During these two years of the Master Theatre Practices programme in ArtEZ University of the Arts in Holland, I realised how precious having the time, space and support to create is. It is, to my experience, highly unlikely to have within the professional field so much time to fulfill an artistic vision, let alone to actually do it in your own terms. Redefining my artistic practice, gathering artistic skills and being introduced to various mediums in order to enrich and complement my work have been invaluable assets during this creative period. But, I have to underline again: it is highly unlikely to have these spacial and temporal conditions within the artistic field.
So, what would be that one skill that I would consider the most fundamental, that skill that is not dependent of optimum circumstances and that enhanced the way I can bring forth my artistic visions? It is to equip me with skills, not necessarily in order to master them, but to be able, as a professional cross-disciplinary artist, to better communicate with my collaborators my ideas, to have enough knowledge to talk to them in their own artistic 'language' and to have a better idea of the potentialities each medium, such as the camera, as well as the video and sound editing programs, has. I find that collaboration and weaving relations are crucial for my artistic practice. The latter consists of a combination of performing, drawing, crafting, filming, since I come from a Dance and Architecture background. I have always been intrigued in finding the meeting points between artistic fields, but, in order to discover these intersections of disciplines, I needed to walk on the right paths, having the necessary 'gear' with me. And I believe this is what this master's programme has given me.
For the purpose of one elective module, 'Screendance and Mediated Relationships', I was invited to create a video related to my artistic research project, a performance-for-camera work, as well as a blog in order to further unravel my personal journey, from conception to delivery. Within this framework, there were some important choices to be made since the very beginning: what is the purpose of this video? for whom do I film? how can I equally direct the gaze of the audience through filming and perform at the same time?
My intention with this project is, by framing my artistic research within the context of the fitness industry and gym culture - where the body is displayed as a consumer item and, therefore, commodifies identity - to affirm identity's ungraspable dimensions through the notion of multiplicity.In order to elaborate on this crucial matter, I decided to use my own body as a study case and to try and embody the body-image ideals that are promoted through the social media, only to subvert their initial recognition. For argument's sake: quite often, a muscular body is considered a strong body. A strong body, even more so when it is a female one, is acknowledged as a sign of empowerment, even of success. To my belief, the outer appearance doesn't always coincide with the inner self. Yet, in a first level of visual recognition, a sort of assumption is made.
So, how can I subvert this assumption? The use of camera and the possibilities that entails was a very conscious choice from my part. Just as in cinema, the use of the camera can create an experience, an entire world, can trigger the imagination of the audience and evoke emotions. I was already familiar with the medium, as well as with the necessary editing programs and started to create short videos in order to pin down intuitively the lens through which I wanted to draw the attention to my body. These were my first experiments:
Through the process I understood better that, what I was looking for was to produce and aggregate of such images of my own body, that its perception as 'muscular/strong' would gradually be subverted. Furthermore, the mediated relationship between the camera and myself, as a performer as well as my first viewer so to speak, dramaturgically triggered my imagination. As fitness industry promotes strong, mainstream imagery, as sports clothes have intense, fluorecent colours, it became clear that my solo performance had to visually relate more to the field, where it draws its examples and inspirations from.
The concept was born: one single light source above the body, fluorescent colours to compose the costume, set on a fixed point. An entrance to the workout space, a login to the system, a training, a struggle, a transformation.
The relation of the body to the light was extremely important; to find the way to place myself in relation to the light in order to create different set of images. In order to do so, however, another choice had to be made: who controls the gaze, who stands behind the camera?
It didn't take me long to decide; as I have already mentioned, I believe in collaboration, I believe in weaving relations with other professionals, experts in their fields, I look forward to learning next to them. Fortunately, I have been working with videographer and photographer Dora Dimitriou (https://doradimitriou.com/) for the last two years and have gradually established a common 'language' and an understanding of the images I am interested in creating. I have to say, as in any type of relationship, it is an never-ending process of exchange, discussion, agreement and disagreement, of care and passion. It is a collaboration that has nourished me in many ways as a person and as an artist and to this I am grateful. It is not always and easy process, but hard work rarely fails.
The creative process, when working with Dora Dimitriou incorporates an exchange of visual inspiration from painting, photography and filming, a creation of a script beforehand, a feedback during the day of the shooting, as well as during the editing process later on. I trust her gaze, because I have communicated to her my vision, because we have collaborated in various projects and have set a common ground towards a productive artistic dialogue of disciplines. Because trust is needed in order to evolve.
With the invaluable contribution of my sound designer, Christos Parapagidis, the score of the video was created. Here is was came out of this nourishing process:
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