PIP - Performance Installation and Production, Spring 2000 Curtis Bahn Ph.D. Phone:276-4032 Email: crb@rpi.edu Office Hours Tuesdays 10:00-12:00 and appt.
PIP features a guest residency project, as well as acting as an umbrella allowing
student credit for numerous creative activities at the iEAR studios. These activities
include participation in the hOUR iEAR public access cable show, the hEAR iEAR
radio show at WRPI, and the documentation/technical crew of the Electronic Arts
Performance Series (EAPS), coordinated by Scott Smallwood. Individuals involved
in these activities will be selected during the first class period. Credit and
grading will be arranged through individual written agreements with the instructor.
The majority of the class will participate in a collaborative residency project
with Elizabeth STREB. All class members are expected to exhibit personal involvement
and incentive in the conception, creation and presentation of this project.
This is your project, "PIP" is unusual in that you as a class will be taking
the main organizational role in developing and realizing your ideas. The more
responsibility you take as individuals, and as a class, the more successful
(and fun) the process will be. Grading will be based on individual progress,
responsibility and involvement in the class project, as well as your collaborative
interactions with the guest artists and other class members. Numerous people
in the class will take organizational responsibilities in the class, each of
us is to respect them and follow their direction.
The Project: STREB
"One of the most interesting members of the new 'post-modern' generation of
choreographers, [Elizabeth] Streb is adept at turning bursts of pure athletic
energy into witty, risky, and surprisingly touching dance."
-New York Times, Jennifer Dunning.
This semester we will be collaborating with students Architecture and working
with Elizabeth Streb. MacArthur award winning choreographer Elizabeth Streb,
whose work is known for primal energy, physical risk and daring acrobatic feats,
will critique and engage our work at an evening of reflected work as part of
the Electronic Arts Performance Series on April 18th.
We will begin the semester by evaluating possible directions for our work with
Streb and designing potential proposals. We will present them to architecture
and join them in constructing 8 different ideas combining their designs of physical
space and our ideas involveing multi-media /video/sound etc. We do not know
what we will do. It is our responsibility to invent an approach to dealing with
Streb's extreme style.
1) We will start with a series of "action pieces" defined by Streb that need
to get incorporated into each project. Each design proposal will work with a
series of these discrete action works to define a. the spatial realm and b.
all the forces that you can imagine
2) Even though Streb will define her set of movements the conceptual and development
of the projects must allow for different dancers at different times to occupy/transform
conceptual proposals (again aleatory).
3) A budget, will be negotiated for the construction of the projects
3) Project must be able to be installed over a 7-9 day period (including one
or two weekends). This means that the project must be almost completely prepared
here in the Greene Building before final installation.
4) The project must be able to be taken on the road.
5) The site will be specifically addressed in the development of the proposal.
6) We will be actively involved with issues of lighting and projection, sound
- both electronic and non-electronic, sensors and enhancers, virtual and physical
elements
Streb Project Tentative Schedule: Key Dates
Jan 13 - Streb Presentation - orientation Jan 20 - Presentation of GeoSonics, Sensor/Video resources. Jan 27 - Pinup - individual ideas. Selection of teams Feb 3 - Pinup/ resources investigation Feasibility of main ideas Feb 10 - meet with arch. present ideas. Divide into groups with arch Feb 17 - Initial materials/resources budget and Availability investigations due. Feb 24 - Phase 1 Due Streb Visit ? March 2 - Phase 2 Due Streb Visit? Materials Procurement March 9 - Construction/Development March 11-19. Spring Break March 23 - Construction/Development March 30 - crb at tech arts fest in atlanta April 6 - Construction April 13 - "Dress rehearsals" April 17th - Installation April 18th Presentation April 19-20 break-down clean-up April 27 - no class. - Documentation Due