MIMIKRY: contemporary dance, music and realtime video

Mimikry, in english: mimicry. This is the title of the contemporary dance choreography conceived and directed by Anett Wolter (choreographer and dance pedagog, she specializes in contemporary dance and is an old friend of Globulart).

Today we take on this subject, both because we appreciate every form of creative expression and because I played a personal part in this dance piece: by creating an illustration design that has a meaningful part in the representation, aiding with the costume design and even paticipating in the live performance -although no dancing on my part was involved, maybe next time-, creating the live video that goes with the music, lighting and dance. In other words: live video editing.

What you can see here is the recording of one of the performances at the “Semper Kleine Scene” theater in Dresden, Alemania.

Of course, all credit of this piece must go to Anett Wolter, as she’s the creative head and the heart of this project; I was just a cog in the creative machine. That said, let’s allow the artist herself talk about her work:

Globulart: Mimikry… ¿Why that name?
Anett Wolter: The central theme of the piece is the concept of adaptation. During the documentation phase I recollected different concepts and ideas related to adaptation in fields as diverse as sociology, biology, dance and others. I believe there are many fields related to “adaptation”, as we are adapting everyday, constantly, each of us to a specific group, and it’s an essential aspect of human life. More precisely, when I was documenting about adaptation in biology, I found the word Mimikry (mimicry). At first it caught my attention as a word per se, and later I felt more interest in it after learning its meaning, it was perfect for my concept for the dance piece, since Mimikry is used to define the characteristic of some animals to adapt to their environment in order to survive. For instance, there’s a flying insect… can’t remember its name now… well, it looks like a wasp although it really isn’t, it can’t sting, and it has this resemblance so that its predators see it as a dangerous wasp and leave it alone. That is, this animal puts on a different face and looks like something else, it has adapted. This was very interesting to me and I believe the same thing happens with us humans, only sometimes you aren’t the one who puts on the mask, it’s society forcing the mask upon you. It happens that many people are forced to wear a mask, for instance in relation to beauty, with models being a stereotype; women (mainly) then just adapt to that image. People do that instead of changing the stereotype of models to what is a real woman, with her curves, with an imperfect nose…

In the dance field, we adapt in space, gravity and music (or time). In the piece, Mimikry, I mostly work with the adaptation to space in the moves. To accomplish that I use, for example, combinations of the Rudolf von Laban move, which are methodical movements inside an imaginary cube. This image of the cube is used a lot in dance, for instance to allow a dancer to orient by him/herself, and also to allow the whole group to orient themselves. Each dance has a kinesphere. I have played with all this when I created the movements, picturing a force coming out of the cube, like a magnet pulling an elbow or a knee… that’s how the first movements turned out, they’re these uncomfortable positions. Movements are not random, they have an order, a method underlying them.

detail of the costume deisgn - the illustration of the face is printed on each hood

Globulart: How interesting… please tell us a bit more about the choreography and its connection with video and music.
A.W.: Since the beginning I knew I wanted to do something with music, video and dance. My idea was having those three ingredients have the same importance. What I first created was the choreography; when it was in an advanced stage, Jonas began composing the music (Jonas Wolter has composed the music for Mimikry), and video began its development about the same moment that music did.

In this choreography there’s a conflict between a single person and a group. The group as a whole is adapted; that is: they move as one, it gives the impression that there’s a higher force in space that manipulates them. As a contrast with the group, the individual person moves in a different fashion… more aware of the inner space, with more intuitive move nuances, seemingly unrestrained. In the end, this person adapts to the group, not because that person wants to, but rather because the group is forcing the adaptation. The power of theim doing everything as one, that higher power, is so great that the person adapts, puts on the shirt and the fake face with the hood. There’s a moment within the piece when you can see the face of the girl turning, it’s a moment for the spectator to think; the group is also meditating and the soloist notices that she doesn’t want or can’t belong to that group, so she takes off the shirt and the fake face, ending with her real face. The group tries to do teh same they were doing before, those movements induced by the higher force, but they’re not doing them as they did before; they have also changed… they’re expecting something. That’s where the piece ends, and after that there’s a “post-ending”, so to speak, when they exchange their costumes through a “contact improvisation”; the girl not wearing the costume is the unadapted one, and then she starts performing the movements by the unadapted girl from the beginning of the piece. With this I want to express that every person that is part of a group has the potential to be the unadapted, to remain different. For instance, when I travel to Spain I am the unadapted myself, I’m the one who’s different and the one who has to adapt to a group.

The main objective of the video is to provide an atmosphere on the stage. Instead of having a physical set, I use video to create an ambience with its light and colours. Working with video was not easy, as I didn’t want it to tell a story or take the spectator’s attention away from what’s going on with the dance, with the movements. This we created a collage of images that have to do with “adaptation” and the fields related to adaptation I talked about before. For instance, biology: there are images of chameleons changing their colour. But only in short sequences, and little details like a tail rolling, or the skin of the chameleon as he breathes… that kind of stuff… abstract images. Another example would be a video sequence showing about 500 muslim praying inside a mosque, and a wide shot of a city showing lots of buildings. All these images don’t tell a story, they establish connections inside the spectators’ minds. This way, the spectator can think and even remember personal situations when he or she had to adapt. For me is really important to make  spectators think and have them make their own connections. That way, each person will interpret the dance piece differently, depending on one’s personal experience.

costume used in the dance piece (click to enlarge)

Globulart: ¿Is this the first time that you have used live video in one of your choreographies?
A.W.: This is the second time I’ve included video, but yes, it’s the first time I’ve used live video. My first piece, called “TAU”, also had background video, by the same person who created the live video for Mimikry.

Globulart: The music was composed by Jonas Wolter, who is your brother, is that correct? How was your collaboration with him?
A.W.: Yes, he is my brother. Working with him was hard… we both had to adapt to each other. First, we had to find a common language because, for instance, when I was talking about dynamics he wouldn’t understand me, as in music you use forte, piano… but in dance it speaks about the dynamics of movement. He sometimes asked me how I imagined the music for the piece, using a very special jargon, and to be honest I didn’t get a word. There came a moment when he began to understand what I wanted; that was when he saw the first rehearsal, when he could see the moves. But he’s had to create several iterations of the theme until he got it completely right. Jonas told me he could not imagine his music actually working well with the dance, but when he saw the complete performance, with video and dance he admitted it really worked. So my idea of creating a piece with these three elements turned out well, as the dance piece doesn’t work without the music and video; the same thing happens when you take out any of the other elements, they don’t fully work by themselves.

Globulart: You have performed Mimikry at the Kleine Scene theater in Dresden (Germany) on the 26th, 28th and 29th of June, 2008. Are there going to be further performances of this piece? Will we be able to watch it in Spain?
A.W.: It was performed in a different thater in Dresden, called Kleine Haus, on the 4th of June, and it will also be performed during the Espantapitas festival in Berlin, on the 19th of July. At the moment I have no plans for a performance in Spain but, who knows… maybe someday… if I can find dancers with the desire and strengh to do it…

Globulart: What about future projects?
A.W.: Nothing sure… aside from the fact that the next one will surely take place in Spain.