Seen Performance

party games

noreply@blogger.com (e m p) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 03:26:00 +0000

Party Games is in your neighborhood.

Our current project takes performance out of the black box and into your party. We are developing short works that will join in the social mingling at local house parties, challenging where we see performance.

Follow our process and development at the Seen Performance blog - and look for news from our first Party Games performance in September.

these walls sing

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:55:00 +0000

Architecture and music differ in their relationships to time and space. Though time and space are inherent in both disciplines, architecture creates patterns and forms in space where music creates patterns and forms in time. With These Walls Sing, Seen Performance will explore this difference by thawing the "frozen music" of architectural design to create a physical space inside of music. The audience will listen to the music not by sitting in one place while it passes them in time, but, as performers, by moving through a designed space containing the music. As they pass through each part of the space, they will hear a different layer of sound. Since moving through space also means moving through time, when they arrive at the exit they will have heard the entire piece of music. The speed at which they move and subtle variations in each person's route through the space will give everyone a different, personalized experience of the piece.

We will be developingThese Walls Sing through the end of the year, announcing show dates + venues in early 2009. Please join in the process of getting from here to there at our blog

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Body Connections with Esther Palmer

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:26:00 +0000

Hi folks! I have to postpone this class until winter because I injured my knee. I will miss dancing with you this fall, but look for news about class in 2009!

DANCE IN ASTORIA/LIC!
Beginning level
a great class for movers new to modern dance

Classes are at Green Space Studio in Long Island City
N/W or 7 to Queensboro Plaza or F to 21st/Queensbridge.
Visit greenspacestudio.org for walking directions.
If coming from Astoria, the N/W 36th Ave stop is closest to the studio.

My class focuses on exploring personal strengths and handicaps through movement exercises built from Bartenieff fundamentals, improvisation, and tai chi practices.
I emphasize finding and nurturing fluid connections throughout the body, as well as continuosly re-investigating strange and familiar pathways alike. Through improvisation and set phrases, I encourage students to access a range of movement control. We will begin class with a gentle warm up and build towards dynamic phrase work that focuses on inversions.

My dance training has been influenced by various dance and movement techniques, including Bartenieff, improvisation, Cunningham, yoga, pilates, and tai chi. I am interested in exploring connections through the body with students from a variety of movement and dance backgrounds. I received my MFA in Dance from The Ohio State University in 2006, and have since been making work and performing in New York.

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on the other side of the glass plate, she wore nothing

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Tue, 13 May 2008 03:58:00 +0000

Our first official project, on the other side of the glass plate, she wore nothing, is a show about fashion and boxes, a place where inside is out and outside is in, where self perception melds with your perception. It is a place for tumbling into frames, rhythms, and patterns – and getting lost in the seams. Under Esther's creative direction, we first presented this piece March 6, 2008, at Dixon Place.

on the other side of the glass plate, she wore nothing is a project about the role of fashion in one’s self-perception and in the outside perceptions of that same self. It is about the open crevices of identity and the intimate arena of exposure.

personnel:
Esther Palmer – choreography & performance
Amiti Perry - performance
David Morneau – music composition & performance
Elle Chyun - costume design & construction
Shana McKay Burns - set design
Kris Diehl - set construction
Tate Evans, JoLayne Morneau, Christie Newman - FOH ladies

Watch video excerpts:

more photos

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shana mckay burns

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:24:00 +0000

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 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 @ http://shanamburns.com/

David Morneau

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:20:00 +0000

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 http://5of4.com.

[written by Anna Morneau, 05.2008].

Esther m Palmer

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 11 May 2008 05:37:00 +0000

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. You can follow her current investigations at her new blog, electromagnetic pulse (at esthermpalmer.com/blog)

other side photos

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sat, 10 May 2008 19:01:00 +0000

photos by Eric Bandiero © seen performance

where is tokyo?

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 09 May 2008 16:33:00 +0000

Our first project as a group, Where is Tokyo? was Esther's mfa thesis project (osu, dance + technology) and is about visual perception of dimension.

