Final thoughts...

The final project we did was interesting to me... It was nice to see how different concepts and ideas could come out from everyone. I wish we did it in a real movement space, though, but it was definitely a fun experiment.

Narratives were very abstract to me and I felt everyone had their own interpretation of it. I think every piece did have a beginning, middle, and end, but the result was very different. I also think the use of sound, text, movement, and music made the project have different dynamics and added variety.

On the other hand, I'm very curious about how the watchers over in California felt about the project and whether the performance lost its messages over the Internet. The project we did based on Karyn's text was also very interesting and experimental. I wonder whether we truly physicalized her ideas and how much what we created matched what she had in mind. Probably not very much, but it's a good example of how much information one is able to get out of merely text and how many different interpretations people can have for one thing.

Overall I think in this class I was exposed to things that I had never touched upon before and I'm glad I had a chance to. I've always been interested in arts with different media and the class provided the opportunity to explore and practice.

Narratives ideas

I was flipping through my books to see whether I could find any inspiration in them to form my narrative. There's this picture book I've always liked, Turn Left, Turn Right.

It's a story about two people who live next door to each other but never meet because one of them always only turns left and the other one always only turns right.






One day they meet by a pond and they have such a good time together. At the end of the day, it starts to rain so they say goodbye and leave each other their number. When they get home, they realize the piece of paper which has the number has been ruined by the rain.







They miss each other a lot. And they both try to find each other but never do. They still don't know they are actually next door neighbors and keep missing each other. She still always goes to the left, and he still always goes to the right.






They are both very sad. The winter is here, which makes the city cold and gloomed. They both decide to leave the city.

She still goes to the left, and he still goes to the right.




They finally run into each other again by the pond.








For me the story is not necessarily a love story at all. I think it tells us that by staying in our comfort zone and repeating our habitual pattern we're missing a lot of things happening around us.

Warm-up exercise

My exercise came from a class that I'm currently taking, Physical Theatre Improvisation. Wendy has also taken the class before.

The class talks about movements in various different perspectives. Shape, rhythm, speed, levels, etc. The exercise I used focused on shape and filling in the shape. And mostly importantly, the group as one unit has to rely on their kinesthetic sense to find a beginning, middle, and end.

I thought the class did a wonderful job on the exercise. I liked how everyone was very engaged in the process and was aware of whether there was any space that needed to be filled. It was very enjoyable to watch.

Lithium in process 5

After I felt I had acquired enough raw material (I felt I had enough stuff to play with), I began editing on iMovie. I liked how I started the piece in the second improv dancing clip, so I decided that was how I wanted it to start. But other than that I was just going to see as I went. I knew that would make the editing process longer, but it would also give me more opportunities to explore different possibilities.

I had all my raw materials laid out in the clip tab on iMovie. I went through the two dancing clips and cut out the snippets I liked. In addition to those, I had some clips on the drug bottle and Hershey Kisses as well as other pictures. The music had been imported from iTune. So I started puzzling the clips as if the music was the final picture (if that makes any sense).

At several different spots I switched different clips around to see what came out the most effective. That was really interesting because I got to see how a minute change could create an entirely different atmosphere. I also used some special effects that iMovie had, such as Earthquake, Aged Film, Speed, etc. I was careful about not overusing them because I thought it would make it look too much, or almost... um, cheesy.

Anyway, at first I didn't plan to play with the fast/slow motion function, but what happened was that I would find myself in a dilemma that the snippet I liked was shorter/longer than it needed to be to go with the music. When it was longer than the music, I didn't want to cut the snippet because I liked it so much; when it was shorter, I couldn't find anything else to extend it. So I "cheated" and adjusted the video's speed to make it match the music. It turned out looking nice, so I kept it. It was the biggest surprise coming out from my experiments, and I'm glad I tried that. I didn't play anything backwards, however, and it's something I'd like to try if I get to work on other projects in the future.

That's pretty much the editing process I went through... Took me a long time but I'm very glad that I spent time to gain that experience. Now, ladies and gentleman, proudly present the final product of our collaboration, Lithium.

Lithium in process 4

I also noticed how Andrew used the text in the music. He literally cut the spoken text from Katie's recording, played with it a bit, and put it in the music. I found it amazing that a lot of the words he chose to use were exactly what jumped out to me when I read the text. So I thought, maybe I could re-visualize the text, since we all find the text itself so strongly expressive.

I pasted the text to a word file and changed the font to a medical-report looking font. I again used my digital camera to film the text. I played with the way I filmed it. When I moved the camera really fast, it created a blurry effect, which made it look interesting. I also tilted the camera to see if it would look any differently.

















Andrew also lingered on the word overwhelming in the music. So I elaborated on the word more. I asked myself what could be overwhelming? And these were the pictures I found in my iPhoto that I found a connection to the word.













