Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Dance Steps Delivered
Eve, like most 2/3 year olds I imagine is totally obsessed with stickers, so she was in some kind of dreamland when she walked into the Painting/Drawing studio at MAC. Craig and I were finishing off the last scene of Dance Steps. I never really thought of it as a sticker show, but clearly it is. Eve, Robin and their youthful friends Jack and Tom helped us finish things off.
We’re pleased with the show. It seems to work as we had hoped. Those who commit themselves to the piece seem to find themselves getting hooked. There is a quest element, searching the building for the next scene. Then there is detective work, establishing how the scene should be read. The performance strand follows as participants cast themselves in role. Finally there is the slowly unfolding narrative that binds all fourteen scenes together.
There is a sense that this show has more mileage, that it could work in a great range of contexts and adapt itself to a host of spaces. But that will have to be a way down the line. At the moment my stomach turns as Eve pull out her latest page of smiley face stickers.
Dance Steps can be found at MAC all day between now and the end of Sunday 6th April. It would be great to get some feedback on it….
James
We’re pleased with the show. It seems to work as we had hoped. Those who commit themselves to the piece seem to find themselves getting hooked. There is a quest element, searching the building for the next scene. Then there is detective work, establishing how the scene should be read. The performance strand follows as participants cast themselves in role. Finally there is the slowly unfolding narrative that binds all fourteen scenes together.
There is a sense that this show has more mileage, that it could work in a great range of contexts and adapt itself to a host of spaces. But that will have to be a way down the line. At the moment my stomach turns as Eve pull out her latest page of smiley face stickers.
Dance Steps can be found at MAC all day between now and the end of Sunday 6th April. It would be great to get some feedback on it….
James
Labels: DanceSteps
Friday, February 22, 2008
Dance Steps Days 2 & 3
On Thursday Simon and I ventured to the wilds of Warstock on the Number 2 bus to find Baker Ward and talk about adhesive Vinyl. We emerged with a mini swatch of colour and an end of roll off cut. The good news was that the vinyl is easy to cut, easy to apply, appears to adhere to most surfaces and can be peeled up an re-applied if you stuff things up the first time. This is all good news as Dance Steps is entirely predicated on adhering vinyl all over MAC.
Today Simon and I grafted away learning, through discussion and trial and error how the language of the show works. We plotted out the detail of five scenes and are very happy with how things are going.
James
Link
Today Simon and I grafted away learning, through discussion and trial and error how the language of the show works. We plotted out the detail of five scenes and are very happy with how things are going.
James
Labels: DanceSteps
Link
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Dance Steps: Day 1
On Tuesday Simon, Craig and I gathered at MAC for the first full days work together on Dance Steps, an installation commissioned for the venue’s last week of operation before closure for a major redevelopment.
It was fantastic to be getting down to some serious making of art again. By the end of the day things had been pulled round so much that I was excited by the show all over again. This may sound daft but a familiar trajectory is that the excitement of a project’s conception starts to fall off once the prospect of actually making the thing starts to become a reality. Shifting thinking to a more practical basis serves to uncover all the flaws and impracticalities. This mild terror and panic is then only dispelled on days like Tuesday, when the dedicated thinking starts and solutions start to emerge and the excitement builds again.
Dance Steps opens at MAC 31st March and runs until MAC closes on 6th April
James
It was fantastic to be getting down to some serious making of art again. By the end of the day things had been pulled round so much that I was excited by the show all over again. This may sound daft but a familiar trajectory is that the excitement of a project’s conception starts to fall off once the prospect of actually making the thing starts to become a reality. Shifting thinking to a more practical basis serves to uncover all the flaws and impracticalities. This mild terror and panic is then only dispelled on days like Tuesday, when the dedicated thinking starts and solutions start to emerge and the excitement builds again.
Dance Steps opens at MAC 31st March and runs until MAC closes on 6th April
James
Labels: DanceSteps
