Athenaeum/Panopticon

Videotape (2009) from effervescent collective on Vimeo.

The Effervescent Collective was granted access by Whiting Turner Construction company and Goucher College to film in the school’s under-construction building  called the Athenaeum.

Transcript from email interview with Goucher Dance Newsletter, March 2009:

Brief who you are (year, major, etc.)
I study Dance Anthropology. I love Baltimore for being a smallish, quirky city with a lot going on.

What is your project in the athenaeum?
With a troupe of 8-12 dancers I am directing a videodance filmed in the building while it is still under construction. This project is a return to an important theme in my work: the creation and maintenance of the mind-body distinction in Western discourse. I explored this dualism in my outdoor installation last spring called Hounddog vs Golddigger. In that dance, which took place in a big plexiglass box on the quad, I focused specifically on the theme of “binary racism” – the sharp distinction we make in American society between black and white and how the history of the mind/body distinction is part of that. This time, I’m looking at the same theme from a different angle; the intertwined roles of confession and scientific truth that have contributed to the development of a spiritual mind as somehow separate from the body in conventional Western discourse.

What attracted you to working in the athenaeum?
It’s appearance, especially from the loop road at night. I was listening to some music, and like most of my dance ideas, I just saw it. I’m an imagist I guess, in the literary sense, except that my images move. I later realized I was also referencing Michel Foucault’s discussion of the Panopticion in Discipline and Punish. Foucault uses the Panopticon prison, originally designed by Jeremy Bentham in 1785 as a model of how power is exercised most effectively: not as an iron fist but rather in the moment when we self-discipline and impose self-surveillance. The Athenaeum bears a very, very distant resemblance to the Panopticon prison, but also to a church, and a hospital, and an airport, and a school. I’m playing with that. My suggestion that the Atheneum echoes the Panopticon is surely a little ridiculous. The idea is just a scholarly indulgence on my part. What will matter most is whether the aural-visual-kinesthetic product that I create, in this case a short film, resonates with atheviewer. As a choreographer I try to make decisions to ensure that. So, even if a viewer doesn’t have Focuault or the history of sexuality in the back of her mind, she will see people ascending a massive structure that’s under construction, that’s unfinished, that reaches towards the heavens. She will see human landscapes in barren isolation. She will see things that may register as confessional or as constricted. The lighting and architecture in the Atheneum right now complement and exaggerate everything I’m thinking about.

What is your process for choreographing?
When I work with a new group of dancers, I do a lot of improvisational, meditative, activities to get everyone into a similar headspace. I need to make sure they are comfortable with each other. Daniel Nagrin was a big influence on me in high school, so I stick with a lot of his exercises, particularly “Gifts.” I usually have several physical and visual problems I ask my dancers to address. As they go at it, I poke around, pick out what I like and examine it. I’d say most of the basic vocabulary for this piece was established after about four hours of rehearsal using this process. No movement is extraneous; everything is included for a reason.

I have a batch of wonderful dancers. I worked with Hannah Wasielewski and Kait Orr last year on another piece. They have very different training, different mentalities, but I know they care about my work. They recognize that they are my work. They trust me, so they can be relied on to experiment and problem-solve in the ways I ask of them. Most of the dancers have caught on to that. That’s extremely important in this particular project: creating material and filming immediately, all in a short amount of time. My dancers believe in my master plan even though its never entirely reveald to them, so I don’t have to explain everything each step of the way. They are also willing to take matters into their own hands without having to be prompted: to solve problems, create solutions, based on the information they have. I need as much of that as I can get. I’m also pleased to be working with some folks I just knew from around campus who just struck me as mesmerizing movers. I also knew them to be apt students. Jill Bratt and Emile Sorger fall into this category. By now, my dancers understand the vocabulary for this piece because they were a part of its development. At the same time, I joke around that 1st position in Susskind technique is fetal position. There are physical motifs I have develop based on my way of thinking, but I’ll ask the dancers. “Show me the ways you can go from ‘egg hands’ into ‘descending crow’ without leaving the wall? And look up the whole time.” And they go at it, and I watch them all. Then, we figure out together what works physically for all their bodies and conceptually given my overall scheme.

Any challenges so far?
FMS [Facilities Management Services] and Whiting Turner are more than cooperative. Paul from Whiting Turner is an invaluable asset at our rehearsals. Though required by W/T to be present, he’s been a great addition. Every once and a while he’ll look up from his sodoku and offer an idea about how to get from A to B. He knows the building well and that knowledge is important at all times. The process of editing the footage is where I’ll start to get frustrated. Alex Pape was recommended to me by the communications department. He’s my videographer. He’s responsible and easy going. The whole thing is very DIY. I don’t have a budget. We use shopping carts and skateboards as dollies.

Is there something you know about the athenaeum that most don’t?
Yes. Secret passageways, buried treasures. I know how beautiful it is from the inside during construction, at any time of day. Hot and dusty, but stunning. It changes every time we’re in there. There are so many bizarre contradicting textures created by all the exposed equipment. We’ve talked a little bit about how the scaffolding looks like an M.C. Escher image. I have a lot of affection for the building in its unfinished state. Though I’ve seen renderings of the final project, I don’t think it will feel anything like it feels now. But that’s not a necessarily a bad thing.

Photographs by Ben Droz