It takes its inspiration from the cinema and our experience with the real/imaginary world of the screen. What is the process of seeing the “depth of reality” on a flat screen? In an effort to deconstruct the assumptions behind this, Where is Tokyo? seeks to construct a similar process - and to raise similarly resulting questions - in/as performance. In effect, it is a live cinema.

Where is Tokyo? reconstructed spatially a brief scene from Late Spring [1949 film by Ozu Yasujiro] in which two characters look out over the rock garden at the Ryoan temple in Kyoto.

Still taken from the Yasujiro film "Late Spring".

The reconstruction focused on the nature of the porch as a framing device for experiencing the tranquility of the rock garden. Thus the set incorporated the porch and its function of describing a spectator’s perspective.

Additionally, the set up recreated the reference image and put the audience inside that recreation. Each run of the show admitted only 2 spectators, who were seated on the porch as designated by the reference image.

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send us a message

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:15:00 +0000

email: info@seenperformance.org

We'd love to hear from you. Send us any comments, questions, and suggestions that you have. Or just say"hi".

mission

noreply@blogger.com (e m p) — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:24:00 +0000

Seen Performance is a multi-disciplinary collective of artists collaboratively exploring the performance form.
We are dedicated to sharing this process with audiences in our local and artistic communities through performances, classes, discussions, and writings. We move forward through experimentation, and strive to recognize and embrace distinctions among artistic and academic disciplines while borrowing methods, forms, and inspirations from them.

be our friend

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:57:00 +0000

Seen Performance is active in several social networks! Add us to your friend list to receive updates about our work.

Facebook Group
Facebook Friend
MySpace
YouTube
Twitter
Dance-Tech (a network for artists working in dance + technology)

You can help us grow!

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:37:00 +0000

Seen Performance is growing! Now is the perfect time to help us do it.
It's a fact that emerging performance companies receive most of their funding directly from individual contributions. And every little bit makes a big difference. Please support us today! Read on to learn how.

Your cash contributions will help to cover expenses such as these:
.. $25 - space for 2 hours of rehearsal
.. $150 - performance photo + video documentation
.. $325 - equipment rental for performance

Seen Performance is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Seen Performance may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.

You can make your online donation using Fractured Atlas's secure form, here.
You can also mail your donations to us. Make your check payable to Fractured Atlas with "Seen Performance" in the memo line (that detail is important!) and mail to: Seen Performance | 3426 34th Street, Second Floor | Astoria, NY 11106
And many thanks!

Your in-kind support through donation of materials + equipment will help us reduce our cash costs:
.. Sound + video equipment
.. Materials for sets + costumes
.. Refreshments for post-show gatherings and benefits

Through Fractured Atlas's sponsorship, we can offer you a tax deduction for the market value of any donated equipment. Please email us for details.

Please volunteer to help us during this growth stage - participate in running our shows smoothly and getting the word out about our work!

Want to see a show created or presented in your space?
We love working with local businesses and are always looking for donated or low-cost spaces to build new work in. These can be traditional or unusual performance spaces for site-specific and repertory pieces. Email us today!

Please email us at info@seenperformance.org for more information - and thanks!

what is performance, anyway?

noreply@blogger.com (e m p) — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:45:00 +0000

Some thoughts from your friendly Seen Performance on... performance.

put our banner on your site

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 01 May 2008 05:23:00 +0000

.

copy and paste this code into your webpage:

where is tokyo? [2]

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:20:00 +0000

The porch architecturally defined an entry point into the performance space, helping to make the viewers feel that they were both inside the performance spectacle and able to watch from outside of the action.

A screen on the front of the porch framed the portion of the performing space that spectators could see, mimicing the frame of a movie screen.

The audience looked onto a space of 2D design and 3D action, with a virtual set projected through the live set onto two screens at the far end of the room. The virtual set extended the design of the actual set into a building with several distinct spaces.

Animations of movement through the building were designed to “dance” with the live performer, contributing equally to the choreography for the work as a whole.

Learn more from Esther's original project page and David's soundscore page.

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history of seen performance

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:15:00 +0000

coming soon