974 Vica 22-5-59 (verso)
Oil on card
280mm x 180mm
To gauge how differently we respond to Antarctica, it can be useful to explore how we respond to more familiar places.
I found this small painting in a Newtown Opportunity shop some years ago. Constructed with a definite foreground, middle ground and background, it suggested to me a European view, and so useful as a score for moving and drawing.
Drawing through Moving workshop (Tuesday 18th December 2007)
Warm-up:
Lying on the floor, we moved, and were moved, by Maurice Ravel’s music, “Une Barque sur l’ocean”
(A boat on the ocean).
I suggested we find the moments between being tossed and turned, and tossing and turning, and to find connections between the motion within the body and beyond.
Discussion afterwards revealed that we all took the experience in different directions.
RC’s experience was quite spatial – moving at different levels, and with strong sensations of embodying seaweed, and the boat, moving and being moved. She said the qualities in her movements reflected experiences in her present real life context, and that it felt good to be moving freely through these.
ML’s response was a kinesthetic/sensual experience of moving/being moved by various qualities of water as suggested by the music and by the momentum this motion generated.
Drawing the use of Time, Space and Energy:
One at a time, we moved in phrases, to Claude Debussy’s music, “Jeux de vagues” (Joy of the waves).
Movement phrases were identified by the pauses between.
Observers drew straight lines and spaces of different lengths, to reflect time periods of motion and stillness.
I had experienced this exercise with Peggy Hackney, in her recent Melbourne workshop for the Australian Dance Therapy Association Conference.
Drawing: RC
.
We then explored ways of notating the use of energy, by varying the pressure of pencil on paper.
Visually representing the use of space in real-time was more challenging, and we resorted to more individual, free-form calligraphy, which was nonetheless readable by each other.
Drawing: ML
.
We each contemplated the abstract qualities of a small landscape, which I had found at a Newtown Opportunity shop:
974 Vica 22-5-59
(verso)
We briefly discussed the landscape’s qualities.
ML said that “to me it could have been Europe, Australia, somewhere in Asia” etc.. with the free Japanese/Chinese inkbrush style in the sky important for my feeling of the lightness of air and bird (Laban ‘free flow’.”
RC thought it was quite European.
I thought it was an Australian landscape painted through European eyes, reflecting as I write on the influence of Poussin and Lorraine on 19thC landscape perception.
We then moved with the painting as our visual score.
We drew and wrote key words about our experiences of moving and drawing.
.
Drawing: ML
ML moving;
first expansive/strong
light quick
ML moving after drawing:
2 dimensional/relief
mobile
coolness
lifted gently
breezy
spacious
angular
upward pointing
containing
treated lightly, given humour by darting bird life
ML drawing:
distance/contrasts
solid/grounded
and free
.
.
Drawing: RC
RC moving (extracts):
life in the branches moving
phrases for colours of birds
the open landscape beyond
the edge of the lake with shadow …all around
walking the edge
the bush
climb up and take off
the sky above
birds
open arms
reflection
clouds
in water
aware of others in water
joy
playfulness of plants and birds
flowers
RC drawing:
lightly
edges
branches
rolling
peace
myth
a figure
space
life
.
.
Drawing: LR
LR moving:
weight
connections
life
growth
transforming between forms
(rock, tree, water)
Diversity in use of
space, time and energy
LR drawing:
Interconnections
soft and flowing
energy and strength balanced
growth
opening to sky
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