Month: August 2020

When I began this course in Soft Choreography, it is safe to say I was a little nervous. I wasn’t sure if I or it were the right fit for one another. I wasn’t sure if it was what I wanted to do, or if it could help what I wanted to do. Six weeks later and it has given me an entirely new perspective on creative writing, and new ways I can approach and consider my own.

Last week’s Film Essay task proved that there can be significant creative freedom in approaching the form. Most prominent to me were the techniques in essay film to tell a story through structure and visuals. Structure implies a hook, a narrative thread, and a payoff. These devices are usually incorporated in fiction, yet can be applied in non-fictional essay films to engage an audience not just intellectually, but by satisfaction of the senses and a story coming together. Additionally, I learned that a lack of dissonance between script and visuals encourages more insight and participation on the audience’s part, piecing together the words with the symbolic meaning of the images.

The Poem Film task showed how I may use film to make sense of poetry. I have never actively sought out poetry or considered myself a poet. I can count on one hand how many poems have moved me to my core, and on one finger how many poems I’ve written that were actually half decent. So being able to examine a poem through the lens of filmmaking relieved the tension I feel around the subject. I could plant my own feelings and my humour into a piece that appears deceptively detached from me. In a way, the very art of the poem film is an example of soft choreography, since the audience may have autonomy in how they portray a poem through the visual medium.

I guess I should say that my intention throughout this course was to find ways I could tell a clear narrative through forms of soft choreography and non-representational theory. I proposed these thoughts in my presentation, and wrote up a piece of my own (albeit, one that didn’t end up adhering to NRT at all, just an excuse to write nautical language). I think then I was still floundering, and maybe I still am. But linking the theories to a film I enjoyed, ‘The Lighthouse’, allowed me to step in to the subject with a little more openness. Of course, old habits die hard. I’ve always been one to provide a clear point to stories I write. Maybe not stories with only one clear moral, I’m not a fan of those, but ones that inevitably invite discussion. And I do think that audience discussion is an important aspect to soft choreography.

So finally, to the answer the question I presented myself in week 1: “How do I intend to share ideas through work I write in the future?” I can’t say I’ve found a single answer for that, but I do know one thing. Whatever I write, an essay, a play or a film; I will ask what I can do to bring down the barrier between the narrative and the audience. That is to say, how will they become an integral part of the experience?

I want to write a story. A story with characters whose lives are affected by an audience being there. A fictional world that lives knowing it only exists with an audience being there. And prompt the audience to question what being there even means. I guess we’ll see what the next six weeks bring. But the things I’ve learned and been inspired by in this subject, I will be taking long into my career as a writer.

That is all.

Thank you.

On studying the film essay form, I was interested in how a story can be conveyed separately between visuals and voice. That is to say, the voice relays one narrative, and the visuals imbue it with a new meaning.

What we’re used to as audiences (or at least I am) are films where sound matches the visuals, resulting in formal and straightforward narratives. The poetry there lies in subtext indicated by words and actions. But in this form we can create our own subtext pictorially, demanding a different kind of attention from viewers; for them to piece together the story themselves rather than have it shown to them clearly.

For the content of the voice over  itself, I’ve always wanted to explore ideas of nurturing the moment, living by kairos time in a chronos world, the childlike wonder we tend to forget. The images felt connected to these thoughts in a way, so I pieced together the beginnings of a story I’m writing about a character I believe embodies them. I dare say this may be a method I use in the future to reconcile my preferred experience of character investment and adhering to forms of representational theory and soft choreography. Just because I may bring primary focus to objects such as the body or the landscape and the language doesn’t mean I can’t weave through a story I feel passionate about.

I don’t want to keep you too long because you probably already saw the video and are very busy. But if you haven’t seen it, that will do the rest of the explaining. And if you’re not busy, then please enjoy the peace for a while. It’s beautiful.

Poem: ‘A November’ By John Ashbery

For my video, I wanted to provide an interpretation of some of the hidden values in the poem. It is not necessarily grounded in the truth of what Ashbery is saying, rather a foothold for my own understanding of the words.

So strangely, the video ended up being a fake a calendar commercial. “What?” You say. “Why a calendar commercial?” Well, let me tell you.

Approaching this task I found the way the words resonated with me seemed to form a pattern of meaning. The lost library made me think about the books that lie on my shelf I will probably never have time to read. “Next years list of things” sounds to me like a whole lot of multitasking, “places left unplanted” sounds I missed a few important things, but I’m so busy there just “isn’t room” to fit the quiet moments I can enjoy a cup of coffee and read. Moreover, this mysterious friend who doesn’t “understand anything” is probably an incorporeal nagging pressure to steer me away from going at my own pace. So what would I need to balance all this time? A calendar.

There used to be a trend in certain videos where a vague poem would be read over meditative cinematography, and right at the end it turns out to be a commercial for something completely unrelated, like beer or cars. This poem stood out to me because it made me consider that poetry and art can be appropriated for capitalist means, and I figured its words would most suit a calendar commercial.

This was fun to put together and made me chuckle a little making it. It’s not a roaring comedic take on the poem, but it is a nice experiment in how far words can be taken from their initial intention (or lack of intention) in Soft Choreography.

The presentations definitely helped me understand just how much there is to discuss around these concepts, there really can’t be a single interpretation pinned down to one of them.

I loved how everyone took the topics and provided their own perspective, and made their own creative contribution in short films. I admit I was initially disappointed in myself for not getting familiar with some editing software, but I’m a writer at heart more than a filmmaker. Regardless, I thought the insights and work put on the slides were great, and provided good examples to help clarify what these theories have to do with my own practice.

I appreciated Monique mentioning Beckett’s ‘Waiting For Godot’. It’s a play I’ve been fond of for a long time, and one of the few that got me into play writing. I realise now, that non-representational writing has had an influence on me since before I knew what it was.

I hope that my presentation was able to engage some of the class’ thoughts the way the class engaged mine. The topics are very subjective, with so many twisting, contradictory and personal aspects, but that’s the point. I’m very excited to see what else we can discover in this course.

My Presentation:

Non-Representational Theory Theories