Back and White

My second entry on the second of July. I like trying short explorations that may or may not feel complete, but I still force myself to put them out there.

July 1, 2010

It's July 1st but you wouldn't be able to tell from the weather in Portland. Rainy, chilly, cloudy, windy. Today the Long Distance Project starts our daily dance diaries: a commitment to explore, play, dance everyday...no matter how small or big, no matter how simple or complex. This is my rainy dance for today. It is a bitter sweet day. The start and end of things both good and bad.

Daily Dance Diary #1

Every summer, we at the Long Distance Project leave our respective homes in Brooklyn, Portland, and Seattle, to convene in a city. This is our third year, and we will return to Seattle, the place where the project (and friendship) started. As part of our Seattle performance (coming in September), we are each publishing a Daily Dance Diary, convening today, July 1, 2010, and ending when we are all in Seattle again. Each day, we each must produce some kind of dance video. It can be short, long, simple, complex, abstract, narrative, anything that we feel that day. We hope this will force us to shove creativity into our daily lives, and help us to create more and more material which can feed off of each other. Otherwise, we are each surviving in our own cities, living our lives, and hardly spending any time on our collaboration. This way, we empower and encourage one another every single day.

Click the title of this post (Daily Dance Diary #1) to see my first diary entry, "Land Legs." This is also an assignment I received from Yulia, but cannot share with you now because I can't reveal the secret assignment to Kimberly until it is time for me to send it to her.

Muy Informal

Bless, last night was a success. The format was very informal, with popcorn and tea and some mattresses on the floor of the dance studio in an old brick building. The films were projected onto a blank white wall and we all sat in fold-up chairs. I and my friend who joined me were the only ones who weren't part of the Barefoot Collective in some way. Suffice to say it was an "intimate" evening. They screened about 12 different films, each from which I learned something.

Now that I've seen many different interpretations of dance on film, I can draw conclusions about the future of dance film in general, and the development of my own style specifically. I think that if dance film wants to go anywhere in the massive art scene, each film has to have a clear concept. I am not saying that each film has to have a "plot" or "narrative," per se, but it has to have some kind of a concept that gets developed throughout the film. I saw several films last night that had many interesting concepts, but none got developed to their fullness because they were crowded by other ideas that the filmmaker had. Some films, to me, actually had the potential to be six or seven films, if only the filmmaker had focused on one idea at a time. I think this is my main struggle as a dance filmmaker.

Secondly, dance films cannot just have dancers dancing in an environment. Anyone can film someone moving around a park or a library. The real artistry comes in what the dancers are saying by dancing in that particular place, and doing those particular moves.

Finally, dance films are more interesting when the camera is not afraid to move with the dancers. I saw some incredible angles last night that suggested more movement than the dancers could do alone.

As for my style, I hope to absorb some of the lessons I learned last night and apply them to my work. I am so happy we had this chance to showcase our work and get inspired to keep moving forward with this project. Congratulations to all the other filmmakers and thank you to the Barefoot Collective!

Film2Night

It is with pleasure that I announce the film creations by The Long Distance Project. These films represent our trio, our web of love, and our light of creativity. In a short amount of time, we have created works that honor the distance, perspective and process that has willed these films into existence. In July we danced together. We spent the rest of the summer, fall and winter ruminating on where we might go next with our project. Here we are now... presenting our dance films tonight in Tacoma, WA highlighting work from this last summer in Brooklyn, NY.
I am filled with joy knowing that Kathryn is witnessing this premier while Yulia and I, from our respective homes in Portland, OR and Brooklyn, NY marvel at the accomplishments our long distance project has made. Congratulations!
From this spark of energy I see the flame of creativity building and our light growing ever brighter. Here is to building our project further with passion and dedication.

Here is one of the films that will be shown at the Barefoot Collective Dance Film Festival, Tacoma, WA.

Under the Canopy from Kimberly Kaplan on Vimeo.

Film 2 Night

Tonight we are blessed with exposure in the public eye. K's and my films are both premiering tonight at the Barefoot Dance Collective's Dance Film Night at the Merlino Arts Center in Tacoma, WA. We only created these films about two weeks ago, with the footage we filmed last July.

It seems to me that the biggest BLOCK to progress in a long distance project is the ability that distance has to cause procrastination. If we are so far apart from one another, it is easy to get used to our daily routines and forget that we have a pressing creative obligation to one another, and each to herself. It is when we make the time to make things happen and to make things, that we reap the rewards of our creativity. Even if these films were not screening tonight, we would still reap the rewards of satisfaction and joy, simply by doing the act of creativity. Humans are not meant to be caught in concrete jungles with no ray of the light of love inside of us. We need to let that light shine, so tonight I will represent the Long Distance Project's light with dignity and pride.

Dancing in Brooklyn

Here is another glimpse into our summer dance adventures/explorations in Brooklyn, NY.

Click on the title to view video.

Summer Projects Blooming Winterly

It is so nice to finally be editing, sharing, and inspiring one another with our summer footage. We can nourish each other and the world-at-large with our creativity, even when we are not together physically. I am so inspired by what Y and K both did, and I hope I can inspire them as well! Let's publish and publicize our videos so that the world can see, with bravery and pride in who we are and what we do.

Click on the link of the title of this post to see my video.

Innit?

