RAW-(Material)

Monday, May 30, 2016

RAW-(Material) at Weaverville Yoga - PERFORMANCE

Dissemination of the RAW-(Material) project as a collaborative in-the-moment-composition Dance & Music performance.

The RAW-(Material) Dance & Music performance took place at Weaverviile Yoga studio space on Saturday May 14 2016 at 7pm.

My collaborator for this event was musician and composer Elisa Faires.

Elisa and I have been collaborating since 2007 and she has been involved in my process throughout the development of my performance method.

In order to represent the mode of my interactions with the raw materials of nature in the RAW-(Material) journal series, I prepared a basket of nature objects that we could respond to in movement and sound.

This basket was offered to audience members to pick out one item and to express their thoughts on that object.

We began with a series of short, two-minute “gesture drawings” on each of the objects that audience members had picked out, using their comments to inform our response.

These were as follows:

Shell (used to contain a life)

Yellow Flower (energy of new life)

Stick (old, dry, twisted)

Pod (angular shapes, soft fuzzy texture)

Feather (black & white stripes)

Ivy (interesting mottled pattern)

We then continued with a ten-minute piece, drawing from qualities of the nature objects I have interacted with throughout the RAW-(Material) series to inform our movement and sound.

Then concluded with an improvisation where we invited audience members to join us in responding to the nature objects from the basket and to each other.

Each section ended with the audience making wind sounds to blow the performance away in the breeze.

Event Description

performance description

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4cHBYnXHpXzcFJrX3FweDFTejg/view?usp=sharing

Performance Images

performance images

photos - Martha Skinner

https://www.flickr.com/photos/114531261@N02/albums/72157666544687333

Performance plus Q&A Video

performance introduction - video

camera – Jeff Davis

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3lBkTDB7oTCenVRY2p4TVpEeWM/view?usp=sharing

performance - video 1

camera – Jeff Davis

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3lBkTDB7oTCbkZRRUlLeWtILTQ/view?usp=sharing

performance - video 2 + Q&A 1

camera – Jeff Davis

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3lBkTDB7oTCUThWakVjX0xpeEE/view?usp=sharing

Q&A 2 - video

Camera Jeff Davis

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3lBkTDB7oTCS3YtN0tQNDUzOU0/view?usp=sharing

performance segments - video

camera – Diana Brewster

https://youtu.be/8f4bfhQ_Stg

Back to Weaverville Yoga studio FINAL PROJECT PRESENTATIONS page

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

CIRCLE MODERN DANCE - Performance Piece

Dissemination of Living Art pedagogy as a working method of instruction and facilitation for performance development – using the RAW-(Material) project to provide theme and context.

Living Art workshop and Raw Material performance piece with Circle Modern Dance

In 1991 I was involved in founding the dance theatre company Circle Modern Dance in Knoxville TN and served as co-director, dancer, choreographer and teacher with the company until the year 2000. Now, in 2016, the company is still going strong and celebrating its 25^th anniversary with a whole year of special programming.

As part of the celebrations, CMD received funding to invite the founding directors back to work with the company again during this anniversary year.

I decided to incorporate my RAW-(Material) project and Living Art pedagogy into my work with the company as a guest artist.

I introduced them to the project with a solo performance piece for their winter show “Modern Dance Primitive Light” in December, then returned in March to teach a Living Art workshop and structure a performance piece they could continue to develop using the tools provided by the Living Art method.

LIVING ART workshop with CIRCLE MODERN DANCE - REPORT

http://raw-material-journal.blogspot.com/2016/03/workshop-circle-modern-dance-march-12-13.html

On May 19^th, members of the company performed a short version of the resulting piece for a CMD fundraising event. http://knoxfocus.com/2016/05/12330/

The narrative arch of the piece is a story of personal evolution and individuation.

Beginning as a primordial mass, the dancers gradually each take on their own form and character in response and relationship with other forms of nature and the environment.

Utilizing the Living Art tools from the workshop to investigate the Self as raw material and its relationship to other raw materials, the dancers each developed their own role in this piece.

The piece is structured in such a way that it is a pliable, plastic, adjustable entity that can constantly be developed.

This is their inaugural version.

