Day V
Task: Teach a class based on the object on the desk.
Played with muting in and out of sound. Increasing the volume of gestural language and muting the sound, and vice versa. First Hala then Hala and Mona together. Mona: “I found it appealing the objectivity with which Hala was telling personal stories, how at first she was more reserved or as if teaching to herself but then started bringing the audience/students in gradually. Referring to her mother as Nazli and her grandfather as He. She went from whispering to increasing the volume. I enjoyed the mute moments and the space they gave for other sounds to be heard, such as the sound of paper in her hands. Be true to your presentation/performance even when you are silent, we can still hear you.” Hala: “I found it difficult to concentrate of the train of thoughts when going from silent to talking. Tempo of the music affects the audience interaction. When the tempo is slow, I narrow it down to talking to one person, faster tempo, expands my interaction tot he crowd.”
When Hala and Mona together - Hala: “Found it distracting when two people talking so I found a solution to be silent when you speak. I was inspired to mirror Mona.”
Task: Play a card game using old photos and postcards as a deck of cards.
Went from slow motion to building up a rhythm. Focused on the gestures or pathway of the hands.
Task: Word map of Mother and Daughter.
Mona wrote down all the words she could think of in 4 minutes associated with the word “Mother”.
Hala wrote down all the words she could think of in 4 minutes associated with the word “Daughter”.
Mona : "I can see multiple possibilities to develop this. Play with the words and interpret them into movement and different media."
Hala: "I was very curious to read what you wrote about me."
Task: Open Jam using the tools we explored during the week.
Projected the film reel of Grandmother’s wedding party. Invited the subjects in the video as partners in addition to the stools, fans, objects on the desk (real and traces), each other. We also brought back the Cardiac Cycle gestures, the traces of the objects, the mirroring.
Hala: “It turns out there are many tools and many connections between them. I didn’t think different tasks could be incorporated in the same theme. I liked the intention of connecting things. I was surprised by the whole process as I thought it was all choreographed but it turns out there is intentional connectivity between all the tasks we did. When there is no music I get more creative, but music also inspires me. I enjoyed the process of changing the solid to movement. Through movement you can change the physical state of things. I am glad this brought us closer and made me understand when you do better and appreciate it.”
