MISCHA BAKA: Rebekah Stuart

Showing posts with label Rebekah Stuart. Show all posts

Sunday, August 26, 2018

Being open to one’s self, being open to others.

Rebekah Stuart August 26, 2018 0

Today in Alchemy Rebekah shared with the group her appreciation of Anne turning up to every class with a consistent ability to facilitate such a warm, nurturing and open environment. (Over 15 years for Rebekah) This sparked some emotional sharing from the group.

Anne shared how her many years of facilitating Alchemy began from being in a dark place, and that Alchemy and her students had helped her find happiness in life. We were thanking her, but she also thanked us.

Many people expressed being open and expressive and its profound impact on how they feel about life and humanity. They expressed how Alchemy allowed them to find an openness with other people, and often, helped them understand how they were deserving of opening themselves up to the world because they were beautiful and worthy.

Mishka shared that Anne helped her understand when she could hold back from being open and not overshare.

Anne described how being open to one’s self is sometimes the first stage of being open to others. I liked this understanding. It resonated with my creative process, that begins with a sensitivity to personal experience and then extends outwards sharing that emotion and understanding with others.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
from her book: 'A Return To Love'
Marianne Williamson

Friday, June 22, 2018

Fill a large space in a soft malleable way.

Voice June 22, 2018 0

The Song Keepers in Concert:

The Central Australian Aboriginal Women’s Choir

The Sydney Opera House, In the Concert Hall

Today Rebekah and I arrived at the opera house to accompany the woman’s choir, provide support and document some of the experience. We travel with the choir to America in two days.

Barbie saw the Concert hall and felt the urge to sing. Andrew Kay seized on the moment and championed the tiny performance. This moment was indicative of Andrew’s work with Morris, Barbie and the full choir.

Andrew, Barbie, Rebekah and Morris

I love that three members of a family can simply walk into a cavernous space and fill the whole space with their voice. The voice reaches out, the walls are touched, the ceiling touched, every corner, and the space speaks back acoustically. The family, and the space now know each other. It is a beautiful reminder of the human capacity to fill a large space in a soft and malleable way.

Members of The Central Australian Aboriginal Women’s Choir

Saturday, June 16, 2018

Choir Dance Company - Genesis

Rebekah Stuart June 16, 2018 0

Tonight Rebekah performed for me an idea she is thinking of developing with her friends. She moved through a series of postures and dance moves while singing along to a pre-recorded song she had written when in her early twenties. She harmonised with the recording of herself. It was beautiful.

I suggested that her dance company be called, ‘ Choir Dance Company.’ I was very inspired by her performance and thought it perfectly combined her families history of singing and choir work, with her love and history of dance.

I described how contemporary dance often tries to include text and voice with mixed results or success. But that her background in choir brought a depth and strength to her combination of the two.

Candice and Sarah, image from the next day.

I think good creative work often draws on a deep history of family and tradition. From our parents history, occupations, troubles, passions and skills. Sometimes moments arise when we find a way to draw on that deep history and make it a part of our own work and journey. These can be powerful moments, because the work itself becomes imbued with that history and power.

This relationship with personal history and culture informing our creative work can be so varied, sometimes subconscious, sometimes troubled, sometimes too confronting. When you find that history working for you in an honest and powerful way, it must be sized upon.

I think this is such a moment for Rebekah, she can draw on her history, of her father and mothers success with choirs and music and channel it into her dance to create something new and exciting. It will be new, but will carry with it the depth of her families own history and journey.

I love that a choir lifts the spirit by making notions of community, togetherness and expression immediately experienced and felt. It goes straight the heart and makes you feel connected to humanity. I love that dance speaks directly to the body, it inspires strength that is pliable, soft and full of life. Dance and Choir together is a sublime union that speaks to the soul.

Sunday, June 10, 2018

Dance Film: Background, middle ground and foreground

Sarah Hotchin June 10, 2018 0

A dance film in the Melbourne botanical gardens with Rebekah Stuart, Sarah Hotchin, Ben Jamieson, Candice Polglase and Dale Polglase.

Candice, directing with me, had prepared the group the day before with a series of exercises and dancing.

Working together we explored camera movements that were motivated by performance. Head turns, traveling through the space with dance, and rolling along the ground all carried the gaze of the camera.

Camera movement was at times motivated by dancers in the background, middle ground and foreground and often shifted between the three in one shot. This dynamic helps the eye move into and around the image creating a sense of three-dimensional space.

Ben Jamieson in a tree.

For instance, Ben danced along a path in the background which led a pan of the camera over to dale in the foreground, who then walked us over to Rebekah, who then ran into the middle ground as the camera tracked after her.

Candice took up direction, music playback, and wrangling the team which allowed me more space to offer ideas and guide the shoot collaboratively.

The finished film ( In a quick assemble edit) was a good exploration of movement, relationships and emotions, it developed how Candice and I can work together and promised future possibilities.

Thursday, June 7, 2018

Saltbush Trauma

Victorian College of the Arts June 07, 2018 0

Today we shared a passage from Jessie Coles ‘ Staying’ ( Page 248) to explore the idea of trauma within a character. We discussed how and what trauma can be and places in the body and environment that can accommodate and hold trauma.

We began a 'Together and Alone' dance series with guest dancer Rebekah Stuart dancing with Mark Wilson. Her energy and capacity to be bold and wild helped model how far the students can go in an abstract way.

When we gave the teen actors scripted text to include in their dance the dialogue came alive with a great sense of movement and choreography.

Rebekah was impressed by how authentic the dialogue sounded and how easily it was taken up by the young actors. All the dancing had paid off in allowing the body to drive the performance over the text/mind.

Saturday, May 26, 2018

Dandenong Dance Film

Rebekah Stuart May 26, 2018 0

A visit to the Dandenong Ranges Botanic Garden with Mishka and Rebekah to make a dance film.

We explored a high angle view looking down on bodies rolling down hills. The rolling body picking up leaves and sticks as they cling to the dress was beautiful. The colours of autumn leaves were beautiful.

Some modern twerking dance moves made for an intriguing juxtaposition with the old English dresses and English style gardens.

Mishka's enthusiasm and glee when creating art is infectious and powerful. Her excitement can feel overwhelming and volatile, but it is a feeling that often arises in the excitement of making art, and it is good to become comfortable in its presence, allowing the work to flow with it, rather than against it.

Two people one swimsuit.

Rebekah Stuart May 26, 2018 0

After a big shoot in the hills we returned home to review rushes and explore a new idea. Mishka and Rebekah wearing one swimsuit. This is part of an ongoing project that uses the same swim suit as the consistent element in a series of movement explorations.

The concept: Products collect people.

This concept questions the idea that a consumer collects products in a unique process of cultivation and choice. The concept suggests that products are mass produced and exactly alike, and it is in fact a product that gathers unique and individual people into a collection to be claimed by a company, or the product itself. The swimsuit representing a singular product that varied individuals try to fit into and conform to.

Mishka and Rebekah in one swim suit, Mischa Baka

The swim suit inspired a dance that had Rebekah and Mishka appear as one body moving. The swim suit and their individuality vanished in this respect, the strangeness became normalised. They became a creature in their own right.

Sunday, May 20, 2018

A Dance

Sarah Hotchin May 20, 2018 0

Today Candice, Dale, Sarah, Rebekah and myself met at dance house for two and a half hours.

We danced.

It was lovely to move through many of the structures and sense of presence offered by Anne O‘ keeffeon our own. We naturally moved into a group improvised dance.

MISCHA BAKA