VIDEO

RAW-(Material): Evolution

Circle Modern Dance

May 19 2016

The Emporium – Knoxville TN

https://youtu.be/aKRXylYAxF0

Back to PROJECT DISSEMINATION - Portal Page:

Back to JOURNAL ENTRIES - Portal Page:

Monday, May 2, 2016

RAW-(Material) - HOME PAGE

RAW-(Material)

Self as Living Art

a journal of art, life, materials,

performance & process

Claire Elizabeth Barratt

Welcome to the RAW-(Material) series.

This is MY Material Culture!

My approach is holistic, essential, integral, metamorphic.

I work in relationship and response to material.

The raw materials of the Self (body & psyche) and the raw materials of nature and the environment.

I use the Self to go beyond the self. To Transform.

I address the raw materials of Self, as well as the raw materials of nature, as mediums with which to create.

This project is part 2 of my investigation as an MFA candidate with the Transart Institute:

The Process and Praxis of Constructing the Self as Medium

My first year project was to develop a practical pedagogy for performance art. Through a series of synergetic workshops I developed a pedagogical method to serve as an unbiased substructure for individual exploration, discovery and invention.

The project was entitled:

The PerformanceAnxiety Workshop Experiment

And the resulting method I call “Living Art”.

My second year project has been to prove this pedagogy by becoming my own student and inhabiting its methodology, using it as a catalyst for transformation. The transformation of Self in performance, the transformation of Self in relationship and the transformation of Self in learning.

My process takes the form of a journal.

“Life is so rich, if you can write down the real details of the way things were and are, you hardly need anything else” – Natalie Goldberg

A journal employs the idea of a day-to-day journey.

My journal is a chronology reporting the explorations, discoveries, transitions and transformations that occur throughout the journey.

My explorations of Self I call: Body Studies.

My explorations of Self in relationship with nature I call: Nature Specimens.

The response that evolves from these explorations is the art.

These are documented in the forms of text, video, image and sound.

Subsequently, these pieces of media become the art.

I can then take my responses into the studio and develop the gestures of body and voice into choreographic motifs. These motifs become a palette of ingredients for composition. And the composition becomes the art.

This is a working method.

The pages of this journal present a yearlong cycle of the seasons.

BEGIN HERE

To the Journal Entries Portal Page - all links open a new page

With much gratitude to my advisors: Laura Gonzalez and Linda Montano

Project Report Paper

TRANSART INSTITUTE

RAW-(Material) - PROJECT DISSEMINATION - Portal Page

For dissemination I return to the project as a whole:

The Process and Praxis of Constructing the Self as Medium

It is a multi-faceted project.

At its core is a pedagogical method – “Living Art” – which addresses the Self as medium for art.

Its proving ground has been the RAW-(Material) series, a journal documenting the raw materials of Self in relationship with the raw materials of nature.

In disseminating the work I want to present a working method that holds many facets and possibilities. Therefore, dissemination of the work is multi-faceted.

FINAL PROJECT PRESENTATIONS - Weaverville Yoga Studio:

http://raw-material-journal.blogspot.com/2016/05/weaverville-yoga-studio-final-project.html

WORKSHOP / PERFORMANCE PIECE – with Circle Modern Dance
http://raw-material-journal.blogspot.com/2016/05/circle-modern-dance-performance-piece.html

RAW-(Material): EARTHDAY – DURATIONAL INSTALLATION - at Interlude Asheville

http://raw-material-journal.blogspot.com/2016/05/raw-material-earthday.html

RAW-(Material): BUTOH

http://raw-material-journal.blogspot.com/2016/06/raw-material-butoh.html

DIALOGUES – Berlin: RAW/PORTRAYAL/MATERIALS/SELF/PORTRAYAL/RAW/MATERIALS/SELF/MATERIALS/PORTRAYAL/RAW

http://raw-material-journal.blogspot.com/2016/06/rawportrayalmaterialsselfportrayalrawma.html

Back to JOURNAL ENTRIES - Portal Page:

Weaverville Yoga Studio - Final Project Presentations

A weekend of presentations at Weaverville Yoga studio, Weaverville NC for the purpose of disseminating various aspects of the RAW-(Material) project in a setting where the multiple facets can be cross-referenced and identified as individual works as well as parts of a whole.

