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General Information |
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| Artist |
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Wightman and Craos Mor |
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| Title |
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Gravity – a love story, 2002 |
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| Copyright |
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Craos Mor © 2002 (also for 'Falling without Fear' included in 'Gravity - a love story') |
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| Status |
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Realized |
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| Date of Initiation |
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--/--/2001 |
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| Date of Realization |
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--/--/2002 |
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Technical Description
‘Gravity – a love story’ embeds video recordings from Morag Wightman’s microgravity project ‘Falling without Fear’ in a production under the forces of gravity, performed by the company Craos Mor of whom she is Artistic Director. The work is an interdisciplinary performance comprising dance, suspension, video projection and music and was commissioned by the Arts Catalyst for the programme of ‘Artists and Cosmonauts’ events held at the Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadler’s Wells London, on 1st March 2002.
‘Falling without Fear’
In October 2001 Morag Wightman partook in the parabolic flight of an IL-76 MDK aircraft departing from the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in Russia’s Star City. The flight was organised by Arts Catalyst and Project Atol Flight Operations, Slovenia, for purposes of ‘microgravity interdisciplinary research’ (M.I.R).
During the flight Morag Wightman realised ‘Falling without Fear’, a performance spanning 7 flight parabolas creating periods of microgravity each lasting 25 seconds. Across the flight deck assigned to her at the front of the plane she fixed a net, the ‘rigging’ to which theatre designer Helga Goellner had attached one long suspension rope and numerous short and curly strands of oily hemp rope.
Morag Wightman planned basic movements in a horizontal and vertical alignment, some of which while attached to the suspension rope. The preparatory script for her performance was rudimentary and open to improvisation due to the unpredictable novelty of ‘dancing’ in the absence of gravity. During the first two parabolas of ‘Falling without Fear’ she attached the long rope to her harness and, inverting the rules suspension, rose towards the ceiling held back on her flight only by the tug of the rope. Contrary to expectations, the shorter strands of hemp did not rise automatically but needed an impulse. At the onset of the third parabola, Morag Wightman released the rope to indicate “a transition from suspension to flight”(1). During the last parabola, the instructor Vladimir Kalentiev initiated her movements while she remained passive, retaining one position.
While each scene within ‘Falling without Fear’ was captured by a minimum of four cameras, Morag Wightman held a fifth one in her hand during one parabola. With this she traced the path her rotating body took.
Upon her return to England, Morag Wightman invited video artist Gavin Lockhart to choreograph the accumulated film footage. The result is a powerful composition of imagery staged on three projection screens, each of which reveals a different view on the same movement. ’Little Japanese Toy’ wrote the music that accentuates and interprets the dancer’s effortless voyage through a volume of space.
‘Gravity – a love story’
For her company Craos Mor’s live performance featuring dance and aerial performances, Morag Wightman worked with a script that outlined movements and scenes without stating a detailed choreography. In this way the performance artists had different types of space to inhabit or create individually.
The technical specifications of the performance are summarised by Morag Wightman as follows: “The work requires an indoor venue of about 10m wide by 5m deep and 6m high. The flying rig [designed by Will Harding] to fly the performers requires the facility to screw non load bearing fixtures into the floor at the sides of the performance space and [the installation of] an overhead permanent grid structure with a consistent half tonne spot load rating. Theatre weights (of a specified type) are required on site together with a lighting grid or beams, lighting equipment, a sound system, and 3 video projectors and projection screens”(2).
Amir Shoat and Iain Ross arranged the acoustic effects accompanying the performance.
Text by Carlotta Graedel Matthäi; quotations from (1) an interview with Christo Polymenakos published in ‘Highlights’ (Greece), Issue 2, Dec.-Jan. 2003, p.119; (2) www.craosmor.com.
CREDITS:
Artistic director: Morag Wightman
Parabolic flight: Morag Wightman (performer); The Arts Catalyst, Marko Peljhan, Andrey Velikanov, Morag Wightman & Zero-G Team (cameras); Helga Goellner (set and costume design).
3-screen video projection work: Gavin Lockhart (video artist).
Performance at Lilian Baylis Theatre at Sadler’s Wells (25 Mins.): Veronica Forioso, Steven Whinnery & Graham Clint (performers); Little Japanese Toy, Amir Shoat & Iain Ross (soundtracks); Helga Goellner (set and costume design); Will Harding (rigging); Kaja Glenne Lund (lighting design); Niall Black (stage management); Hs Cho (performance recording); John Fisher (editing of performance recording).
