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My Final Piece

One Skin, Two Bodies (2021)

Esme Lafferty

Documentation of live performance in the park, audience is made for the general public.

I am very happy with how this project has concluded. The performance within the skin suit is very effective in hugging the performers and creating visually interesting shapes and forms. Each movement is repeated twice or so for the audience to appreciate the physical qualities of skin we are trying to represent: the folding, sagging, looseness, tightness and stretch of skin. For them to question the dancers relationship with the ‘skin’ costume - are they one collective organism or a symbiotic relationship between two bodies? What lives underneath the surface of our skin? What lives on the surface? What occupies the space between the performers bodies? What does the skin remind me of? Stretched animal skins? Flayed bodies? Scarring? Stitched tissue membranes? I hope my piece conjures many questions around skin and what it means/ represents to each person.

I think this project would have benefited with audience participation to create chain-reactive movements based on the actions of the participators existing in the collective skin (if it was made much bigger to fit numerous people) to see how the ‘skin’ performance could evolve with each performance/ set of new people. Therefore, each performance would be completely unique.

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Notes, sketches and drafts for final performance/ choreography! Checklist for order of movements.

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This was so interesting! I asked a friend of mine for her opinion on the performance, was it clear that it was a piece representing skin (yes, but perhaps with less black so more browns and peach to look more fleshy - oh if I had more time!!). As a past film student she told me about Foley artistry and the deception in creating sound effects in movies does not rely on the live sounds/ action filmed but are later recorded cleanly and edited in! This was so cool to make the correlation between what I had been working on in terms of my edited ‘skin’ sounds made from a variety of objects.

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wip of spliced sounds - includes crinkled crisp packets, stretched leather, rubber, hand rubbing/ clapping (body percussion) and fabric ripping.

I chose these sounds as the are either materially related to the fabric that makes up the costume worn by the dancers to represent skin, or are sounds produced by the body from a surface level (i.e not deeply bodily/ internal). Hopefully this is achieved, I don’t want it to necessarily sound like snapping or crushing bone sounds, but create extra drama to the piece by mimicking the sounds made against the body (fabric on skin) and to add to the effect of stimuli provoking the reactions of the movements in the performance, skin reacting to the noises.

Referenced + sampled sound clips:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hpdHvFEXJM -World’s Fastest Hand Sounds ASMR #shorts by Paulie ASMR on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RebIZeQTD1U Crisp Packet Rustling by Sounds Effects Relaxation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWfTh9Z5OCo&t=5s ASMR Poruing Orbeez Balls Sounds Effects by PopVideosTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PzqL_iGYZU Tearing and Ripping Fabric Sound Effects by Sound Effects & More

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwlRmhJ1wz4&t=2s Ballon Stretching Sound Effects by stretchingsoundeffectsgirl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMEw9C6jO-E Leather Stretching - Sound Effects by EchoCinematics

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Clip of performance with Tamito’s music. Not sure I’m a fan of the music with the video, I like the song but I don’t think it marries up well with the movement. I have only uploaded 1 min out of 4 of the entire piece and this was the only section where the music remotely gelled with the performers and their movement, I think because of the way I recorded the sound from my speaker, the vinyl would play the song then wait until the next song came on so I had small pauses between songs and an annoying buzzz noise when our old record player’s needle caught on a slight scratch or had a stubborn fluff on the needle!

I think I will save my time editing where best to play sampled sounds of stretched fabric, leather and rips that align best with the choreography of the performance so it’s like the sounds of the material that makes up the ‘skin’ suit also acts as an instrument for the performance. I will refilm my performance in the park this weekend with the audio. Not long to go now! :) 

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Showed my grandma the performance video with heartbeat/ drums yesterday and it reminded her instantly of an old record by Isao Tomita called Snowflakes Are Dancing that she owns. Tomita experiments with synthesizers, something extraordinarily new in the 60s and 70s when he started producing music because this was before commercial computers existed! The musical components come from the arrangements of Claude Debussy's "tone paintings"*, where it was performed by Tomita on a Moog synthesizer and a Mellotron.

*  Langham Smith writes that the term became transferred to the compositions of Debussy and others which were "concerned with the representation of landscape or natural phenomena, particularly the water and light imagery dear to Impressionists, through subtle textures suffused with instrumental colour". >> This is a cool fact I didn’t know about, I find it amazing how musicians can convert something visual into audio, similar to the condition synaesthesia.     (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Debussy)

Listening to her vinyl copy on our record player was enjoyable, reminding me of the music in children’s night time tv shows like in the nightgarden , which interestingly enough was mentioned by my peers in the last crit when I was setting up. The costume reminded them of the character Maka-Paka, a big, shy monster who collects pebbles. I see the correlation because of the movement, the performance is quite soft and slow, the skin costume hugs the performers in shades of neutrals so when they have their arms up, the figures become blurred and transform into a slightly hypnotic organism that sways in tempo with the music.

Tamito’s songs feel extra-terrestrial and intergalactic because of the high pitch sounds and smooth synths. This adheres to the theme of the strange bodies inhabiting the skin - are they human? what are these foreign bodies? I will play around with this background music, but may prefer my other idea which is to focus on using stretched material sounds like ripping and rubbing to perhaps better match the movements of the performers.

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Documentation photographs from video walking through the park.

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Final Crit 10.05.2021

One Skin, Two Bodies

Projection of film beside hung skin costume worn in performance.

