Body Movement x Visual Workshop: Body Talk
形體 x 影像工作坊:身體說話

Body Movement x Visual Workshop

Body Talk: A Journey to Speak to One’s Body through Movements

Date: 5th August, 2022

Venue: Jao Tsung-I Academy Exhibition Halls

@Camp 2022

Mentor: Elysa WENDI (Curator / Director, Jumping Frames – Hong Kong International Dance Video Festival)

Each body part has a soul that speaks through various systems and ways of expression. On the Day of Body Movement, the workshops were divided into upper- and lower-body sections for the campers, who learned to communicate and create with their body parts through body movements. As for the body and narrative, we tried to go beyond and explore what the movement itself wants to say through simple body movement exercises. The workshops explored such dimensions through video recordings and interventions and utilised task-oriented choreography.

In the morning, Elysa explained the relationship between body and mind through different levels of body movement, including daily actions (such as walking and jumping) and the geometrical line often used in choreography. Different body parts constantly pivot a clear line to develop a certain metaphor or inspiration. The signs and gestures, sometimes still and other times fluid, repeat to become acts and tasks that eventually arrive at our internal motor and motivate us to find what the body tries to say.

Elysa used different types of short videos to explore dances, theatres, and scenes in which the actors and actresses try to speak through their body movements. For example, in Pina Bausch’s Cafe Müller, two dancers’ falls, rises, and embraces that repeat at an increasing speed express the complication in an intimate relationship. In young Dutch artist Karel VanLaere’s Cargo, lying flat on different streets and grasslands and moving the body express the body’s least aggressive and most vulnerable state.

All these videos demonstrate what “Less Is More” means, as Elysa said concluded the lecture: the development of the story sometimes only needs a theme or a body movement, on which we can focus to discover the plotline.

 

形體 X 影像工作坊

身體說話——一個以單一的形體動作與自己身體對話的旅程

日期:2022年8月5日

地點:饒宗頤文化館展覽館

@創作營 2022

導師:葉奕蕾(導演、跳格舞蹈影像節總監)

每個身體部分都有一個靈魂,以許多不同的系統和表達方式說話。在形體之日當中,工作坊分成上下部份,與營友們一起踏上這段旅程:學習通過單一的形體動作,與我們的身體各部分溝通、創作。對於身體及敘事,我們試圖利用簡單的動作練習,超越和尋找動作本身想說的話。工作坊以影像紀錄和介入作為載體,同時採用任務導向的編舞方式進行探索。

在上午講堂的部份,Elysa分別以不同程度的身體動作,講解身體和心靈的關係。從普通的行走、跳躍,這些每個人在日常生活中自然而然進行的動作(Daily Action);到很多編舞方式都會用到的 「Geometrical Line」:用身體不同的部份畫出清晰的、單一的線條,一直持續下去,發展成某種隱喻、啟發。那些時而靜止、時而流動的跡象(sign)和姿勢(gesture),那些以某種不斷重複而成的行為或任務,終究會抵達我們的靈魂核心(internal motor),驅動我們找到身體想說的話。

Elysa續用了不同類型的短片作為例子,探討舞蹈、劇場、畫面等等演員如何用他們的身體說話。譬如Pina Bausch《Cafe Müller》當中,用兩人越來越快跌落又重複的擁抱,表達親密關係中嘅糾結。又例如由年輕荷蘭藝術家Karel VanLaere 創作的《Cargo》:利用平躺在不同的街道、草原等,移動著身體,呈現人體一種最無攻擊性和脆弱的狀態。

這些短片,都一一展示何謂 「Less Is More 」。正如Elysa在講堂最後所說:有時候故事的發展,只需要一個主題 、一個動作 ,專注於此,到最後就能夠發現那條故事線。

Director Lee Wai Shing from the mentor team showed a section from the hour-long workshop in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Happy Hour. An artist in the workshop in the film mentions that he has been practicing the movement of “finding the center of gravity” until one day he realizes such behavioral art heals the pain that a natural disaster has brought him.

團隊中,李偉盛導演示範了濱口龍介《歡樂時光》中長達一個多小時的工作坊的其中一段情節。在電影裏工作坊的藝術家,提及自己一直在練習「找重心」的單一動作,直到某天突然發現自己透過這樣的行為藝術,療癒了災難帶給自己的傷痛。

In the afternoon workshop, the campers communicated with their bodies. With their chosen literary work, each group drew lots for a body part to be massaged. Some sat down or lay down, closed their eyes, and cleared their minds; some read a random page of a literary work; others massaged body parts to go with the reading rhythms to appreciate how sound and body movement corresponded. Feelings inspired words, colors, movements, or imaginations of characters’ images. They shared them on the whiteboard and connected them gradually into a storyline of the short video.

至於下午的工作坊,輪到各位營友嘗試與自己身體對話。每一組拿著自己所抽選的文學作品,再抽籤選出自己被按摩的身體部位。有的營友坐下或躺下、閉上眼睛、清空思緒,有的營友讀出文學作品中隨意挑選的一頁,有的營友配合讀書的聲音按壓那些身體部份,一齊感受聲音和動作如何彼此配合。感受發展出單字,或許是顏色,或許是動作,或許是人物的形象聯想,把它們全部寫到白板上,透過分享,逐步、逐步構成短片的那條故事線。

A camper from Group H read Yukio Mishima‘s Confessions of a Mask and explored with his groupmates how the body reacted after it received the sounds and energies.

組的其中一位營友讀著三島由紀夫的《假面的告白》,與組員一起探索身體接收到這些聲音和力量後,會作出怎麼樣的反應。