These opportunities to work with Amber Ortega-Perez on her graduate school projects continue to be quite rewarding. It might have been back in January when she mentioned a performance she was expected to create with, I believe, at least two collaborators from other disciplines. (I should point out that this is a low-residency program out of state, and these dance projects are video-taped and the instructors review the documentations of the work.) She needed to have everything delivered by early April–a record of the collaboration as well as whatever contextual paper she would have to write. I suggested that we could stage the piece at Jump-Start, but we’d have to work around the set for my show which would be running. I thought that it might look intriguing. Also, a bonus, would be that as Amber wanted video projection, I knew that I’d have at least one projector installed in the space for the theater piece. She agreed. She invited Charles Perez to be part of the collaboration. And I suggested we also bring in Deborah Keller-Rihn and Laurie Dietrich. These are all people who I’ve worked with together on dozens of creative projects, but never all together. The team members were each creative, imaginary, and fearlessly innovative. There was no baggage of ego or self-important inflexibility.
For a few weeks we mostly bounced ideas around via email. We had one discussion meeting. One working session with some props. One experimenting rehearsal. And the final staging. It was organic, simple, painless, and quite beautiful.
Amber shaped the movement and the basic theme. Laurie brought in the idea of water and the heightened ritual components. Deborah created a mandala on the ground with rice flour and powdered tempera paint. I hooked up two additional projectors (we used three in all), and I also placed a GoPro in the ceiling with a wireless feed into my computer. The live camera signal went to the two side panels, the images warped with a software effect. The rear wall displayed an image Deborah had created for me for my show (I turned it into an abstract rotating kaleidoscopic animation). I also mapped twelve slow-rotating pieces of art created by attendees of Deborah’s Mandala Healing Arts workshops–there was a cut Styrofoam grid on the back wall of the theater as a scene element (which was part of Karen Arredondo’s design for the show). I also provided some ambient music I had created for my show. And Charles–who is very attentive, sensitive, and observant–helped to fill in the spaces; and, by interacting with all the elements, he helped to bring everything together.
Here is a short clip of the first rehearsal.
Some of us had been taking pictures and sharing thoughts about the project on social media. And when a local reporter inquired if she could attend the final staging (which had originally been just an opportunity for documentation), Amber thought that was an excellent idea. So, Saturday morning, March 28, we set up everything again. The props, the projectors, the tarp to protect the stage floor, etc. There were some changes. Laurie and Deborah’s costumes were now white. The face paint was not used. And my GoPro died on me, so I had to hook up another camera, shooting from the side. We had maybe ten people show up for a free Saturday morning experimental dance performance. It was perfect. A slow and peaceful ritual of comforting ambiguity.
And then we had to clean it all up, because the penultimate performance of Serpeintes y Escaleras was happening later that day.
Amber calls the work “Re-Turning,” and she is considering submitting it to the Houston fringe festival. I would love to do it again.