Philippe Bronchtein - Lighting Moments and Reading Responses Weeks 7 & 8

Intellectual and Expressive Blocks:

This article was interesting in the way that it laid out specific reasons that we have trouble expressing ourselves. This is particularly important for artists of all mediums, as their entire vocation is based around the accurate and effective representation of ideas, concepts, emotions, and situations. The two "blocks" that really stood out for me were the first and fourth.

Number one states, "Solving the problem using an incorrect language (verbal, mathematical, visual) as in trying to solve a problem mathematically when it can more easily be accomplished visually."

Number four states that a reason for an inability to successfully express yourself is rooted in, "Inadequate language skill to express and record ideas (verbally, musically, visually, etc...)

As someone who works with both music and dance, it's often important for me to step back and ask myself, "is this concept better served by my music, dance, or both?" Sometimes avenues that are familiar to me, but by no means my forté, such as writing or drawing, could be more effective. The correct choice of medium is the first step in effective expression.

The last reason that the article brought up was that sometimes the vocabulary skill is just not there. The first example that comes to mind for me is when I play jazz. I am not a great saxophone player, and sometimes my ideas for improvising surpass my physical ability on the instrument. Likewise in dance, sometimes I am not strong or flexible enough to execute a movement that is crucial to expressing my ideas. This is the most frustrating Block.

Human Perception:

"It thus seems that our perceptual systems provide us with both accurate and inaccurate pictures of the world Perceiving is a journey through both the real and the illusory" (p. 35).

Although I had a bit of trouble identifying how this article exactly related to dance, I think it is interesting to examine how our Perception works. As exemplified by the half wood/half glass table and the 'looming' experiments, there are certain elements of our perception that are innate. I am much more interested in the elements that are learned. The idea that a square is not a square until we have been taught that it is a square is an indicator of society's impact on the individual.

Another really interesting point was the idea of "tuning out." I would actually disagree with this part of the authors' argument. Although from day to day I might tune out the sound of everyone's feet falling on the street, as a human I also have the ability to focus on it. This is a crucial concept that the author refuses to acknowledge. Focus is the ability to concentrate perception. As humans we do have defaults and presets when it comes to perception, but most importantly, we have the choice to actively focus that perception wherever we desire.



Lighting Moment. Week 7.

I work the closing shift at the Music Library on Sunday Nights.Part of my job is to turn off all of the lights before I leave the library. Several of the lights will flicker a bit before completely going out. This does two things: imply that the lights are broken, and bring about an awareness of shadow.

This would be difficult to replicate in the dance space. There are a two ways that I can think of doing it. Plotting in very fast time shifts between different cues could give the impression of lights flickering. The other option would be to have actual lamps on stage that had been modified to flicker.

Lighting Moment. Week 8

I only have one lamp in my room which is in the back corner right by my bed. It is one of the cheap lamps from IKEA that has move-able lighting fixtures on a rod. Normally I point two lights against the wall, and one at my bed so I can read in bed. The lights against the wall light the room in a very interesting way. One corner of the room is brightly lit while the opposite corner is more dimly lit.

The recreation of this in the dance space would be relatively straightforward. If you treated the stage as a replica of my room and mapped the intensity of the lighting in my room to the intensity of the lighting in the performance space, a similar affect could be achieved.