Project Rameau: a painter's review

I am writing this blog while on one of those highs you get after seeing something completely compelling and artistically inspiring. Tonight I went with my studio friends Deevya and Andrea to “Project Rameau”, a collaboration between Sydney Dance Company and The Australian Chamber Orchestra. But justification for my gushing will follow in a moment.

 

2013 has been a year to see dance performances for me. With Li Cunxin (of “Mao's Last Dancer” fame) taking over the reins at Queensland Ballet, a season pass seemed a good idea. It seemed that way to lots of other people too, apparently, because the company has enjoyed a bumper season with performances of Cinderella and Giselle. And the Bolshoi Ballet came to Brisbane with “The Bright Stream”, that I was fortunate enough to see last month. All three were thoroughly professional performances of course. Perhaps an expert would find a technical superiority in the renowned Bolshoi, but for me as a non-expert, Queensland Ballet was every bit as impressive. In fact, I preferred the music and choreography in the latter (particularly Giselle), and so enjoyed them more. Also, I was lucky enough to see Rachel Walsh in the lead for both QB performances – she is a strikingly charismatic presence and powerful dancer – exuding a strength that captures my attention and that comes through regardless of the character she plays (she felt as compelling playing the shy Giselle as the fiery Carmen in a previous year).

 

My interest in dance, that has grown over the last few years, has been motivated in large part by its link to painting of course. I find it strange that more figurative artists are not more interested in dance. It is, after all, a language of the figure that is at its best both literal and intangible: a poetic language of gesture and form, and both abstract and narrative context. Classical ballet, with its emphasis on grace, brings out shapes in the figure (particularly the arabesque and rhythmic counterbalance) that are precisely match those of classical painting and sculpture. And I have to like the fact of the unseen apprenticeship – long and gruelling - that dancers must go through, the sheer grit of it. And the love that they must have to be willing to endure it, all for the sake of making the near impossible look effortless – much as good painters strive to do.

 

But, as much as I admire and enjoy Classical Ballet, the performance tonight of “Project Rameau” has really captured my imagination as a work of art. I won't pretend to know about the execution: needless to say, the ACO and Sydney Dance Company are among the very best in their field. But since I am an expert in neither Classical music nor contemporary dance, I can only say that I found the performances quite flawless. My aim here is to investigate the artistic integration of the music, choreography and design of the piece, and it's relation to painting composition.

 

Drawing the figure in the classical sense, is not copying. It is an attempt at integration, a kind of improvisation and simplification in real time, that brings together gesture and body language, anatomy, design, form and character. For me, the language of line is primary – and in a good line, all those aspects are juggled successfully, at an intuitive level in the brain of the artist. There is an intensity of intention that must be present for it to work, there must be a formal story to be told. And this improvisation must be studied and done repeatedly to achieve and maintain fluency, and to take the formal towards a certain sensibility, that intangible language. Painting composition, in the visionary spirit of the old masters (which is where my main interest lies) is essentially the same but with more parameters and variables – choice of subject, tonal design and light, colour and texture, scale and medium. From beginning to end, good painting is a process of creative integration of elements such that the alchemy of their mixture makes the gold the artist was grasping for: the gestalt, the intangible story.

 

At “Project Rameau”, we were lucky enough to have literally front row seats, to the right side of the stage (best in house in my opinion, though strangely not the most expensive – why you would want to be further back for a show like this is beyond me: it's not TV, people). The orchestra was at the back of the stage, slightly elevated, with a minimalist stage design, archways abstracted into precise, thin lines framing them, perhaps a subtle reference to the clean, one point perspective spaces of Fra Angelico or Pierro della Francesca. Lighting was simple and strong, often using 180 degree side lighting, that modelled the forms of the dancers' bodies beautifully. With the skin against the darkness and dark costumes, the image reminded me at times of the low, major key of Caravaggio.

 

The music of Rameau was apparently composed as theatre music (intended to be interpreted physically), and the selections (along with some Vivaldi and Bach) were chosen with a great variety in tempo and mood across a succession of short pieces. Now, one of the things I like most about choreographer Rafael Bonachela's work, in this and other works, is how he works with dancers to develop novel movements, and the logic as we the audience see them established in relation to the music and then repeated and developed. This logic of formal qualities, development, and counterpoint sits snuggly with that of the Baroque composers. It meant that each piece of music in “Project Rameau” felt to me a bit like an individual painting, the whole performance a series of connected but individual images. There was the sense of movements and poses exquisitely matched in a primarily formal sense, and thoroughly enjoyable to see executed, again with Baroque exuberance. Implied narrative (romantic encounters, competition between suitors and similar stories) were vaguely represented (Bonachela intentionally limits narrative in his work) but only to set the context, with an emphasis on the formal poetry.

 

This emphasis on musicality, on the formal linkage between the music and the movement, rather than narrative, meant that each piece seemed, at least to me, less linearly temporal than dance often is. In contrast to dance, one of the beautiful aspects of paintings is their immediacy as a whole, they exist all at once, as opposed to the temporal nature of writing, music or acted arts, allowing the viewer to wander and investigate the image in their own way. In this performance, with each of the “pictures” unified by the particular piece of music, and the start and end less important, I experienced them a bit more like a painting, being able to wander through the scene in my own way, rather than needing to follow a prescribed sequence. This is where the staging was so relevant, with the orchestra beautifully lit and forming the background of the dancers, while the dancers themselves varied between soloists, duets, and groups that were sometimes synchronised and sometimes in detailed counterpoint across the group, (another rhyme to the baroque.)

