My first ballet instructor used to
tell us stories of how, as a child, she would practice her barre work in the
dirt and how her movement became visible. Dance is about lines. In ballet there
are specific degrees and lines you must create to achieve correct form. Often
times these lines are created through movement and are essentially invisible.
They also require a great amount of strength to hold, strength that translates
to bold, powerful movements. For this project I wanted to showcase these
qualities in an effort to celebrate the balance of grace and power ballet
requires by finding the lines created by movement, and making them visible.
I was originally inspired by
reflecting on the choreographed battles in Zhang Yimou’s film Hero, especially Flying Snow’s battle
amount the leaves. The leaves become a visual tool as they also swirl around
the women’s movement, creating a way for the lines drawn by her sword work to
be seen in a new, artful way.
I wanted to accomplish something similar, but on
a less grand scale. I choose paint as my tool to express my medium for its
bright colors and its ability to visibly react to pressure. Additionally, an
unanticipated upside was the layering quality paint possesses. While these qualities drew me towards using
paint, it was still only a tool used to showcase my true medium, the dancing. I
could have easily chosen charcoal or mud to get similar effects.
Classical ballet is an art form that
strives to achieve the illusion of weightlessness and ease. While a dancer may
look like she floats through the air, the impact she has is carefully
controlled punch to the ground. It is a heavy and powerful sport that aims to
appear light. Martha Graham said, “Nothing is more revealing than movement” and
I wanted to represent this idea in my project. The lines are continually
informed the weight and controlled power of the dancer. This is visible on the
finished canvas through the hard, bold lines created by the most forceful
gestures and the distinct prints and tracks made in the paint from walking on
point. The weight of the dancer caused the paint to be pushed away from areas
of impact and the these interactions reveal otherwise overlooked properties of
dance.
Like Scott McCloud’s discussion on form and content in Understanding Comics addresses, there is more than one flavor to an art form. Although the classical ballet might
have created the clearest lines, I decided early on to direct my dancer to
incorporated modern elements into the choreography. Ballet is
one ‘flavor’ of dance and I wanted to expand our palate for this experiment.
As I directed my dancer through the process I also experimented with different ways
of getting the paint on paper. Sometimes placing paint where I wanted her to
move, and sometimes following her lead. This way there were a variety of
movements represented and both classic lines and broken lines became visible.
