nicole rademacher

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Using improv as material

Originally I was writing a post about process, in particular my process, meanwhile I would take breaks - since I can never focus and just do one thing anymore - to work on this new piece. Actually, I am not so sure it is a piece as an investigation. 

Do you ever do that? I think it is kind of like tinkering, right? You find something interesting so you have to take it apart part by part and play around with different combinations - to keep the creative juices flowing. So that is just what I started doing. The video is by no means complete - as with all the videos/work I post here, but again it is a thought, a way of tinkering. 

It all started when I began to help my friend prepare a DVD portfolio (the friend in the video). As I was asked to do something traditional with an improvisation, I began to realize that as the camera-girl I not only needed to do something traditional, but also improvise. So, we made the traditional video for her portfolio and now I am re-examining the work, looking, tinkering with her movements. It is an exploration of movement and gesture as an explicit symbol, not as an unconscious, yet deliberate, communication. 

(don't mind the interlaced-ness) I am thinking about the relationship of dance to pedestrian movement, the ideas that dancers and choreographers use interpreting themes, concepts, ideas as movement and the relationship that these ideas have to quotidian movements - as a viewer, as image, as moving image. 

Rather than consistently resisting traditional practices and opting for experimental, this work is accepting of a more linear way of thinking. I see this as another branch, an extension, of my work. I hope that it will organically open itself to ideas of a more experimental nature in due course.