User:Karina/draft project proposal

SESSION ONE: 20 SEPT

what do you want to make?

• transcribe dance into graphics
• decoding dance Irma: How?
• visualising dance in a different way (infographics), with a psychological look at time perception
• help find a way to understand the language / style / atmosphere / structure
• create interactive piece that shows my theoretical findings paired with a series of experiments Irma: describe the kind of interaction? Is it digital?

Irma: Try to describe How/What/Why

how do you plan to make it?
I would like to investigate the struggle of experience v.s. imposed system by looking at the paradox of capturing dance that could only be experienced. This will be done by a series of experiments backed up with psychological theory about time, flow and memory.

Irma: Could you give an example of your first experiment?

what is your timetable?
26th September

• look through previous written text: what needs expansion?
• (chapter 1 about time perception, clocks / systems / power / paradox)

why do you want to make it?
Dance is a non-verbal language passed down from person to person. If it isn’t recorded, it will be lost. Swing almost died out, until it was reintroduced by Frankie Manning and Norma Miller in the 1990s. Choreology, graphical or written dance notation, is a method for conservation, yet there are many versions. They range from overly simplistic footstep maps which only communicate footwork, to Lebanotation which represents many aspects such as direction, body part movement, duration and dynamics of the movement, yet is difficult to read and requires time to learn do decode the language. Conserving dance with the use of video is fine if it’s for watching purposes only, yet once it is used for teaching or recreation, it becomes too fast and/or time consuming to constantly rewind small sections.

I’d like to understand what tools / methods / techniques could help dancers to help learn and remember.

Irma: How would you discover this? Are you going to interview them?

who can help you and how?

who	how
Becky Tomas, Luciën de Bruin & Zoë Robaey	teachers from Swing in Rhythm (Lindy Hop) dance school could share some insight into their methods of teaching and opinions about communicating ‘dance language’
Leila Bergen	teacher from van der Meuelen Wesselling (Ballroom & Latin) dance school could share some insight into her methods of teaching and opinions about communicating ‘dance language’
Karsten Steehouwer	psychologist and dancer at Swing in Rhythm dance school that may have an insight in dance from a psychological perspective
students / participants at Swing in Rhythm dance school	listen to their experience with dance, learning how to dance, memory techniques and what tools they may be missing to make it easier
students / participants at van der Meuelen Wesselling dance school	what are they happy with? what are they missing? what techniques or tools do they use to memorise and practise? what would make learning easier?
Het Danspaleis	organisation which organises swing dance events at elderly homes and hospitals for the elderly / patients to feel young again may share insight in their aim, why they do it, how do they know its successful
dr Mol & dr Donselaar	neurologists at Maasstad Hospital
Esther van der Heiden	assistant / nurse at Maasstad Hospital who, among other things, organises events for patients, has a wide network that might help me. She organised Dance for Health workshop in 2016 for patients with MS, which will help with research regarding dance with muscle and memory difficulties (http://danceforhealth.nl)
therapists	find out about dance as a therapeutical technique - for trauma?
Bavo Europoort	psychiatry specialists who conduct memory tests

relation to previous practice
Previous works, both written and physical, focused on Time Perception in Dance. The written piece looked at the paradox of time perception and its relation to time.

written piece: Time Perception in Dance
research into perception of time

• with the theoretical base of: Robert Levine’s clock time and event time; and Robert Wiener’s view on Newtonian and Bergsonian time

experiment 1: basic choreology analysis

• which analysed rhythm, spacial orientation and notation systems
• with the psychological base of dr. Brenda Milner’s procedural memory
• and artistic base of: Merce Cunningham; Rudolf Laban; and Rudolf Benesh

experiment 2: Jive mix up

• aimed to see how much the fluidity of a dance was disturbed when the order of the choreography was changed
• with the theoretical base of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s take on flow

experiment 3: Learning a new dance style

• noting the experience / challange of learning Swing basics during a private class without any prep
• with the theoretical base of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s take on flow

The performance piece was based on experiment 2, yet I allowed the audience to be in control. My dancing partner and I danced whatever the audience instructed us to by pressing buttons on a website available on their phone. Once a button with a graphical interpretation of a move was pressed, a command would be spoken from the speakers.

relation to a larger context

references
Beauchamp, P. (2006). Chorégraphie; ou, l’art de décrire la danse. [image] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/dance-notation [Accessed 17 Feb. 2017].

Griesbeck, C. (1996). Introduction to Labanotation. [online] User.uni-frankfurt.de. Available at: http://user.uni-frankfurt.de/~griesbec/LABANE.HTML [Accessed 27 Feb. 2017].

Benesh, R. (2006). Dance notation system devised in the 1950s by Rudolf and Joan Benesh. [image] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rudolf-Benesh [Accessed 20 Feb. 2017].

Cunningham, M. (2005). Suite For Five (1956). [image] Available at: https://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/cunningham [Accessed 2 Mar. 2017].

Dancing 4 Beginners, (2008). Basic Salsa Steps. [image] Available at: http://www.dancing4beginners.com/salsa-steps.htm [Accessed 15 Feb. 2017].

Gross, R. (2012). Tempo Recommendations for Dance Music. [online] Hollywood Ballroom Dance Center. Available at: http://www.hollywoodballroomdc.com/recommended-tempos-for-dance-music/ [Accessed 24 Feb. 2017].

Laban, R. (1998). Schrifttanz (1928). [image] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rudolf-Laban [Accessed 20 Feb. 2017].

Leblanc, S. (2011). Learning the Different Beats of Ballroom Dances. [Blog] Sheri Leblanc Musings. Available at: http://sheris-musings.tumblr.com/post/9776289357/beats [Accessed 23 Feb. 2017].

Levine, R. (1998). A geography of time. 1st ed. New York: Basic Books.

Slater, L. (2005). Opening Skinner's Box. 1st ed. London: Bloomsbury, pp.205 - 223.

Ted Talk, (2009). Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow, the secret to happiness. [video] Available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow?language=en [Accessed 3 Mar. 2017].

Wiener, N. (1965). Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. 2nd ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Pr.

Irma:Maybe interesting links to look at : www.cinedans.nl and Filmmaker Ruben van Leer https://vimeo.com/30792174