A one week workshop with students from the famous school for dance and choreographie in Bruessel.
PARTS is a university for contemporary dance and choreography. It was founded in 1995 by ROSAS and by the Théâtre Royal de La Monnai/De Munt in Brussels and is mainly an art project. The university tries to apply the 20 years of dance art experience – from Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and other choreographers – to an educational program. At the same time PARTS is a forward looking workshop.
From the 7th to 11th March this year there was a workshop in the E-Werk, a stage of the German National Theatre in Weimar, where students from PARTS and the faculty of media of the Bauhaus University Weimar from of the project „Interaction in Space“ – project of Prof. Jens Geelhaar worked together. In this week some little plays an scribbles were created. It was something like a collision between concept and improvisation and a very interesting experience because of the different methods and approaches.
We built a ca. 2o cm high and almost 18 m² large wodden floor made of 1.2m x 1.2m single modules. Under each module there was a low frequency speaker installed which transferes 2o – 5o Hz to the wodden floor. This floor is used as a spectators pedestal. These 16 platforms with the low frequency speakers were controlled by the software MAX/MSP. We installed a 8-channel-speaker-system in the place which was controlled by MAX/MSP, too. The X/Y coordinates of the dancers on the stage were transmitted via OSC by a tracking system. in this way we were able to transmit the dancers position on stage to the 8-channel-speaker-system and also give a representation of the dancers location through the vibrations of the low frequency speakers. The vibrations were also used to intensify the expression of the artists. Within two days we created a short piece in a small group; well, more a small scribble for a performance. It was called „Pipi-Dance“ – describing a waiting situation in front of a toilette.
The 8-channel-speaker-system was used in another idea. The basic concept was to concentrate the movement on the sound, while the actor was just standing still, first in darkness – becoming slowly visible in a 3 minute lightfade. A dance performance for voices dancing through the room.
The concept of our setup was to give a feeling for distance and proximity, intensity, movement and positioning and proved itself in this one week endurance test. We all wished to have more time or a continuation of the project. Because only in such series of tests it is recognizeable when and how the use of technical systems are helpfull for the expression of choreographies or how performances and ideas are coming along owing to the integration of technical systems.