Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Some updates on my History of the Future Suite process

posted by Flynn N.A.S.A. grant artist Selene Colburn, writing about her work-in-progress, The History of the Future Suite

First of all, I’m struck more and more by how much of the creative process for this piece is really about navigating the collective act of making. If that’s not how we construct/imagine our futures, I don’t know what is. It barely even feels right to call it “my process,” really it’s ours right now.

As I start to shape the material over the remaining months (is there already only a month left?) in preparation for the 6/17 showing, and add some of the textual elements, I wonder how this dynamic will change. My voice is certainly present in current iterations of the material; I hope it doesn’t drown anything out in the “final” product.

The unison form continues to evolve beautifully, from its somewhat rarified life as a quartet two weeks ago to its more recent incarnation as an epic, high-volume wave of prolonged stillness and near misses.

The up-and-over form is receiving more of my attention at present, because it’s big, messy, loud, unclear, urgent, demanding. I love it. We need signals, and we need to strike the right balance between structure, improvisation, and choreography. It’s hard to prepare for this sequence from week to week, because my own body won’t let me do much weight bearing ahead of time. And how accurately can one really project the mechanics of 10 or more bodies crawling/hurtling/rolling/hoisting at once?

The reading list grows. Most inspiring is the study of twins separated at birth, about which I’m also doing some writing. This led to the development of a simple unison duet structure, which was blessed last week by the beautiful and thoughtful execution of CeeCee and Joy.

Tonight I head back into the study to work on the solo section. I hope I’ll soon experience the “so this is how it all fits together” click I had in relation to the separate forms last week with the solo material soon.









The beautiful photographs you see here are the work of Daisy Benson.

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