Seen Performance is Esther m Palmer, David Morneau, + Shana McKay Burns.
We make performance, we do it through collaboration, and we do it in whatever discipline we need to. We experiment with different ways to collaborate across disciplines, creating work that may or may not fit within a traditional realm. Through the cooperation of ideas and techniques from our various art forms, we come up with new and innovative performance. Currently, we are choreographer, composer, and scenic designer.
As you might imagine, process -the why and the how of creative work- is a big deal to us. We think it's pretty cool. And we want to share what we go through to get to our performances. So, we keep a blog, offering up notes and video from our rehearsals and brainstorming. Please check it out and tell us what you think! We LOVE constructive feedback of any kind. We also adore your questions and comments.
Working together as Seen Performance, we experiment with new techniques and methods that challenge each of us creatively. Our process of experimenting begins with research, discussion, and a willingness to explore unfamiliar territory. Our work together has become a call and response – and re-call and re-response. It is a process in which we are continually evaluating and revising each other’s work, our contributions, and the results, a whole that we strive to make greater than its parts.
Why do we perform? Watch here to learn a little about that, too.
Esther
Esther m Palmer is exploring how performance heightens philosophical connections between people. She founded Seen Performance with David Morneau and Shana McKay Burns to help define this process through cross-disciplinary collaboration. Esther received her MFA in Dance and Technology from The Ohio State University where she developed an approach to creating performance through methodologies borrowed from disciplines outside dance. She fell in love with the idea of dance as a broader art from through improvisation, which was introduced to her as a method of performed composition by Penny Campbell (at Middlebury College). Esther carries this spirit of improvisation through all of her performances, relying on each specific situation to feed choices. Esther has performed and presented work in Chicago, Columbus, and New York. More at esthermpalmer.com.
David
David Morneau does not compose his music with a ‘poetic power’ that emphatically discharges from his work enchanting you in a hallucinogenic state of borderline exaltation. He does not intensely attempt to infuse symbolism into his work and shows no melodic motivation whatsoever. This is not David. So you ask, ‘Well, then what does this so-called proclaimed musical talent propose to do?’ David is a composer of an entirely undecided genre. He works in a variety of media and has an affinity for creative collaboration. Among his diverse projects are A/Break:1 – an experimental music video for choreographer Amiti Perry, The Rhythm Variations – 12 variations on Gershwin for solo piano (winner of the 2004 Ruth Friscoe Prize in Composition), and The Clone Zone—a video game inspired dance theater collaboration with Anna Sullivan of Anatomical Scenario (winner of the Greater Columbus Arts Council 2008 Artist Excellence Award). For his ongoing podcast, 60x365, David is composing a new sixty-second composition every day for a year. Do not think of him as yet another one of those ‘unique composers’ but rather a provider of exclusive unprecedented experiments. He carries his charm and alarm, the glamour to make standards stammer, the appeal of the unreal. Ladies and Gentleman, I give you Mr. David Morneau… also available at 5of4.com. [written by Anna Morneau, 05.2008]
Shana
Shana's goal is to tell stories, be they linear and plot-driven, stylized mood pieces, or abstractions. As a set designer for stage and film, Shana aims to support the telling of these stories through the design of their environments. Shana views Seen Performance as a place to collaborate with her peers, and as a place to explore new types of environments. Shana first worked with Esther and David at The Ohio State University where she studied Digital Animation. Her thesis work there included a comparison of the set design process in theatre, film and animation. Shana also holds an M.F.A in Set Design from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Visit Shana @ shanamburns.com