text
for a month we passed a series of emails back and forth.
some text from our exchanges is posted below.
the first email
The Populous Project
Here are the instructions for our project at the Judson gym on June 1.
1. Please read through all of the instructions before starting.
2. Several weeks ago, I sent out an email asking my friends and family—most of whom are not dancers—to send me a few sentences describing moments or images from
memory, from books or movies, from childhood, from a recent interaction or experience, anything really. The only request I made was that the scenes be short and relatively straightforward.
3. Shortly after you receive these instructions, each of you will receive another email containing one or two of these sentences. The sentences will be written by the same person and will be given to you anonymously.
4. Imagine the person who wrote this sentence. Decide for yourself several characteristics about this person: with the limited amount of information the sentence discloses, try to establish who they are, what is important to them, why they may have chosen to send this image or memory in particular. More importantly, try to figure out how they see and describe the world around them.
5. Give your person a name, a job, a history. Decide what they like, what they dislike, what they are indifferent to.
6. Develop a series of questions you would ask this person if you were to meet.
7. Once you have received and read your sentence, wait at least a day or two before following any of the instructions listed below. Use this time to complete steps 4, 5 and 6.
8. Either standing or sitting down, imagine you are this person and that you are being interviewed about your sentence. You can mouth words silently and use facial expressions to answer questions, but you are not allowed to use gestures or movements. Remember to leave pauses when you are being asked a question. The interview lasts fifteen minutes.
9. Standing up and staying in one place, develop a series of small arm gestures that describes your person and/or your sentence/scene. Rather than create a set phrase, try repeating an improvisation several times and see if any particular movements, or movement qualities, “stick.” You do not need to remember these movements exactly; however, try to remember the tone and feel of your improv. This lasts fifteen minutes.
10. Imagining that you are this person, walk around a room, or rooms, in your apartment. Using the information from your interview, improvisation, and steps 4 through 6, interact with objects in the room. Go through drawers and cabinets, flip through books, look at pictures on a wall, pick up objects and inspect them. Make and drink a cup of coffee or tea. This lasts fifteen minutes.
11. Now that you are familiar with the objects around you—and still imagining you are this person—return to each of the objects in the order in which you inspected them. Imagine you are being interviewed for a television show about where you live and what you own. As you return to each object, describe it in detail to the camera. Feel free to go on tangents, and make sure to tell anecdotes associated with any of the objects.
12. You must do each step at least once. You can repeat any step, if you like.
13. You are not allowed to ask me, or anyone involved in the project, questions.
14. There is no incorrect way to do this. You are doing this perfectly.
15. After you have finished reading through these instructions, follow this step first:
sit down and write a sentence describing a memory, scene, or image. It can be anything that comes to mind. Paste it into an email and send it to me: anakeilson@gmail.com.
email images
a collection of images, memories, scenes witnessed in daily life.
contributions by molly brush, marie-charlotte chevalier, talya cooper, elena demyanenko, sharon estacio, charlie homans, josh hudelson, ana isabel keilson, bobbie keilson, jo kirk, bronwen konecky, emily moore, omagbitse omagbemi, jennifer nugent, chris peck, molly poerstel, dallas schuster, paul singh, nate treadwell, devika wickremesinghe
The house smelled like spring and the house was empty, the smell was empty house and the leaves of the chestnut trees covered everything we did upstairs the smell is the only place that I want to get back to. forever ephemeral patterns. tiles and firework geometries. layered explosions interwoven and dis/connecting behind the eyes. sulfur smokey veil, greens and reds and fluorescent residue charm. This is one of my most vivid memories from childhood: I am little and I wake up in the middle of the night during a snowstorm. I walk across my bedroom towards the window: the wood is cold beneath my feet, it is dark, it is late, or very very early. The window-pane rattles from the wind; I push my face up to the glass, my breath makes shapes on it. Outside the snow is falling, and it looks orange in the glow of the street lamps along the sidewalk. Playing "taxi" by holding on to the back of a bicycle seat on my rollerskates when I was 10. A group of children playing duck duck goose in bryant park at lunch today. Running around and around and around in a circle singing Old MacDonald until I fell down when I was 2. A little girl in a summer dress making monkey noises while her mom laughed. A young man running as fast as he can down the subway platform. I walked hunched into a headwind in winter holding hands with my 6 year old daughter. Simultaneously we flung our hands in the air and let the wind propel us backwards. Odd also was the near-total absence of the loneliness that comes with that kind of solitude; I guess I came here enough when I was a kid that it feels kind of like a second home. Ok. Here is what I was thinking of. When I was a kid I lost a tooth while snorkeling. It floated down into a pile of tiny white pebbles that all looked exactly like teeth. My brother dove down to the bottom and picked up every pebble and examined it, and eventually found my tooth. All the while, I kept trying to get down there myself, but blowing the air out of my snorkel and diving straight down was really hard for me since I was so little-- I have this memory of flinging my arms around trying to get to the bottom and just floating upward again.
we were eating cantaloupe in the hot sun on our break from playing tag.
june 1st event instructions
performance instructions
for the final event on june 1
Set-up:
The Judson Gym will be separated into ten “parcels” of space. The Audience’s parcel is in the center of the gym, and the other parcels border around it. Our parcel is the first parcel—it includes the entranceway in and out of the gym. The audience will walk through our parcel to get to the seating area, and during the performance, if anyone in the audience needs to leave, they will have to walk through our space.
