CERA

After a session at CERA,  assignment: create a plan for a movement exploration, based on your exploration at CERA.

Naomi Worob // ACTIVITY: As Seen 

This activity is meant to get participates up close and personal with objects in their environment.  

1. Find something small to explore. Think the size of a seed pod, a leaf, a flower, a blade of grass… 
2. Knowing what works best for you—either with a journal and writing utensil or with your body—spend … minutes discovering and recording everything there is to know about the physical qualities and design of the object you have chosen. 
3. Now—if you haven’t already—put this into your body. Spend … minutes, linking movements to the object’s physical qualities and design. For example, if my object is a seed pod with five chambers, I might choose to make a movement inspired by the design of the seed pod chamber that repeats five times. 
4. One by one, share your movement with the group, then share your object. 

 

Kaya Prasad // Layers of Prairie

Take 4 minutes to observe one detail of the prairie landscape and to create a movement using one body part to reflect that particular detail.

Repeat, taking 4 minutes to observe a second detail and to create a movement using a different body part.

Do this for a total of 5 prairie details/5 movements.

Put it all together and see if you can coordinate executing all 5 movements simultaneously.  What is it like to embody (to a small extent) the level of detail and diversity you observe in the prairie?

 

Nolan Schoenle // Dialogue with the environment

1. Find a quiet place to yourself. Spend a few minutes getting acclimated to the new space.

2. Once you’re settled, free talk with the grass. Say anything and everything that comes to mind. // 5 minutes

3. Pause #1: Reflect on the words you spoke. What did you say? Why did you say it? Did you take your audience into consideration at all?

4. “Listen” to the environment communicating with you. Be as patient with it as it was with you. //5 minutes

5. Pause #2: Reflect on what you witnessed. How did the environment communicate with you? What struck you? What do you think you missed?

6. Experiment with different methods of communication with the environment. Do you use your breath? Voice? Hands? Eyes? Try to create a dialogue. // 10 minutes

7. Reflect/Journal about the experience. What did you learn? What would you like to explore more? Do you think you were able to have a dialogue? Why or why not?

Jin Chang // Embodied Translation

Set up: Groups of four. One individual is the facilitator, another the experience holder, another the artist, and finally the canvas.

Materials needed: Notebook and pen

1. Facilitator and experience holder have a one on one. The facilitator asks the experience holder about their favorite spot on the prairie. The facilitator writes down key words from the description. For instance, the physical surrounding or words that carry particular emotional contexts.

2. The facilitator and the experience holder walk to the location together. The experience holder revises their description to the facilitator. The facilitator once again notes key words.

3. The two walk back and the facilitator has a one on one with the artist. During this time, the facilitator relays the experience to the artist using the words used by the experience holder. Any information that immediately gives away the location will be filtered out.

4. The artist then has a one on one with the canvas and proceeds to draw what they interpret the experience to be onto the body of the canvas. No conversation about the potential space may be had.

5. The canvas and the artist guess where the location is.

6. The four members debrief the experience looking at themes such as translation, embodied experience, and a transference of experience through imperfect means.

Jacob Leder // Naomi’s Exercise

Naomi sat us down in the studio and gave us instructions. To find an object in the courtyard, spend time investigating it, and devise movements inspired by the object. After, we would perform the movements for the group. I chose a small bulb (pictured below) that I found on the ground. Initially, I found very little inspiration from the bulb, but when I broke it open with a pen, revealing tiny seeds and new colors, things cleared up, Naomi recorded my movements, a stretch towards the sky like the top stalk of the bulb, and then an opening of my chest (not literally). For me, this exercise was pretty awesome. I’ve had some difficulty connecting to the concept of embodied experience  in the environment, but this exercise, a straightforward articulation of that concept, allowed me to play with it and get it. As a group we decided that while this exercise was valuable, it did not respond to Celeste’s challenge of imparting a tactile feeling to an observer. We will try to do this tomorrow (or we will have hopefully already done it if you’re reading this past Oct. 18).

(A video of me breaking the bulb: IMG_4391)

Anjali Jain// Naomi’s activity

This was not the experience that was presented to the class as our groups documentation, however it shows the individual phrase that I choreographed based off of Naomi’s CERA activity.

Jain_CER

 

Zoe Fruchter

CERA Activity: Sensual Transfer

1. Lay down either in the prairie, on the road, or on the concrete (whatever makes you feel most comfortable). Set a timer for ten minutes.
2. During that ten minutes, keep your eyes closed and try to imagine your body becoming a part of your setting; immerse yourself in the auditory and physical details of the experience.
3. After ten minutes have elapsed, write/draw the experience on a blank piece of paper. Were there moments where the wind passed over you? Was there a specific bird call that you heard? Mark these moments on the paper. Take only one or two minutes to do this section of the activity.
4. Find a partner.
5. Create a dance in which you attempt to communicate the content of your drawing to the other person. Feel free to incorporate touch, sound, or other experiential elements.

 

Cassidy Christiansen // Teaspoon of experience of the making of “Made with Hands” (Christiansen 2018)

The first image is of the group activity where I filmed everyone interacting with the worm, touching it, feeling it, lifting it, carrying it around. 

Cassidy Christiansen // Jin’s Experiment

Nai’ya//Imagine

Imagine yourself as one of these three elements: animals (bugs, birds, snakes, bunnies, etc), plants (trees, grass, flower, dirt, etc), or weather (wind, clouds, rain, mist, etc) and move as that element.

Throughout this exercise you must move like your element, and to switch elements with another person, you must put two hands out, palms facing the person you would like to switch with. For them to accept the must do the same, not touching (to respect each other’s personal space). You start in the last position the person you switched with was in and then continue from there. Everyone (hopefully) will be each of the elements (animals, plants, or weather) at least once.

The purpose of this exercise is to embody what you see in the environment around you, and to embody the movements of the people you switch with.