11th July Fishing Alley

Wow! It’s amazing how a weekend off can give a dancer something special! We worked on some new solo material today and they were so on it! It’s hard to describe. Anyway the work is progressing and I’m happy J Also we resolved one of the three games I’m creating for this work. All I have to do is find a way to keep track of the time so they know when it's over. One of the dancers suggested a warning sound in the music, like Count Down, haha! awesome! how annoying! Any suggestions? Something from Taiwan?

For anyone unfamiliar with the Count Down Theme click here, but be warned! It will haunt you forever!

Tonight, on my way down to my regular restaurant, I discovered a fishing hall, much like a Bowling Alley, so I’ve named it the “Fishing Alley”, you buy beer, catch fish, take it home and cook it?! There are even arcade games in the back corner for the kids! I’m sooooo up for this! Kuan like's bowling, maybe she will? Now I need a cook J

In this picture: a lot of keen anglers!

8th July, TGIF

Ahhhh! It’s Friday! I’ve got some time to think and contemplate.

Today I invested a lot more time on a theatre sport kind of game, which we have been working on this week. The focus was mainly on critical feedback from each of the dancers about the other dancers. It was a bit slow to start with! Like most of the week, no one dared to speak or give an opinion. I was listening to the sound of my own voice, trying desperately to encourage them to say something, anything! Then after about half an hour the photographer, who was there today to observe, put his hand up and said “I like what Michun and Lee Way did was very interesting.” So I said “Ok but you have to tell us why” and as a visual artists he did without hesitation, in great detail and my beautiful little dancers got a little bit kooky. Nice!

We also played a couple of games that I made up……….

So see you Monday! I’m gonna sit back and sip a Taiwanese beer with my good friend Claude and think and how awesome dancers have been this week!

Claude Aymon, runs his own company, c2a, in Marseille, South of France, he also writes his own music and takes the most amazing photos (I hope he posts some of them soon, they are much better than mine)

http://www.blogger.com/profile/13719329598865645739

Here is a short clip of what the dancers and I have been up too. and this is some of the music Ryadan Jeavons has composed for the work.
I’m having too much fun…….
In the video are Pei Ing, Li Yan, Li Wei, Yi-Jie, Michun, Yi-Chen, Yi-Ting, Hsing-Miao, Ming-Shan And of course The Father of Taiwan, Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Music by Ryadan Jeavons

7th July, hOt PoT

Another great day! So far I’ve been working with the dancers, individually, on movement phrases. And if it was up to me, I would happily have kept working like this until the end of the week. However the dancers (as they always do when so young) expressed their anxiousness to Miss Chou presence in the studio tomorrow, so cute. So to humour them we played the first stage of the game and all was good and happy in TJM land.

Went for a 5.30am walk around the Lake today. It was buzzing with Tai Chi, musicians, dance groups, walkers, runners, mediation, badminton and of course tea.

Yes, this time I was invited by Big Tom and Cathy to join the Pyramid badminton team for tea and soft rice. I think I might just take a walk around the lake every time I feel hungry from now on everyone is so nice hereJ

Kuan took us to a beautiful tea house for the most amazing hot pot (I’ve had pot hot in Bejing before, but this was the best by far!) before heading out to see Polymer DMT’s debut work “I have to stay to see how the story ends” ………………visual artists, musicians, actors, dancers and more. I know they premiered in somewhere in Switzerland last year but the rest of the info I’ve managed to Google tonight is in Chinese. All I know is, I plan to go again tomorrow night!

http://www.wac.gov.tw/pda/index.php?strlink=NewsShow01&lit_id=427

6th July, lovely day for tea and revised program notes.

Today I invested time with each dancer individually, working on a new movement task I had set.  And this worked out really well! For me it broke down the language barrier, they are beginning to understand how I like to move and have begun to incorporate that into their tasks and improve (the magic of collaborative language!) which is great, because the faster we get through this learning and understanding of each other, the sooner I can get onto developing the game.

This brings me to another point.

