Feeling - Sources

Sources

Deborah

Eric, Jess, and Leslie Seiters made Pause, with Deborah Hay. The 3rd section of the third section is called "Drama".

In her mysterious way, Deborah gave us just short of enough information to develop this ending, including the instruction, "and we don't talk about drama" every time we tried to reflect upon what we were doing in relationship to what she was asking. Also in the mix was the task of executing the only set material in the piece backwards, and this video:

In Feeling, we talked about drama. A LOT. We studied manifestations of drama in:

Dancing

This dance is sourced from dances. Dances are the source of our dancing. Our dances come from dancing. Dances make our dances. Dances make our dancing. Dancing makes our dances. This dance comes from dances. The dancing dances. The dances dance. In this dance, music dances and dances sing. Drama drives this dance. This dance is a devotion to Divas. Music moves this dance. The dancing defines, decides, directs.

David Zambrano's Soul Project (especially David's solo at 44:30 in this video), described on his website as being, "realized through the individual movement quest of each performer as guided by soul music. Being continuously alive. On, like a candle."

When we try on what we think we see in David's body/consciousness, we experience:

Restraint/release. Bottling, building, bursting...like shaking a soda and letting the gas out, sometimes a little at a time and sometimes all at once. Trying this on, we started with soul music. The main requirement now is that the song is epic. We find ourselves gravitating towards black female singers.

What is happening in our bodies when we really let the music in feels exalted. For some of us, the most fun we've ever had dancing. And we all want to be good enough dancers to get where we've been getting without music. This is complicated. Zack questions the ethics of divorcing the dancing from its source. Others wonder about the white people in the cast taking in/on camp, diva, and soul aesthetics into and through their bodies.

Rehearsal footage by Ron Humphrey Password: feeling

"If it feels good, use it. " Richard Dyer

Drama

Diana Ross in another medium with Billie Drama

Dee Williams in Mahogany. Did "success is nothing without someone you love to share it with" become the tagline of the movie before or after this take???

"So shines a good deed in a weary world."

1:58-2:15

Subtle drama. The calm after the storm.

Camp

Susan Sontag's Notes on Camp from 1964, scenes from Mommie Dearest. Diana Ross in Mahogany and her intro to "It's My House" during her 1983 performance in Central Park (sources of camp?)

Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics by José Esteban Muñoz.

"God, I hate this NIGHT!"

Her floating turn from the mirror to the front door before meeting her fans.

Superfluous: Tone, Volume, Motion...

Certainty...Authority. Punctuation!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much.

Drama.

Divas

Diana Ross, Whitney Houston, Lady Gaga...

3:40: Whitney Houston turns away from the mic briefly and seems to pull something out of her mouth. Functional, but a dramatic effect.

4:20-5:07: How she walks away from the mic...both functional (physically gathering herself, resting, breathing, for what's to come) and expressive (a diva commenting on/readying the audience for the upcoming display of virtuosity).

The smile. SO real... and so pasted on at the same time? The timing. The seeing...I see you seeing me. And so watch this. And this.

Is this a source of camp?

References to camp icon, Mae West at about 2:35:

Everything about this video. Alison Moyet's voice, the backup singers, the formality (the informality), the big-dealness...

So many changes. Inner, outer, relational, about to vomit, and a whole life of unrealized performances coming through her.

Kiddos

Hazel Humphrey's Total Eclipse of the Heart. The song takes over her body. They cymbal wakes her up. Her little nervous system interrupts with a yawn, then she goes right back in.

photos.app.goo.gl/ePeynXsrTungVPpr8

Affective Neuroscience

Jaak Panksepp: Rat Tickler and Father of Affective Neuroscience
Play . Panic/Grief . Fear . Rage . Seeking . Lust . Care .

7 Emotional Systems described in The Archeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions by Affective Neuroscientist, Jaak Panksepp (1943-2017):

Play, Panic/Grief, Fear, Rage, Seeking, Lust, Care

We are not creating music and dance in Feeling to illustrate these basic emotional systems. We are engaging in kinesthetic empathy with emotions expressed and induced by several sources (music, drama, divas, camp) and feeling, exaggerating, and/or playing with what's happening in our bodies.

We are taking on different kinds of music, singing, and sounding, trying on music (as dancers) and dancing (as musicians).

From the description of The Archeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions on Amazon:

What makes us happy? What makes us sad? How do we come to feel a sense of enthusiasm? What fills us with lust, anger, fear, or tenderness? Traditional behavioral and cognitive neuroscience have yet to provide satisfactory answers. The Archaeology of Mind presents an affective neuroscience approach―which takes into consideration basic mental processes, brain functions, and emotional behaviors that all mammals share―to locate the neural mechanisms of emotional expression. It reveals―for the first time―the deep neural sources of our values and basic emotional feelings.

This book elaborates on the seven emotional systems that explain how we live and behave. These systems originate in deep areas of the brain that are remarkably similar across all mammalian species. When they are disrupted, we find the origins of emotional disorders:

- SEEKING: how the brain generates a euphoric and expectant response

- FEAR: how the brain responds to the threat of physical danger and death

- RAGE: sources of irritation and fury in the brain

- LUST: how sexual desire and attachments are elaborated in the brain

- CARE: sources of maternal nurturance

- GRIEF: sources of non-sexual attachments

- PLAY: how the brain generates joyous, rough-and-tumble interactions

- SELF: a hypothesis explaining how affects might be elaborated in the brain

The book offers an evidence-based evolutionary taxonomy of emotions and affects and, as such, a brand-new clinical paradigm for treating psychiatric disorders in clinical practice.

A screenshot from this TED Talk:

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