Innit funny that we went to possibly the city-est city in the world, and managed to spend most of our time and creative energy surrounded by "nature?"

I am happy to hear Kimberly's thoughts and determination to move forward. I see synchronicity bridging our physical and emotional gaps: I have been working intensely with my footage lately, hoping to see soon the day when I can add Kimberly's and Yulia's footage to beautify my mix. I think that even when we each use each other's camera perspectives, we will still edit based on our own internal perspectives, the way we each experienced and felt our time together.

Let's all upload our own footage and make our damn way to the post office!

Home

After a very full summer, I am happy to be at home watching the rain fall. The Summer has turned into Fall. I welcome the transition.
Cassidy and I just returned from Interbike in Las Vegas. It was very tiring to be surrounded by so much stimuli from the bicycle convention and the Strip.

While we were there, I thought a lot about where the Long Distance Project is now and where I am with it. As a whole, we have made a lot of progress. We captured a lot of footage from our last gathering here in Brooklyn this past July. But I have only seen my footage and am so excited to see yours, Kathryn and Yulia. I haven't begun the editing process with my own footage but want to do so when I have all of the footage to play with. It is hard to get a full picture of what we have at this point. I feel more committed than ever to move forward with our collaboration. My intention is to find more ways to show/share our work.

In filming our Brooklyn portion of this collaboration, we had three cameras filming at any given time- three cameras, three perspectives. Will our editing show our individual and collective perspective? Or will we edit our own cameras footage independently from the others? We shall see. In the process of looking at what we did together we will begin to see the whole picture more clearly.

It was an amazing gift to dance together at Prospect Park with Kathryn and Yulia. One of my favorite moments was seeing Yulia entangled in the ribbon, that was also entangled around the trees. Kathryn and I then joined Yulia, and as a trio it felt like we were moving to the sound of the wind vibrating the ribbons. My other favorite memory was of finding the marching band practicing at the the other end of the park. We made our way over to listen and Kathryn began to dance so beautifully to their music. We were blessed with perfect weather, Cassidy's and Brooke's filming assistance, and the amazing art installation made by Melissa Diaz.

So much more to come...

Right Now

Yes, yes it has!

Right now I'm enjoying being home with Erik and my 2 furry friends. I've been travelling all summer, so it's nice to unpack for a while and spend time at home. I just made a very delicious meal of veggies (carrots, squash, spinach) and kidney beans, inspired by Kathryn's amazing cooking. I'm getting adventurous with my sauces and spices!

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by all of the "life" things I have to do that I have been putting off for a while. But I'm looking forward to the Fall, cause after a very busy summer, I actually have time to take care of those things. Step 1: find a job(s).

Wrote a new song today on my keyboard, but I need lyrics.

It's been an adventurous, exciting summer. Yes K, many blocks along the way (Peter Pan...ggrrr!). Kim, we haven't told you the whole story yet?? It deserves a post/email all on it's own.

When I was staying with Kathryn last week in Seattle, we transferred footage from our own camera's onto our own laptops, but weren't able to transfer it to each other's laptop. So the next step is to make dvd's of the raw footage and send it to each other so we all have the footage from the 3 cameras. It's really fascinating watching the different prospectives from Kathryn's and I cameras.

Did you know that you are amazing? I feel very blessed to have you both in my life.

Love,

~ Y

Blocklyn

"Well, ladies, it's been quite a trip."

Yulia and I just parted for the second time this month, and the longest single chunk of time we've ever spent together.

We encountered many blocks along the way. We punched through all of them with the emerald fist of Hulk-like strength.

We met many people and saw many new faces. We learned about Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Kimberly, all complex and beautiful neighborhoods to get acquainted with.

We returned safely home(s).

Ladies, where are you both at right now?

Empty Livingroom

It's Tuesday morning and my livingroom is empty and quiet. Onyx is pacing back and forth, probably thinking "Where did everybody go?" I miss you guys already!

Thank you for this amazing week and an amazing performance!!! Thank you to Linda, Jeff, Cassidy and Erik!

Thank you to everyone that made the short or long journey to come to the performance!

This is just the beginning.....

THIS IS IT!

We are down to the final hours... lack of sleep, technical difficulties and Onyx keep us in a state of constant creativity. We are pulling it together and breaking it apart. Things are coming out of our asses that surprise even ourselves. However Yulia gave a wonderful inspirational speech yesterday, "it will all come together in the end."
Come and witness the first of our experimental dance series tomorrow at 3pm. We hope to see you there to share our collaboration with you.

we're here!

I am writing this from a futon facing a window looking out on two trees of Portland, Oregon. My swollen leg, surrounded by bright blue plastic pockets of "non-toxic" ice, perches restfully on three tufted pillows. I realize that this week is going to be all about adaptation. And Sweat.


And Yuli-Hulk:

poster design

check it out and tell your friends...

Kim and Cassidy are married!

Of all the things we share, love is the gift that helps us to face our selves, the every day and the eternal struggles.

Kim's video made from a series of stills

block 1

Yulia and I filmed this video last winter, during a rare encounter. It became my baby for a couple months. And then, because I had to save it in a public folder, it was erased. I have it only in quicktime format. I think it's time to be shared.

So here it is. I call it 'block 1,' sound and video editing by myself, Kathryn Hightower.

IMpress vs. EXpress

Butoh. That's all I'm sayin'...