I have already received some feedback on my program notes (excellent!) and I now realise that I wasn’t clear enough in my second paragraph. It appeared that I assumed that Theory of Mind is just anticipating other person’s thoughts, but it’s not. It’s also about empathy, or understanding (in theory) the state of mind of another person, including beliefs, desires, emotions, ect.

So as I only have 10 minutes. So my aim is (I think) this:

“My dancers and I have been investigating one aspect of this theory, the ability to anticipate. Just like a game of poker, chess or rock paper scissors, the dancers anticipate each other’s thoughts within a tactical game of movement, by strategizing, calculating, manipulating and manoeuvring themselves to stay one step ahead of the others.”

On a lighter note went for a ride this morning to Chengcing Lake and was invited for tea by John and his very lovely friends out on what I think is called a pontoon?

Right Me, John, then i can't say who is who, but the lady with the hat made all the yummy food
and the lady with the glasses is a tango dancer.

2011-IYCP Poster

5th July, dinner with the choreographers

Had a great day with the dancers, the two movement phrases I taught them yesterday has already settled into their bodies and today they learnt the two new phrases much faster.  So with an hour left I finished the rehearsal with a pretty straight forward task, just an idea, which they could choreograph themselves. My intention was to manipulate and elaborate on their movement phrases after I’d had  a look at each of them, but I liked them all so much that I had to leave them as they were.

Most of these dancers are quite young,  some are still in high school, so I was prepared to take them through my improve process nice and slowly, but it turns out they do quite a lot of improve here, so there will be no holding back tomorrow, I’ll try something I've been umming about and see what I find out…they seem to be up for it.

Left Chien-Chih Chang, Claude Aymon, Kuan-Ling Tsai, Angela Blumberg
Front Miss Chou, Right Julia Milsom and me

Miss Chou joined us for an awesome meal at a restaurant just down the road from the hotel tonight. Absolutely delicious! I had forgotten how silky tofu can taste when it doesn’t come out of a Coles seal tight bag!!! And the mushrooms…………

The street is full of restaurants, so tomorrow night we move next door.

4th July, my program notes

First day with the dancers today, and I had a go at explaining my concept to them. I'm sure they think I'm crazy, but as I have to hand in my program notes by tomorrow morning sharp anyway I thought what the hell.

So here it is:

“The Absence of TOM.”

“Theory of Mind (TOM) is the capacity to understand mental states such as: beliefs, feelings, desires, hope and intentions. It is the way we ‘imagine’ other people’s feelings or thoughts. This gives us the ability to predict some of the behaviours of others and anticipate them.

An example:

In this project, and with my nine dancers, we have been investigating this theory by developing a tactical game of movement. Just like a game of poker, chess or rock paper scissors, the dancers will need to anticipate each other’s moves, by strategizing, calculating, anticipating, manipulating and manoeuvring themselves to stay in the game.

This is a game of elimination; even I don’t know what's going to happen tonight. How will it end?  That will depend on TOM.

3rd July, the Audition

Today I got to meet all the Choreographers for the first time, we're a really varied bunch of people, which is great! We also meet Ya-Chin our co-ordinator and the lovely Miss Chou, Director of the Tsoying High School and this project. The choreographers are:-

Angela Blumberg/Germany

Claude Aymon/France

Julia Milsom/New Zealand

Chien-Chih Chang/Taiwan

Naim Syrazad/ Malaysia

Eddie Chun Hui Lin/Taiwan

and

Kuan-Ling Tsai/Taiwan

And they are all super lovely!

78 nervous dancers taking instructions from Miss Chou.

From left Naim Syahrazad and Claude Aymon

A  very nervous panel of  choreographers.

from left Kuan-Ling Tsai, Angela Blumberg, Julia Milsom,
 Ellen (Ya-Chin's mother),  Ya-Chin, Miss Chou, Chien-Chang & Claude Aymon

Picture of our 2 hours to fight over who gets who (so long as we could remember who was who?!)……….it was no easy feat, but surprisingly it was pretty civilised! I think we all got who we wanted, even if I still only remember them by their numbers “red 4, blue 13, yellow 8, 9 and 10 you’re with Zaimon”.

I think tomorrow I might get to actually know my 9 dancers a bit better.