An introduction to the performance “Visual Splice” (2013), Friday, August 9, 2013, 20.30 in Käina Huvi- ja Kultuurikeskus, compiled by Gerhard Lock (musicologist, composer, music critic). Read this text also on the HTF blog pages.
Since its founding in 2010 by young choreographers from the Tallinn University Department of Choreography, the Hiiumaa Dance Festival (HTF) is known for its special atmosphere and a broad spectrum of courses, events and performances featuring both young choreographers and recognized professionals. Having collaborated with choreographers and dancers like Florent Hamon (France) in 2010, Cid Pearlman, David King and Alexis Steeves (USA) in 2011 and 2012, also 2013 an internationally renowned dancer and choreographer, Gerry Morita (Canada), is among the course teachers. This year’s festival features a performance by the Canadian company Mile Zero Dance with scenographer Patrick Arès-Pilon and Tallinn-based Canadian composer Shawn Pinchbeck.
Mile Zero Dance (MZD) is an Edmonton, Canada-based, non-profit charitable organization founded in 1985, committed to the cultivation of original contemporary dance for more than 25 years. The interdisciplinary collaboration between Gerry Morita, Patrick Arès-Pilon and Shawn Pinchbeck started approximately three years ago, and they will give their first international premiere during the Hiiumaa Dance Festival.
Shawn Pinchbeck (picture pinchbeck.com)
To get to know more about their recent projects, among them “Visual Splice” (2013) which will be performed during Hiiumaa Dance Festival, I recently met Shawn Pinchbeck in Tallinn and communicated via E-mail with Gerry Morita. Both are widely recognized artists in their home countries and abroad: Shawn has been tightly connected with Estonia as a teacher (at the Estonian Arts Academy and Tallinn University Baltic Film and Media School) and artist (e.g. cooperating with Fine 5 Dance Theatre and new media artists like Piibe Piirma) since 2001. Gerry has been working mostly in Canada and Japan and since 2005 she has been artistic director of MZD. Patrick Arès-Pilon is a young emerging visual artist who works with film and stereographic images organizing so-called peep shows. His scenarios are rather strange and he uses special effects like scratched film, drawings on film and burning film live on stage (an effect which was also seen in the closing performance of the 2011 Tallinn European Culture Capital).
Gerry Morita (picture pinchbeck.com)
Using a lot of special technical equipment like tactile, old school hand-made films produced by Patrick Arès-Pilon, which are shown with real film projectors (nowadays quite rare), their performances are highly experimental and interactive. Improvisation plays a major role in their concept of a flexible flow of creativity, but the overall structure is well-planned and organized involving prerecorded sounds and films on one hand and improvised activity on stage including live-electronics and live-film effects on the other hand. The structure of their performances is kept rather clear, the syncronization of activities on stage with the sound is important but not overemphazised as pure effect. To my question whether their shows may be called contemporary dance, theatre or dramatical, visualized radiophonic, embodied film performances or something else (or all together) Gerry says that she would simply call it performance and let people experience it openly. “The main aspect of it for me is its liveness. You cannot experience our work over the Internet or on your iPhone. You need to attend a performance and be a part of a group of people witnessing it together. Other descriptors limit the work for me and create a set of expectations that may not be accurate”. Shawn describes that beside Gerry, who as professional dancer uses also several objects like iPhone or material stage attributes, also Patrick and Shawn himself will be moving on stage in accordance to their conceptual functions and technical possibilities. Aiming to enhance the liveness, several film projectors will be carried around on stage by Patrick in order to elaborate projections, perspectives and light effects. Shawn will be triggering sound effects using sensors, contact microphones and iPhones and, as a surprise, playing an object to be chosen for every show newly to make unexpected sounds caused by movement live on stage. Indeed, today’s electro-accoustic, electronic and even laptop music scene has been evolving strongly into interactivity and live aspects because of improving possibilities of technology. Shawn underlines that he always tries “to have a performative aspect” in his projects. Gerry points out that she “loves this ritualistic aspect of live performance”. And indeed, the things that drive her to create performance “is usually something around politics, (lack of) communication, or ritual”.
Gerry has been active both as choreographer and dancer, she mainly uses scores and methods of improvisation when she creates work herself, because she is more fluid that way and can find unexpected things while in the moment of performance: “So my method of choreography is improvisation. I allow for chaos to erupt in my surroundings, and the piece is constructed in a way that allows for or even encourages this aspect. I got this from my time working in dance in Japan.” The Japanese influences are very strong in her work, as are the works of Pina Bausch, DV8, and Mary Wigman. She underlines “I am less drawn to American modern dance, although I have studied much contact improvisation and postmodern dance from the Judson Church originators. I am equally influenced by performance art. I find the dance scene in Europe to be congruent with my way of working and thinking as a dancer.”
Concerning interdisciplinarity, interactivity and collaboration with her artistic partners she describes her function and role in this work as “changing continually and that is one of the things I enjoy about working interdisciplinarily.“ She underlines that “how we work as collaborators evolves with the work, and a language emerges. There is a lot of interest for me in working with people who are so competent in their own media who wish to extend their skills across to other areas. That is an exciting things to do and be part of and to witness as well.”
To conclude Hiiumaa Dance Festival 2013 invites the interested audience to be curious in awaiting the international and Estonian premiere of “Visual Splice” in order to experience outstanding artists who, on the edge of our time and technical possibilities, synthesize sound and movement, images and dancing as well as objects and film into an extraordinary live performance event.
Visual Splice (2013)
Gerry Morita, Artistic Director and Performer
Shawn Pinchbeck, Composer, live-electronics
Patrick Arès-Pilon, Film Projections/Scenography
Friday, August 9, 2013, 20.30 in Käina Huvi- ja Kultuurikeskus
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