slog, lies in the ability and willingness to surf uncertainty.

The last several years have seen me moving more freely along the choreographer spectrum—between “choreographer as director” on one side and “choreographer as co-creator/facilitator” on the other. I far prefer to work ing co-creatively when it is possible. To facilitate, support, and refine individual talents into something larger, something that balances group, project, and individual abilities and needs…Well, it’s far more difficult that just telling people what to do and making them do it. As well as far more rewarding. And interesting. And it almost always comes up with something better than what would have been created on my own had I merely forced my vision upon others without regard to their well-being and skills.

Where one moves on that spectrum, well, it all depends on context…which means constant awareness and adjustments. Processes that require constant engagement are so much more difficulty than anything that can be set on a Standard Operating Procedure loop and left to replicate itself endlessly regardless of situation.

So cooperation is more difficult that a straight hierarchy. And creativity is far more complex than simply producing a end-product for consumption. And so the collaborative creative process…well, that’s a…well, phew, amiright? I mean, no experience like it. Nothing as powerful and aggravating and rewarding and annoying all at the same time. Now let’s drop that in the middle of pandemic, remove our ability to dance/move/express/act/respond together directly. That is our new current context. As I said in class, how do we adapt?  Now what happens? Other than me challenging myself and you to create together in a different medium than I am used to?

Submissions:

What: Simple. A 10-30 second (give or take) recording of you moving and incorporating purple into it somewhere (clothing, prop, something in background, etc.) Movement and purple will be the through-lines. How those through-lines develop practically in editing and shaping, and what meaning anyone takes from it, well, that’s the uncertainty we are allowing!

Please contact me with a link to download your submission, and as we add more features to the site we will ultimately have a way for you to submit directly here.

NOTE: Be aware that your submission will likely be edited, depending on how those aforementioned through-lines develop as well as how many and what kind of submissions we get. More details on that later.

I was initially looking for 30-40 different submissions to work with/from, but it’s all open. This is all about going into the unknown and creating with/from what appears.