RAW-(Material) – Self as Living Art

at Weaverville Yoga studio

May 14 & 15 2016

Promotional announcements:

RAW-(Material) presentation – announcement blog

http://raw-material-journal.blogspot.com/2016/03/raw-material-at-weaverville-yoga.html

The Laurel of Asheville magazine

http://thelaurelofasheville.com/event/raw-material-project/

Mountain Xpress – regional events newspaper

Mountain Xpress – Smart Bets page (print)

https://mountainx.com/arts/smart-bets-claire-barratt/

Mountain Xpress – Online

https://mountainx.com/blogwire/the-raw-material-project-hosts-performance-workshop-video-and-installation/

The presentation was divided into four separate events. Please follow the links below for reports on each one.

Dance & Music Performance

http://raw-material-journal.blogspot.com/2016/05/raw-material-at-weaverville-yoga.html

Media Installation

http://raw-material-journal.blogspot.com/2016/05/raw-material-at-weaverville-yoga_30.html

Video Screening with Live Sound

http://raw-material-journal.blogspot.com/2016/05/raw-material-at-weaverville-yoga-video.html

Living Art Workshop

http://raw-material-journal.blogspot.com/2016/05/raw-material-at-weaverville-yoga_31.html

Audience feedback -
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I7dANjvl0fLd4P3CVeWcxdhmRo0nMzNhvi33kNNou8I/edit?usp=sharing

Back to PROJECT DISSEMINATION - Portal Page:

Back to JOURNAL ENTRIES - Portal Page:

RAW-(Material): EARTHDAY

Dissemination of the RAW-(Material) project as a durational performance installation

RAW-(Material): EarthDay at Interlude Asheville

RAW-(Material): EarthDay was a twelve hour durational performance installation that took place between the hours of 12 noon – 12 midnight on Earth Day Saturday, April 23^rd 2016. The event was part of a month-long series produced by the Black Mountain College Museum + Art Center, together with the MAP (Media Arts Project) called Interlude Asheville. This series was named after the periods of time that Joseph Albers would occasionally declare for the students and faculty at Black Mountain College – to go off and do their own thing. A break from the regular curriculum to pursue whatever interested them.

Interlude Asheville website: http://www.interludeavl.com/

My proposal for this series was to sustain a performance of the RAW-(Material) project as a twelve hour installation with performers rotating in and out throughout the duration. (My proposal was under my organization name Cilla Vee Life Arts)

Cilla Vee Life Arts at Interlude Asheville: http://www.interludeavl.com/cilla-vee/

Most of the RAW-(Material) journal entries have been about going out to interact with nature in the outdoor environment. But for this event, I gathered nature objects from the regional Appalachian springtime and used them to create an indoor environment.

I invited artists who have been participating in my workshops or who I regularly collaborate with in the Asheville NC and Knoxville TN arts communities.

There was no rehearsal for the event, instead I sent the performers specific instructions that they could interpret as they wished, as long as they kept within those parameters.

Earthday – performer instructions:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4cHBYnXHpXzY3pWbW5JMi0tNUU/view?usp=sharing

Audience members were free to come and go throughout the twelve-hour period. I even provided a little picnic area on white, fluffy blankets with beverages and snacks. I invited my friends to come and join the “picnic in the woods” and had the event double as my birthday party!

Earthday – images (Barbara Schauer, Ashley Long, Joel Parton, Sara Baird & Sienna Weigel)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/114531261@N02/albums/72157666396202453

The following videos show segments of the installation over the twelve-hour time period. Most of this footage was captured by a fixed camera set on a tripod.

These segments show how the performance metamorphosized over time, a constant improvisation in response to a multitude of contributing factors – both consciously and unconsciously acknowledged in motion, sound and word.

Earthday - videos

1 – Call of the Frogs

https://youtu.be/23HF3YRZGj8

2 – Water Flows

https://youtu.be/EoVcF4E0l6U

3 – The Stones Have Voices

https://youtu.be/NH6-Zxf7hT8

4 – A Giants’ Back Obliterates the Land

https://youtu.be/T_b5kLZF-N4

5 – Community Rituals

https://youtu.be/oF4lMslZepE

6 – Blossom Petals Blow In