The 19th Step Development Day Three, Patterns, Shapes and Tango

"Musically, the tango is not important; its only importance is what we give it. This reflection is correct, but perhaps applies to everything."
"The tango can be debated, and we have debates over it, but it still guards, as does all that is truthful a secret"
Jorge Luis Borges, A History of Tango.

Today Marcus our mathmatician had his first ever tango lesson. Using the shape of the circle the dancers and Marcus improvised moves drawing circles on the floor inspired by tango.

Marcus drew the diagram of the dance moves he and Rose had developed. Inside the circle the 6 triangles make a hexagon, the shape of the rooms in Borges story the Library of Babel.

The 19th Step Development Day Two, Building Vocabulary, Notations and Blackboards

Musicians, Dancers and Marcus, Dorothy and Carol discuss ideas about notation building the space, and exploring the space and sounds of the blackboards.

Discussing notation and sounds made by drawing on blackboard which Dave had attached a contact mic amplifying the sounds of the chalk drawing. The musicians created different forms of notation which the dancers used as a starting point to develop their own notation for movement.

More ideas of notation using text, music and geometry using blackboards and performers as part of the architechture.
Creating geometric spaces with the boards the performers formed a Hexagon.


Marcus drew an equation showing the 7 performers of the 19th step. S1= Sarah, Flute, R1 = Richard, Horn, S2 = Scott, Percussion, R2= Rose, Dancer, D= Dylan Dancer, M1 = Marina, Dancer, M2 = Marcus, Mathematician.

The 19th Step Development Day One Primordial Space Thinking of Borges The Circular Ruins

Mappings of the Primordial space, empty except for the body and the sound of our own pluse building the performance and sound, exploring the books as building materials. Video shows an exercise with the dancers Rose, Marina and Dylan navigating between coordinates 01,10,00,11, controlled by the sounds made by the musicians Richard, Sarah and Scott.

Infinity Dance of Carols made me think of Whirling Dervish

Remembered seeing Whirling Dervish in Cairo apparently Dervish means Doorway

As explained by Sufis:

At the beginning of the Sema, by holding his arms crosswise, the semazen appears to represent the number one, thus testifying to God's unity. While whirling, his arms are open: his right arm is directed to the sky, ready to receive God's beneficence; his left hand, upon which his eyes are fastened, is turned toward the earth.

Quoting From Marcus
"In the essays in my addition of Labyrinths there is an essay by Borges dedicated to The Fearful Sphere of Pascal. It traces back how the sphere has been an important symbol for many philosophers. Parmenides: The divine being is like the mass of a well-rounded sphere whose force is constant from the centre in any direction. The music of the spheres. Kepler's model of the universe as interconnected spheres."

19th step performance sketch 2

Been thinking about your responses, have tried to simplify and create a more fluid performance space. Just been looking out some photos for Dorothy and came across the images at the Laban in the room with mirror. Thinking about it as I write this I realise the corner would need one plane side and one mirror side. Was thinking about the idea of infinity and how the mirror does this. Also about Carols idea of Marcus describing the Maths of the space is intriguing. I was imagining the 6 corners were like nodes of the space described by the music and dance. But the nodes could also be moved so different surfaces come in the projection light they would also come in and out of focus. The shape of the space could be assembled and altered during the piece. I keep thinking of ways to work with the projected image on to the screen, a screen is a definite screen and the corner screens are really physical things that can be moved around the performance area, they become screens if they enter the light of the projected image. I think I'm trying to make the experience of viewing the projected image to have a physical presecence, although we are dealing with lots of virtual/abstract things like the projected images, maths and music.
Wondering if this may be why I'm still a bit reluctant to use hanging screens as they often seem like a facade where you have to suspend your disbelief, a I think find this a bit difficult to deal with, but I realise the performance space is very different :-)