short post

Hi all,
found my passwords again and re exploring blogspot this sunday afternoon. But just wanted to let everyone know that we are in the midst of organizing March 2 Marfa 2008.

Shelley Senter will be leading the mornings and afternoons will be in the theater. The dates are March 24th - 31st 2008. It's Monday to Monday.

Will send more info when it is available

Andrew

Dancing the brain

I have been curious about neurones, brain and pattern recognition because of Nina's "dancing the brain" idea. Here some interesting radio shows about that subject.

On Radiolab, WNYC: Stories of people whose brains and bodies have lost each other. They ask how does our brain keep track of our body? They examine the bond between brain and body and look at what happens when it breaks.

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2006/05/05

Again Radiolab, WNYC:

"We examine the line between language and music, how the brain processes sound, and we meet a composer who uses computers to capture the musical DNA of dead composers in order to create new work. We also re-imagine the disastrous 1913 debut of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring…through the lens of modern neurology."

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2006/04/21

On our beloved Canadian CBC Quirks and Quarks Radio Show:

  Knowing Me, Knowing You

One of the hallmarks of being human is our ability to empathise with others – to read people’s expressions and emotions. Even with complete strangers, we somehow understand how they are feeling, what they are thinking and what their intentions are. But how do we do it? Scientists have been grappling with this for ages. There just didn’t seem to be any obvious mechanism to explain it.

But then, about 15 years ago, something weird happened in a monkey lab in Italy. Scientists there discovered a new type of brain cell. They called it a “mirror neuron”, because of its ability to mirror the activity of those around it. The neurons were firing not only when the monkey itself performed an action, but when it watched an experimenter perform it as well. So, even when the monkey was completely still, and did nothing but watch someone else pick up a peanut, its brain fired as though it were picking up the peanut itself. And that got researchers wondering if this could be the key to our exquisite mind-reading abilities. Toronto science journalist Alison Motluk set out to explore the implications of mirror neurons, and prepared a documentary, called Knowing Me, Knowing You. Here are the people she spoke to:

Dr. Christian Keysers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands has been studying these neurons for some years now. He says they have the uncanny ability to mirror or mimic what’s going on in the brains of others.

Dr. Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist at the Brain Mapping Center at UCLA, had had a hunch that imitating other people’s facial expressions was somehow linked to feeling what they were feeling. This turned out to be true.

Dr. Mirella Dapretto, who works with Dr. Iacoboni at UCLA, immediately began wondering if malfunctioning mirror neurons might explain the problems that autistic people have.

Dr. V.S. Ramachandran is Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California at San Diego. He thinks the combination of language and learning by imitation that mirror neurons seem to enable may explain why humans have such a rich and rapidly evolving culture.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/05-06/apr01.html
Dowload that mp3 here: http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/media/2005-2006/mp3/qq-2006-04-01c.mp3

Anybody going to Marfa in 2007?

Hi!

I saw the small square in CQ about Marfa 2007 with Steve Paxton. I wonder what will be the connections between Ensemble Thinking and Steve's approach. I wonder what he is interested to work on. The spinal work? The puzzles? If anybody nows, write a comment to this post, thanks!

Most efficient and best ways to work since there is never enough time to work with Nina.

It takes to a group a period to settle and find ways to communicate. By the end of the week in Marfa, it felt like the idea to work in small group, divided in part observers and doers was most efficient. We would extract patterns, strategies in a simple short way to be then able to share it with the entire group. We would also wave at what one was saying if it was true for us as well. Non repetitive and focussed discussions are to me the best warm ups and downs. It puts me in a very specific mindset, ready to think and be aware. That's the real warm up we need to do that work.

response to ET as lens

Hmmm...
It seems that conciousness, modes of attention and states of mind create an aesthetic and/or values about what is good, beautiful, true or real. So far in the ET that I have experienced I find one rigorous and unified state of mind. I have not performed in that strict framework enough to judge whether or not it create its own aesthetic. But I suspect it does.
It seems like some states of mind are too inaccessible for ET - because they are inaccessible to a normal audience through the medium of performance. Values like shock seemed challenging to ET. Questions about performance- is the space a stage for the entertainment of others or a space for self-realization?When does one fail the other? Why are they separate?- seemed to be popping up via performance...
What I think I was doing in Marfa was learning about what kinds of departures from the "score" can I view through the lens of ET and what kinds muck it up so much, or as Nina said "tear the envelope?"

What seemed to work is that if I let my attention be wide enough (sometimes it felt like 360! and I believe that this expansiveness was arrived at through the exercise aspect of ET) almost anything was possible. Like, I am screaming fuck and it (the scream of fuck) is in a line and there are three of us and it takes the hot spot from Heidi.
Hmmm, there's more I want to get down to. Questions really. Like what is ET's or anyone's take on theme and development in live performance?

Ensemble as Lens

Hello,

One thing that I had hoped to do in M2M '06 was look at set work through the lens of Ensemble Thinking. If E.T. is a useful tool then it should be applicable to not just improvisation but also choreography. This is assuming the definitions of impro and choreo are that impro the observers are witnessing the act of creation and in choreo the observers are watching the product of creation. Time is instantaneous in one and compressed in the other. Just as a hammer is a good tool cuz it works on wood, on steel, in France and when it's raining.

So is E.T. a set of ideas that is universal? applicable to various aesthetics and movement forms? Or does it breed it's own aesthetic?

Andrew

Welcome to the blog of March to Marfa 2006

I hope this will be a useful tool to continue discussions on interesting topics, stay in touch and start new projects.