As I played with various ways of filming and different objects, the materials just kept growing and became richer and richer. It was a very exciting process.

Lithium in process 3

Now I have the text, music, and some dancing I did. I want to edit the dancing clips and add something more to them. So I looked at the materials again and searched around my apartment to see if there was anything that I could use.

Andrew named the music Lithium, so I immediately dug out a drug bottle and put some pills in it. I took some pictures of the bottle and pills. I also used my digital camera to film them. From my past experience I knew mpeg files would lose the audio when they're imported to iMovie. But it wasn't a problem this time because I didn't need any audio this time, since I already had the music.







I also filmed some clips on the Teddy Bears and tool box but ended up not using them.

Then I started to think what lithium pills might mean to the patient. She apparently hated them because, like many other bi-polar patients, she thought they made her lose creativity. I looked around my living room and found a bag of Hershey Kisses, which belonged to my roommate. I never like chocolate--don't hate it but I can totally live without it. I looked at the Kisses and suddenly thought it would actually be visually interesting to put the pills and Kisses together. So I took some pictures of the bag of Kisses, with similar arrangement of the bottle and pills.


















I kept exploring and asking myself questions. What can I do with the pills (and the Kisses)? I can count them, I thought. So I did.





The visual effect turned out to be very interesting. I can't really explain why, but doing the same actions to pills and chocolate just somehow has some kind of secret humor behind it (well, at least to me).

Lithium in process 2

Andrew sent us his first draft of music on Oct 10. I was in upstate New York and was thinking to do some improvisation outdoors, but unfortunately I never got a chance to. Anyway, I got the next draft of the music from Andrew on Oct 15. I decided not to listen to the music before I improvised--just for an experiment. But I did read the text and looked at the words again before I started recording.

I did this in the living room of my apartment. I moved my couch so I would have space and the wall. The bears and the tool box were just something I had that I thought could be a metaphor of bi-polar (?). I put my laptop on the coffee table and used the webcam on it to record the dancing.

I improvised to the music twice. Here are the clips:





I actually felt very comfortable improvising this time (normally I'm awkward about improvisation). The music was playing and I just tried to find my way to connect to the music through movements. I really enjoyed it.

Lithium in process 1

The book Katie was reading is An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness, written by Kay Jamison. I looked it up on Amazon to get a glimpse of the book. The review on Amazon.com says:
In Touched with Fire, Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychiatrist, turned a mirror on the creativity so often associated with mental illness. In this book she turns that mirror on herself. With breathtaking honesty she tells of her own manic depression, the bitter costs of her illness, and its paradoxical benefits: "There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness and terror involved in this kind of madness.... It will never end, for madness carves its own reality." This is one of the best scientific autobiographies ever written, a combination of clarity, truth, and insight into human character. "We are all, as Byron put it, differently organized," Jamison writes. "We each move within the restraints of our temperament and live up only partially to its possibilities." Jamison's ability to live fully within her limitations is an inspiration to her fellow mortals, whatever our particular burdens may be. --Mary Ellen Curtin

I also found a summary of the book on Professional Pastoral-Counseling Institute's website:

Kay Jamison is a Professor of Psychiatry at John Hopkins School of Medicine and takes us through her maze of manic/depressive illness also known as bi-polar disorder. She has known the heights of creativity and exhilaration. The high at first seemed wonderfully breath-taking but eventually led to exhaustion, a racing mind that knows no bounds, and eventually led to the underworld of deep dark depression that seemed unbearable.

Her journey begins in childhood where she is very aware of her heightened sense of wonder, beauty and sounds. Through her teen years she became more aware of her dad’s darkening moods. We are taken on a roller coaster ride through undergraduate and graduate school where she experienced her boundless energy and night-long forays into endless discussions and study. This is wonderful but frightening as she realizes more and more she is out of control and fears going mad.

Dr. Jamison eventually sought medication and treatment as more of her colleagues and friends could no longer keep up with her hectic pace. This was back in the 70’s when lithium was the only drug doctors had discovered that could restore the patient to some form of normalcy. But like many who suffer from this disease, Kay Jamison would not stay on lithium and lose, she thought, her wonderfully creative mind. She, thus, soon returned to her chaotic world only in a more severe state.

She came to realize that if she were to continue her work as a Professor in UCLA’s Department of Psychiatry and later as director for their Mood Disorders Clinic, she needed to do something about her own disease process. She found a psychiatrist with whom she felt safe and who tried to insist on her being faithful to medication. Like many patients with more severe mood disorders she thought she could make it on her own which ended in a suicidal attempt.

The author takes us through the medical breakthroughs in treating this disease in a humorous, non-pedantic way so that any lay person or clinician can follow the road she travels and easily accompanies her. Her disease process was instrumental in ending her first marriage when her spouse could no longer tolerate her mood swings but she acknowledges the importance of his kindness and love. She found love twice more in her life and recognizes the importance of love and understanding in the healing process as well as the medication and therapy. Her family, colleagues, and friends stood by her for the most part through the lightness and deep darkness of the disease.

