Zero Hour
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I made process on Zero Hour this quarter. Mostly theoretically, design, and structure wise. It will have three parts: The Solo (which I worked on last semester), The Audience participation (which I am still developing), and The Political (which I am half done with). On top of this my Modern dance class will be performing our piece that we are working on on the same night.
This is exciting because it makes the night a little more professional, there are incredibly talented dancers coming to perform and it will probably bring some cool audience members as well. I’m a little worried that this piece will be incredible and put my pieces to shame, but who cares, because it’ll all be wonderful and worth it.
I’ve been working on writing the words for the political section of Zero Hour this semester and I’m still trying to figure out what to say. It’s a collaboration with Zak and Lola, so I do have a little bit more support than I did for my solo. It comes with a series of actions performed by me, and Zak reading the words that Lola and I have written, while he also improvises musically. It’s coming along, slowly but surely.
I finished and performed Zero Hour, and it was a great success. It continued to develop from where it was at in the end of quarter 3 into a fully realized piece. I was proud of my work, and all those in attendance seemed to enjoy it.
I have never before undertaken a project like Zero Hour, and it was incredibly fulfilling. Having such control over the trajectory of the piece aided in my feeling as though Zero Hour and the work I did on it is some of my absolute best work. While working on Pericles last year I had a script to draw from, and the main goal was removing the story from the page. With Zero Hour I could make it say exactly what I wanted it to instead of wrestling with the words of others to convey a message. That being said, my performance work and my theatrical work exist as separate beings, even if they are made out of the same ideas and theory.
Reflecting on the process of Zero Hour I realize just how lucky I was to be given so much time to revise and rework sections that weren’t working. I spent all of 3rd quarter trying to figure out how to write the second part, I tried to write it maybe 5 or 6 times before I finally had a breakthrough and was able to set all of it down in words. And at that point I had enough of an understanding of what I wanted the piece to say that I was only struggling with structure instead of worrying about saying the wrong thing.
In the end what I had planned on being a solo piece brought many people on board. It exemplifies that Pilot tennant:
“Learning may be independant, but it is not alone.”
I worked with Lola, Zak, Orlando, Amy, Tracy, the other Mod 6 dancers, Serenity, Izzy, Molly, and others to create a night that I am extremely proud of it. In addition to this I am working with Tracy to get Zero Hour a show at Phantom Theater over the summer.
This is exciting because it makes the night a little more professional, there are incredibly talented dancers coming to perform and it will probably bring some cool audience members as well. I’m a little worried that this piece will be incredible and put my pieces to shame, but who cares, because it’ll all be wonderful and worth it.
I’ve been working on writing the words for the political section of Zero Hour this semester and I’m still trying to figure out what to say. It’s a collaboration with Zak and Lola, so I do have a little bit more support than I did for my solo. It comes with a series of actions performed by me, and Zak reading the words that Lola and I have written, while he also improvises musically. It’s coming along, slowly but surely.
I finished and performed Zero Hour, and it was a great success. It continued to develop from where it was at in the end of quarter 3 into a fully realized piece. I was proud of my work, and all those in attendance seemed to enjoy it.
I have never before undertaken a project like Zero Hour, and it was incredibly fulfilling. Having such control over the trajectory of the piece aided in my feeling as though Zero Hour and the work I did on it is some of my absolute best work. While working on Pericles last year I had a script to draw from, and the main goal was removing the story from the page. With Zero Hour I could make it say exactly what I wanted it to instead of wrestling with the words of others to convey a message. That being said, my performance work and my theatrical work exist as separate beings, even if they are made out of the same ideas and theory.
Reflecting on the process of Zero Hour I realize just how lucky I was to be given so much time to revise and rework sections that weren’t working. I spent all of 3rd quarter trying to figure out how to write the second part, I tried to write it maybe 5 or 6 times before I finally had a breakthrough and was able to set all of it down in words. And at that point I had enough of an understanding of what I wanted the piece to say that I was only struggling with structure instead of worrying about saying the wrong thing.
In the end what I had planned on being a solo piece brought many people on board. It exemplifies that Pilot tennant:
“Learning may be independant, but it is not alone.”
I worked with Lola, Zak, Orlando, Amy, Tracy, the other Mod 6 dancers, Serenity, Izzy, Molly, and others to create a night that I am extremely proud of it. In addition to this I am working with Tracy to get Zero Hour a show at Phantom Theater over the summer.
I have been creating a large scale piece of performance art entitled Zero Hour. This semester I focused mainly on the solo section of the show, but have been thinking about the other parts a fair amount too. In the half an hour solo I created an extended movement piece, a (soon to be) choreographed dance, a video, a few tips of the hat towards endurance based performance art, and a vocal performance.
I did three runs of Zero Hour this semester, along with a performance at a works in progress showcase at my dance studio. I slowly created the performance over the semester, adding sections and removing sections until I was satisfied with what the piece was.
The video acts as an introduction, and it matches the aesthetic of the rest of the show, so it can seamlessly run into itself. The movement piece is an exploration of space, and movement and really understanding how to get an audience to keep watching when a story is not being told quickly or without words or explanation. The dance acts as a climax and release of the energy that is built up during the movement. The most interesting piece for me though is the vocal performance, mostly because I don’t consider myself a singer and I feel like I end up singing. I use a loop pedal and speak a poem into the loop, slowly adding to a wall of sound and then singing over it, eventually I am left with nothing intelligible and I show a display of emotions.
After the solo a there will be a section in which the audience interacts/participates in the show, and that is my goal for next semester, to create a piece of audience interaction that gets the audience to think about what is important in the world, why it is, and what they should do about it.
I did three runs of Zero Hour this semester, along with a performance at a works in progress showcase at my dance studio. I slowly created the performance over the semester, adding sections and removing sections until I was satisfied with what the piece was.
The video acts as an introduction, and it matches the aesthetic of the rest of the show, so it can seamlessly run into itself. The movement piece is an exploration of space, and movement and really understanding how to get an audience to keep watching when a story is not being told quickly or without words or explanation. The dance acts as a climax and release of the energy that is built up during the movement. The most interesting piece for me though is the vocal performance, mostly because I don’t consider myself a singer and I feel like I end up singing. I use a loop pedal and speak a poem into the loop, slowly adding to a wall of sound and then singing over it, eventually I am left with nothing intelligible and I show a display of emotions.
After the solo a there will be a section in which the audience interacts/participates in the show, and that is my goal for next semester, to create a piece of audience interaction that gets the audience to think about what is important in the world, why it is, and what they should do about it.
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To the left is a video of an excerpt of Zero Hour that I performed for the Contemporary Dance and Fitness Studio Works in Progress Showcase. I adapted the performance to fit into the allotted time, and best reflect all the work I had done so far.
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