PERFORMANCES:
Screening of 3-screen video projection work & performance:
1st March 2002: at ‘Artists & Cosmonauts’, Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadler’s Wells
Water movement, film & dance research:
4th July 2003: ‘Altered Gravity’, Chisenhale Dance Space, London
Presentation & screening of 3-screen video projection work:
8th December 2002: “Interdisciplinary Microgravity Movement Research: Experiments on a Zero Gravity Flight”, ArtSci2002, The CUNY Graduate Center, New York
Artistic Description
Morag Wightman’s solo performance ‘Falling without Fear’ aboard a parabolic flight evolved from the personal need to intellectually and artistically explore the concept and meaning of ‘suspension’ in an environment where fear of falling is not an issue. For Morag Wightman each performance poses a challenge: to perform at great height while keeping up the appearance of carefree ease, when in fact she is worrying about the rope and rigging. Across the years she had “become more aware of the mental side of being away from the ground and the fragility of the body”(1). Microgravity was the only environment in which “falling was flying” and a beautiful experience (1). Morag Wightman describes how in weightlessness movements are like extensions to the body, “there is a very different sense of effort, energy and tension” and - no fear.
The brief encounter with weightlessness revealed gravity to Morag Wightman in a new way. She felt encouraged to reinvestigate the characteristics of gravity and the way in which it determines all movement on earth. She recognised the love-hate relationship that binds humans permanently to gravity, while weightlessness taunts as an apparently ideal environment, longed for and rarely attained. ‘Gravity – a love story’ tackles this problematic relationship in a humorous way, while taking into account Morag Wightman’s memory of weightlessness and the perception of gravity this effected in her. She describes the work as an exploration of “physical consciousness in shifting relationships with gravity”(2).
Will Harding, an expert rigger, designed what Morag Wightman terms a “gravity playpark”(1) consisting of simple systems enabling flexible movement and a semblance of flight new to her work. In scenes highlighting reduced micro-traction, suspended skiers slide across slopes of air and frolic in their aerial medium with backflips and somersaults. A suspended fisherman then “taunts microgravity badminton players with an elusive flying shuttlecock”(2). These scenes alternate with sequences emphasising inertia and bodily weight. The company performs difficult and awkward sequences of movements involving flipping and turning and frequent changes of direction. A woman dances, each of her slightly mechanical movements performed with care. A person with a video camera hangs suspended from a rope that rotates with increasing speed – suggesting a gradual loss of orientation as the brain loses contact with gravity and thus a cue to its relative position. The rotating room is transmitted simultaneously onto the screens.
While Amir Shoat and Iain Ross’s acoustics, often dissonant and mechanical (Iain Ross worked with the sound of the plane’s engines), accentuate the laborious aspect of gravity, the band Little Japanese Toy follow the parabolic curve to microgravity with fluctuating sound volume and melodically highlight the dancer’s takeoff from the flight deck.
Into this exposition of gravity Morag Wightman introduces images of microgravity for a visual interplay between the real and imagined, the immediate and recorded, remembered spaces. In alternating scenes of gravity and weightlessness, similar motions and intentions are compared as performed in the two differing environments: what requires physical energy and mechanical aid from Craos Mor on Earth, Morag Wightman achieves by nothing more than intention and a slight contraction of muscles in weightlessness. She describes dance in microgravity as “liquid”: an initiated movement continues indefinitely unless contact with a static object or surface is made and a counter-movement can be undertaken. Every movement is slow and graceful, complete and rounded.
Each of the flight scenes features a complete parabola, documenting the gradual establishment of weightlessness and the eventual return to double gravity. Gavin Lockhart’s choreography of ‘Falling without Fear’ traces this movement. In moments of double gravity only one screen is put to use - yet as microgravity slowly establishes itself, he increases a sense of dimension and perspective by introducing the other two screens, one by one.
Text by Carlotta Graedel Matthäi; quotations from (1) a conversation held between Morag Wightman, Annick Bureaud and Carlotta Graedel Matthäi on 1/7/03; (2) www.craosmor.com.
Technique
- Dance
- Inter-disciplinary
- Performance
- Video
Category
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Wightman and Craos M...
