Mariana Valencia Rhinoceros Event

On 4.21.10

SBL Looking back on your early choreography your approach to movement and storytelling through ethnography is abundantly clear, mostly through the scores, costuming, and allusions to historically or geographically specific movements. How do you situate the role of ethnography in your work currently? Is it still present? If so, how has the idea and use of ethnography changed for you?

MV I believe my interest in ethnography stemmed from my need to connect to the theoretical/historical information I was gathering during my time at Hampshire College. At the time it seemed ideal to insert myself in ethnographical learning approaches in dance in order to locate choreographic approaches. I learned dance culturally -- growing up-- and was not exposed to studio dance or modern dance until college. It later became obvious to me that ethnography was my entry point into observation and visual content beyond what I could gather from going to a dance concert or reading about dance contextually. Ethnography became a form of retrospect where I could observe, question and gather on my own terms, placing ethnographic research in a place of artistic generators that seemed more sincere than the so called dance world I was entering. I don’t hold ethnography in the same place anymore, but again, in retrospect I see how it removed me from answering the right questions and instead generating my own questions and answers from a personal and experiential lens. I ran away quickly from ethnography once I realized I was no longer following the ethnographic form-- nor did I want my work to fall under such an historical, and traditionally driven creative form. The stigma of such a word made me focus its essence to my needs. I now utilize ethnographic methods to conjure deeper questions of the everyday and the writings of peoples. By writings I mean the prints we leave behind; the traces of affect we utilize to relate.

SBL Your work hovers between mediums and seems to resist a static category—your approach to choreography is often through a sculptural lens, both physically and materially. Is it important that your work has this nomadic quality and why? And what role do you see your sculptures/props/costumes playing in your performances? