Red Desire

About "Red Desire"

Red Desire began as a choreographic study in the research of human desire and the cultural restraints that is put upon ourselves. Through this exploration we, the artists, discovered gestural phrases and repetitive weight through improvisation and imagery to illustrate the psychological tension held within daily routine.
By observing the dancers' improvisation, Lin composed musical fragmented phrases that depicted the tension in the choreography. She attempted to emphasize the repetitive sequences of the movement by mirroring the texture of scale, melody, bass and articulations. By slowing down the second section of the music, the gestural images evident in the choreography became heightened and increasingly intense. With the musical composition ending with a soft, fading trill, "Red Desire" ends with the dancers moving in silenced.

Artistic Statement

My inspiration for choreography stems from a personal exploration, one that starts with my individual responses to media and the general happenings of every day life. I attack each process differently but always start with my unique reactions to the world around me. Although I create from a personal point of view, I allow each work to radiate beyond the individual. I do not start creating a piece aware of what I wish to illustrate, but rather by exploring the infinite possibilities of movement. As much as my knowledge of codified dance vocabulary informs my movement choices, my choreographic methods involve improvisations based on Authentic Movement exploration to discover ways the body can move outside of a structured vocabulary. I strive to create movement specific to the contexts of which the dances evolve. To me, choreography has a greater authenticity where there has been a deep movement research. From there I allow the dance to take on a life of its own by following intuitional responses, what my minds eye wishes to see, in order to discover what is structurally relevant for each individual piece.

TEEVE

working with the Tele-immersive Environment for EVEryone (TEEVE) technology the past two weeks has been a rewarding and refreshing experience. going into the collaboration of a technology i knew very little about was very frightening and uncomfortable for me. i grappled at first with my feelings toward the electronic culture and the isolation from human contact that it produces, craving to know more about this program yet hesitant to lose an awareness of my physical environment that i rely so much on. however, my hesitancy's quickly vanished. the program is in many ways like a video game, except you are the characters in the game and there is no final destination. it is easy to figure out the logistics (although the screen froze on several occasions) and the entire experience was about explorations and discovery.

at this moment in TEEVE's evolution process, i can't imagine creating a choreographed, set and structured work in this environment. there are too many technological explorations to make and improve upon. with that said, laura, pin hsin and i found an incredibly interesting structured improvisation involving the wii controller and multiple points of view. while moving in this limited space, we zoomed in and out with our controller to create multiple ways of seeing our movement. our images were displayed on the 3d screen close up to the point of maximum pixillation, far away to where we were about an inch tall, inverted, from above, etc. to me, it had the same affect of a dance for the camera except in real time creating the effects as we were creating the movement.

i did feel a little self absorbed during this TEEVE exploration. i was paying more attention to what was happening on the screen and less to my partner, laura, who was right next to me. i understand the theories and discussions of narcissism, ego and digital technology in the article new visions in performance. the impact of digital technologies by carver and beardon. the awareness of the physical world around you disappears and all i saw at many points in our collaboration were our virtual images on the screen. needless to say, this caused a few collisions during the process! however, this could be a conceptual tool used within a digital collaboration, which many have already explored. if its there anyway, you might as well exemplify it!

aesthetic of music and movement

i have recently discovered that my personal aesthetics in the relationship between music and movement lie in contradiction. I tend to enjoy the pull and struggle of moving against the music. if the music crescendos into a loud frenzy, i typically choose to move soft and sparse. most of the time, the music can speak for itself at those points and vice versa. a problem occurs when both movement and music imitate each others dynamics. it's as if two people are trying to speak at the same time about something really important. nobody can hear what they are trying to say because they are both drowning each other out. it also boils down to what exactly is trying to be portrayed.

The collaborative process

first time collaborations are a lot like first dates, except it's not necessarily the person you're getting to know but their process and aesthetics of creating. although everyone approaches their art work differently, some share similarities in style, structure, mood, etc. but even if those specific aesthetics aren't shared there are many ways to come to an understanding without compromising either one's vision, as long as there is a constant flow of communication. the only times i found difficult in a collaborative process was when words were being said but not heard. thoughts were being expressed but not taken in, which causes an imbalance of weight. and, in a collaborative experience, it is incredibly important that the weight of ideas and work remains at a constant balance. otherwise, it becomes one persons project who was simply influenced by these other people. i think that's the trickiest part...to maintain a balance and to keep a steady flow of communication.