 

Of course, in the end, it is the truth to the human experience that brings the formal to life. For me, there was a sense of “rightness” of this integration too – moments of dramatic or touching sensitivity, as well as exhilarating excitement (for example, the Summer Presto from Vivaldi's Four Seasons), toe tapping baroque dance as well as just the right kind of humour and lightheartedness. And Bonachela managed to walk the line between baroque confidence, elegance and exuberance and the more modern flavours of edgy, animalistic movement, pop culture reference and resolved dissonance.

 

I am left with the sense of these two great companies achieving a truly admirable integration of artistic ideas, and exposing and re-imagining some music that deserves to be heard by a contemporary audience. I hope that the collaboration is continued next year...

 

 

Sketches from Sigur Ros Valtari Mystery Film dance short film

Sometimes you just have to man up on a Friday evening and... draw from some contemporary dance choreography.

These are based on scenes from a Christian Larson short film done for the "Sigur Ros Valtari Mystery Film" project, using music from the Sigur Ros "Valtari" album of course (great album incidentally).

See below for full video of this film.

 Click to enlarge image

 

 

 

 

Sigur Rós - Valtari from Sigur Rós Valtari Mystery Films on Vimeo.

Recent drawings from the artists' model

Ranging from 1 and 3 minutes for the quick gestural ones to about 20 - 25 minutes for the longer charcoal and chalk on toned paper drawings.  Click the image to see full size

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two new composition designs

This is a drawing that I will be turning into a painting soon...

 

 

 

 

This is a collage of drawing and digital.  It will be a Diptych of two oil paintings presented in one frame.  Probably.

 

 

Studies, form abstractions, and progress shots for current painting

Digitally altered compositional study for painting

 

Sculptural abstraction of figures

 

More broadly considered abstraction of figures in composition

 Study from model from life for a limb of the far left figure

 

study of head and shoulder of far left figure from life model

 

Study for hand of left figure from life model

 

Study of leg of left figure from life model

 

study for arm and hand of lower figure from life model

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iPad paintings stroke by stroke on you tube

Recently I have been experimenting with the ipad as a painting tool.  I don't think there's much chance of it taking over from pencil, charcoal or ink for drawing - it is still not responsive enough to be really useful as a drawing tool - but for painting studies where areas of colour are being massed in, it is really useful.  The advantages for me are primarily:

1.  It's mobile (until it runs out of batteries) - no need for a whole box of bits and pieces for painting

2.  It saves a huge amount of time in mixing paint - you can just select the colour you want, and colour pick anywhere on the canvas.

3. You can use the tablet to photograph a drawing and paint over it as a way of beginning, or photograph a painitng and paint over that in order to try things out.  

4. The app that I am using to paint with, "Brushes", has the advantage of recording the process of the painting, stroke by stroke so you can look back at how you approached the process.

 

I have made a Youtube channel and put a few videos of these stroke by stroke sequences up at:

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx8WotSn6QX_W4ECOLu3Oeg?feature=watch

 

 

Creativity resources

A friend posted the link below to a lecture given by John Cleese on creativity:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VShmtsLhkQg

This is one of the very best discusssions I have seen on what is scientifically understood about the mysterious process of coming up with original solutions or ideas.  It is also one of the most practical - John Cleese is an astonishly brilliant guy, and evidently not just because of the Ministry of Silly Walks.

One of the key insights from this lecture that really rang true to me was the idea that creativity is a process of bringing together ideas or frames of reference such that a new meaning or solution is produced.  Seen this way, a huge portion of our actions are somewhat creative.  For example, simply drinking a glass of water from a glass you have never seen before involves taking the learned action of drinking a glass of water and applying it to the new situation with a new glass.  The link in this case is easy but the fact remains that a connection was made within the new context.  Of course, this is not what we usually call creative - but it seems that the difference between the glass of water and an unexpected insight that we would usually think of as true creativity is really a matter of degree: in the latter the parts that are brought together for the solution are conceptually further apart and not usually seen together.

This leads me to another resource that I was recently told about, The Creativity Web by Charles Cave that has an excellent section on Synectics:

http://members.optusnet.com.au/charles57/Creative/Techniques/synectics.htm

Synectics is defined on the site as :

The term Synectics from the Greek word synectikos which means "bringing forth together" or "bringing different things into unified connection."

Max Ernst is quoted as saying that :

"Creativity is the marvellous capacity to grasp mutually distinct realities and draw a spark from their juxtaposition"

As well as the discussion of syenctics and other relevant quotes, this website has an excellent list of "trigger questions" that are highly relevant to the artist:

http://members.optusnet.com.au/charles57/Creative/Techniques/syn_quest.htm

The rest of the site is worth a look too.


Returning to the lecture by John Cleese, I found the distinction of an "open" mental state to the "closed" mental state particularly useful.  Cleese describes the "open" state as one in which the mind is able to comfortably play with ideas and problems, and is allowed to make any connection, in the hope that a workable solution could be around the corner.  In contrast, the "closed" mental state is about getting stuff done - often associated with a feeling of tension or mild anxiety, where working through in a linear way as efficiently as possible is desirable.  As he points out, to be creative, we need to be able to get into both states - the open state in order to come up with new ideas, and the closed state while following through and bringing the idea into existence.  Managing the two states seems to me one of the central problems for any creative pursuit.

 

 

 

 


 

Practise Hand and Foot Studies

These are studies that I often do in the morning as practise.

 

I would love to be able to work from the model daily instead but hands and feet have the advantage of not asking for payment!