Now I have a better idea on what the book is about, I go back to the text Katie chose to use and see if any words jump out to me:

There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you're high it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting starts, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people. Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one's marrow. But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are fas too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friends' faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against-you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.

7-17-75 Patient has elected to resume lithium because of the severity of her depressive episodes.

7-25-75 Vomiting.

8-5-75 Tolerating lithium. Feeling depressed at realization she was more hypomanic than she believed.

9-30-75 Patient has stopped lithium again. Very important, she says, to prove she can handle stress without it.

10-2-75 Persists in not taking lithium. Already hypomanic. Patient well aware of it.

10-7-75 Patient has resumed lithium because of increased irritability, insomnia, and inability to concentrate.

I think these words can provide me concepts and be elaborated on when I improvise dance to the music.

Glass Prism Website

http://www.glassprismband.com/


I recently designed/built a website for my boyfriend's dad's band. The band was one of the originators of progressive concept-based rock and was highly active around the Scranton, PA area during 1960s and 1970s. They have just had two reunion concerts in 2007 and 2008.

This project was an exciting experience for me in several aspects. It was my first time designing and building a "public" website (vs. school projects). I used java script and a lot of fun stuff. Exposé is one thing I found that creates really cool slideshows. An example is here: http://www.glassprismband.com/pictures.

On the other hand, it was very interesting to see a form of collaboration through this project--music and poetry. The band used Edgar Allen Poe's poem "Raven" as an inspiration and composed music to it. A lot of schools in PA to this day still use their music to teach Edgar Allen Poe's work. I'm thinking to use iMovie to make a video for the song.

New York-London Collaboration

So, our collaboration has been kicked off.

Katie is reading a "disturbing" book (quote Katie) and thought it would be interesting to do some collaboration on that. She read some paragraphs and recorded it and sent it to Andrew (http://www.andrewjgoldman.com/), a composer/pianist/clarinetist who is currently in London. Based on that Andrew is going to make music on GarageBand (and also compose a flute part for Katie to play), and I'm going to dance to it. I'll record what I do and send it to them for feedback. And we'll see what we want to do from there.

For now my idea is to dance outdoors. I'm going to be away (upstate NY) for the weekend and I think it'll be interesting to dance in different places, e.g. tennis court, lake shore, etc. I'll also try to play my dancing clip on a big screen in the background and I can dance with myself as a duet.

We had a meeting on Tuesday in class through Skype and decided the music was going to be 3 minutes long, no more no less. Awesome.

Improvisation

Improv can totally be fun and amazing--if you do it with the right people.

I edited the dance improv of Anna and I did last Tuesday(taped by Tam). It almost looks like we rehearsed it. The most interesting part for me is actually the reactions of the people who passed by.

The music imrpov happened in class on Tuesday was fun too. Collaborative improv seems possible to me now.

Shooting - just for fun

So last Tuesday we went around the campus and shot random stuff. It was very free and fun to work as groups. Anna and I danced and Tam the flute girl played her flute. We also shared stories. Surprisingly it created plenty of interesting images.

The Moon Fest 2008

September 14 was the Moon Festival for the year of 2008. It's August 15 of the Chinese calendar and thus falls on a different date of the solar calendar every year.

Jordan had only one day to visit me, but he came down anyway. "I don't want you to be alone for the Moon Fest," he said. He knew how important it was to me. We had mooncakes, of course. My favorite flavor is still jujube paste with salty yolks or pine nuts. For four years, it was the first and the only mooncake I had had.

The bus was at 6:30 pm. I went to the Port Authority with Jordan so he could spend another 3.5 hours to take the bus home, and then went down to the East Village for Ken's song night. I had no clue what it was going to be until I got there. It turned out that it was an event where people got together and sang folk songs, and the theme of the night was animals and plants. I know zero folk songs and therefore couldn't sing with them, yet it was interesting to watch/listen. I did sing a song that I knew that had animals in it--Little Lamb from Gypsy.

It was 10 pm when the song night ended and I stepped out of the bar. I lifted my head and looked at the sky, and there the moon was, full and bright, smiling at me. I started to tear up. I missed my family.

It is probably hard for a lot of people to understand, but there is a very strong connection between the image of the full moon and family reunion. Being one of the three biggest Chinese holidays (the other two are the Lantern Festival and the Dragon Boat Festival), the Moon Fest is a holiday that families get together--probably the equivalent of Thanksgiving. There are also many many myths and folk tales about the moon. For example, the "Jade Rabbit" who makes medicine on the moon, the fairy "Chong-Ug" who flew to the moon, the lumberman "Wu Gung" who tries to fell the cinnamon tree but never succeeds, etc.

So I decided to make something about the moon to remember this holiday. :)