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Grasshopper Experiment | |
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The overall idea of The Grasshopper Experiment is to gather together artists and persons who would not normally be placed together on a project in a safe trusting environment built for cross exploration experiments. For each individual involved being both a master and a grasshopper (Kung fu: grasshopper (the student the searcher, the explorer, non-judgmental). Each participant would work on a project that would either demand of them to alter the process in which the create by exploring another artists process to product and /or practicing a fellow participants art, abandoning their own, assisting that artist which explores their own but keeping limiting forms of instruction to a minimum so that the master and the grasshopper essentially learn once again how to color outside the lines.
Period of time; 5 days |
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The Grasshopper Experiment Diaries - notes made by Michelle Habeck | |
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| On the train: looking out the window, it's beautiful. Thinking about graffiti, can we dance to the energy of graffiti? Is there something there to work with? The color, the claustrophobic mushing of it to fill a space, the vibrancy of color within the composition, the individuality each artist displays. Is there some kind of frenetic bobbing of the body that catches in the intro, do then several other bodies join in? Is there then a geometric flinging of arms with speed toward each other that mimics the line quality of graffiti? Are there structures created with bodies interlinked creating the linking of letter to letter. Are there moments of comedy or goofiness inserted within to mimic the sometimes cartoon like characters graffiti artists create? Something to think about. Graffiti music: staccato, luring, curving, high tone, overlapping fields, language upon language as if one artist has painted over another. Swaths of tones. Bright vibrant jumps, varied and full rhythmic mixes (several rhythms on top of one another), vocal primal sounds- voice from the body (non-lyrical) Graffiti stage: rubix cube; the twisting and turning of the blocks of color the search for a mix or geometric shape that expresses a voice, the continuous bending of the mind, the constant struggle against logic, the repition and variation of patterns, the vibrant primary colors the frustration that builds when unsuccessfully achieving goal. The disruption of order. The discovery of patterns. Mathematics. Graffiti painted on a train car: a moving object of force silent on the track but alive because the art now clothed in. Graffiti light: knife splitting cuts, strong bold high intensity moves. Blare to blind, hot intense outlining of shape and line, neon glow, pulsing rhythm, overlapping of idea, wrapping around a movement, primary mixing of color on white bodies, fast moving images wrapping around structures, broken perspecting, images project upside-down Thinking about death rituals. About the Korean or Japanese white kimonos, of white silk layered on bodies, of the hand carried transport vehicles resting on shoulders, of the same vehicles used to carry royalty, figures of importance, unsoiled, never touching the ground, of being constantly lifted above the mean of the earth, of the beauty and the simple most elegant and quite movement these people have in presentation. Of the butoh dancers breaking that bound of quite (dancing now to jazz), of the power of the sound of a drip of water, of the geometry of raked sand, of the geometry of footsteps in sand, of the movement made freely, of disciplined structured movement which then is released and relinquished to the taking over of the souls movement. Of the honoring of ancestors. Possibly a beautiful opening to the first experiment: memories of... (Title?) I hardly know my relatives. I need to change that. I need to make a movie about my family. I need to honor the relatives now alive. I need to turn off the computer. The battery's life fades. 11/23/02 3:06 PM Juice and I return. Substances that shape the ground, moss, peat, stones on a grade, rocks on a low grade hill keeping land from deterioration, piles of hay, floor covered completely with white pillows, chicken wire boxes full of stone, wood planks, green grass, burnt grass, golden sand I digress: the shadow of smoke from a train on a building wall Eggshells, glass, burnt ashes, tree branches, silk, earth, mud, soggy muc, wheat field, wild flower field, beach grass, pool of water as in tidal pool/ocean, hair, yarn, string, net, mattress, springs, naked mattresses (frame w/springs), bed of nails, itchy army wool blanket, leaves, autumn leaves, thorns, blankets, clothes, pots and pans catching dripping water, a 2" depth of water, milk, Photosensitive paper (now that's cool!) with bodies on photosensitive paper, gigantic collages. To have the floor covered with photosensitive paper then to pull the paper up so the geometry is revealed. To go black again on stage, create a second geometry, then reveal once again. OHHHHHH I want to do this. To work with materials that block levels of light so as to achieve varied tonal quality around the bodies. Shapes of glass or objects controlled in placement by the bodies on the photopaper to add further geometry to the image. Broken fence, bent steel rods, brick, fur, leather, cornstalks, railroad ties, coal, balls, ropes, trampoline, debris, garbage, plastic, hammocks, A room lined with hammocks, theatre on the lake, used to be a health retreat and treatment center for ill children. I digress. A room full of hammocks, movement based on moving through on, around under the hammocks, rocking in patterns, moving through hammocks in movement, the shape of the body sunken in a hammock, the physical manipulation of the hammock sack to creak new shapes. Hurricane Andrew, the piles of debris left in the wake. Find pictures of this disaster. The fact that all the grass had been ripped off the ground, each and every telephone pole snapped in two, dirt everywhere, vast expanses of land, nature-cleaning house. The absolutely organized way in which the gigantic piles of cars and trees and furniture and garbage where piled by nature. The blank stare I felt on my face as witness. The tents of the salvation army camps. The green of the government forces uniforms. The slowness of it all. The slowness of passing through the space. The quiet that rested there. The loss of words I did not hear. The passing through and the not stopping. That old blue van that sacrificed itself to get me home. How do I work these photos into the performance? How do I tie the forms together? Don't know, don't know. |
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File updated:
02/15/05, 11:59 AM CST
Site content copyright ©Michelle Habeck or permission for web publication of original works obtained
by Michelle Habeck. All other copyrights maintained by their respective copyright
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File updated:
02/15/05, 11:59 AM CST
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