Projected my documentation/ filmed performance wearing the stitched skin suit. Overall I am happy with the response I received from the crit - my intention was to create a material covering that represents skin and this idea of a covering was widely seen. I got some interesting responses linking the piece to family ties or connections which I like, as I wanted the piece to come across as two bodies coexisting in virtue, an organism formed by it’s sub parts/ bodies to make a whole. By performing, we can see the ‘skin’ and its physical boundaries that can be explored through movement - tightening of skin, wrinkling, sagging, looseness, tightness - all attributes of skin we associate with age which was another key idea I hoped to get across so am glad people picked up on that!

I got some really positive responses to the performance, people giggling through out the video to these strange bodies/ performance in the skin. I like how my piece gives some light relief to the audience.

We discussed the filming of the piece, and agreed that having it filmed all in one, still frame complemented the piece nicely given the action of the performance. I’ll need to refilm the entire thing as I had edited some separate clips together and the frame went off to one side at the end/ out of focus. 

I was asked why I had performed my piece in the location I had (which was my local park that had the plainest backdrop I could think of, and was also big enough for us to stretch out the material as much as we could when performing). Could I try a more domestic setting? Sitting on the sofa, making tea, how does the skin/ organism interact in that context. I do like this idea but worry my concept of the physical boundaries/ aspects of skin such as looseness and tightness would be lost if I were to film the performance of skin in that way because in most inside settings there is not enough space to stretch out. The context of indoors, performing perhaps ritualistic activities like making tea, browsing books in the library, doing the food shop would distract from my initial intention of the piece, although it would be comical to see it worn in public! However, that said, I would essentially be exploring a space in a new ‘skin’ so the movements and actions to this new context would be a statement in itself.

In terms of advice for improving the film, people suggested using more dynamic, contrasting movements. I agree as the first half of the film is quite slow, the movements never stray from our counts of 8. Should we experiment with choreography that is less instructional, but based on more natural, intuitive behaviours/ body language to see what other movements can be generated?

The tutors asked why I hadn’t performed it live, which was due to lack of  confidence on my behalf to give adequate instruction to a volunteer to help me perform in it. I found me and the performer in the film had to practice the choreography multiple times before filming so felt nervous to do it off a whim in the crit, however, the spontaneity and audience participation could have created an entirely different performance. So someone suggested that having the film in the background of a live performance helps the viewer understand what they are being asked to do (almost like an instructional video) and could work in tandem with each other.

I want to reconsider my music choice in the film (a foetus and mother heartbeat) because I was told if my intention is not a mother/ child relationship then the music is not appropriate. Perhaps I should seek music linked directly to skin: audio of skin to skin contact, hands rubbing, clicking, body percussion?? Or use materials that link to the fabric used in the garment - elastic snapping, tights ripping? Something more surface level as opposed to a deep, internal bodily sound like a heart beat.

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Same video edited but with different sounds because I’m unsure which is best (do I have music at all?? I think it helps show the movement in conversation with a rhythm). The first video has a heart beat of a foetus and mother whilst the other has a drum beat.

I like the speed of the drumming music, but does it create a context that isn’t appropriate for the work as it makes it seem kind of carnivalesque, however, I do like the associations to something ritualistic, especially combined with the moves of the performers in the shared skin. It seems quite tribal, and at one point we bow so it seems almost sacrificial.

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Katherine Dunham Technique Disc 1 #8 2nd Position Plié w/ Pelvic Contractions

Tried the plies and curvatures of the spine but wasn’t so effective as suit is not wide enough. Will stick to long lines and keeping arms above head or stuck to sides as to not get caught in the tights/ have them ride up during performance.

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The Dance Technique of Lester Horton: An Advanced Beginners Class

I like Horton’s focus on lateral movements and creating clean lines with the body by using the hips like a hinge and flat backs.

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Ink Paintings: Martha Graham Class 1980-1983 | James Fuhurman

I find the pieces very evocative and beautiful in their form and proportion - Martha Graham

The study of Martha Graham dance 1979–1983, led to a series of calligraphic paintings where the intensity of the dance forms flowed spontaneously and ‘automatically’ from the brush into forms across the paper. The ink/brush technique paintings led to more gestural expressions and study of Japanese Zen enso circle forms connoting completion, fullness, inclusion and, yet emptiness.

The Graham paintings became seminal to my work leading to explorations of a personal and expressive nature. The work is my teacher; each piece brings the next.

I think these are lovely because of how expressive the marks are and create a beautiful documentation of dance on paper. A very difficult act when capturing something performative/ full of energy.

Looking at the lines of the body and how they can be reproduce by the body in my costume.

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Film of Martha Graham dancing in her iconic solo Lamentation (1930). Premiere of Lamentation: January 8, 1930 – Maxine Elliot's Theatre, New York City

Like the rising-falling action and clasped hands. The wide leg plie also creates an oval shape in the material. I should film movements in the piece that cause geometric shapes to form in the costume (arms in a V shape, in parallel above head to make a rectangle etc). I simply want to use movements that will test the physical boundaries of my made skin and how it moves collectively when performed by more than one body. How it can twist, turn, stretch, fall, wrinkle and contort.

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Ekstasis - the dress reminds me of how my own garment hugs the body around the legs. I like the short step trots that move her side to side on stage.

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I like the slow and repetitive action of the tendus - rising on the balls of the feet, knees slightly bent and then lowering back down into the ground before pushing up again.

The music has a steady beat that sounds really good and has enough variation to enable new movement response to it.

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Posing is an act of power for projecting identity and visibility. Holding certain movements for a period of stillness can create drama and effect, respect even as you internalise the body language and what it says.