Our parcel is relatively large. I have made 14 large plaster lanterns—they look like eggs with the tops cracked off. They are white, fragile, and each one contains a battery-operated light. The fluorescents in the gym are going to be turned off during the show, so this is our parcel’s make-shift lighting design.
Duration:
The installation will last for one hour. It will actually be a little longer: I would like us to start before the audience enters the space, so the piece is already in progress when they take their seats. We will start in close proximity to each other, whispering to the wall (see below for details). Elena will be the first person to leave the wall—anyone can leave the wall after that in any order. Eva will be the last person to leave the wall.
Right now I am not completely clear as to when we will know when the hour is up. I will contact Jam, the curator/performance coordinator, and find out whether or not she will give some kind of start and finish signal.
The Most Important Thing to Remember:
During the entire piece, you are telling the story of your image. Stay connected to your image. Everything that is happening around you—the other dancers, the other parcels, even the audience—is an extension of your image. I don’t want our movement to feel “task oriented,” but rather, the things you do are character quirks, extensions of your personality, or part of how you are describing/telling your image.
Costumes:
Wear anything light colored (white, beige, light or pale colors). Since it will be dark, light colors will be slightly more visible. Short-sleeves, or tanks, are preferable. Wear anything that you enjoy dancing in, that makes you feel good. Pants, skirts, shorts—anything is fine.
We are dancing on a gym floor, so if you prefer to wear sneakers, go for it. Or pack some just in case.
The Parcel:
Is divided up into three spaces, or areas:
- The Wall
- The Lanterns
- The Channels/passageways in between the lanterns (basically, the rest of the space)
Movement:
I have divided the movement up into three categories, one for each space/area (the wall, the lanterns, the channels). In no particular order:
1. The Wall:
Go up to the wall and talk softly to it. Imagine that the wall has tiny holes or cracks in it and you are whispering into the different holes.
Once you finish telling the wall your image, imagine that the wall collapses on top of you and you fall to the ground.
The wall can either be the literal, physical wall of the gym, or the 4th wall separating us from the audience and from the other parcels. If you whisper to the 4th wall, it must be on the outer periphery of the parcel.
2. The Lanterns:
Stand next to a lantern and do your arm gesture improv that describes your image. This is the space in which you are narrating your image. The movement is very gestural, narrative, specific.
3. The Channels
Imagine that you are caught up in a stream, or a channel of a river. This is the space in which you travel through space. You can run, you can walk VERY SLOWLY as if you are underwater, you can dancey-dance through the space, and you can locomote low to the ground (crawling, crab-walking, slithering, etc).
If you choose to dancey-dance through space, make sure to be clear that you are traveling first and foremost. Otherwise, this is your chance to rock out. Do whatever you like, so long as it relates to your image.
Note: You can move in between these three spaces in any order—or as much or as little—as you like. If you decide to stand by a lantern the entire piece, go for it.
Relating to Other Dancers
Ultimately, you are on your own. You can watch other people, make eye-contact, see what they are doing and make choices based on their choices; however, this dance is about each person describing her/his image at the same time in the same space.
If it happens, physical contact is fine, but not encouraged. Try to avoid it if possible.
If you do want to relate to others, you can sync up with running, traveling, slow walking. Also, whispering to the wall and collapsing is a good place to relate to others.
Overall Rules
Only one dancer per lantern at any given time.
You cannot move the lanterns.
It is better to develop a single idea for a long period of time as opposed to doing as many of the options as possible.
You cannot leave our parcel during the performance, however, you can use the hallway space if you like.
Other Information That May or May Not Be Relevant
The instructions that you did at home are now tools for you—you can draw on anything from them as a way to inform your movement, your understanding of your image, etc.
Run as if you are going somewhere.
Be very clear when you shift from one space to another (ex: Wall to Lantern, Lantern to Channel, Channel back to Lantern).
There will most likely be a photographer taking pictures during the show. I imagine he will be using a flash, so do not be freaked out by it.
I have told the other artists that they and their performers are not allowed to come into our parcel during the show. However, it is entirely possible that someone missed the memo (or is ignoring it), and will come into the space.
At this point, I have no music for our piece. I may potentially have a song play midway through the performance as a time-marker—I will let you know ASAP if I do. Other parcels will probably have some kind of sound.
You are all amazing and I trust absolutely any decision you make. This project is meant to be informative, fun and not to induce stress of any sort.
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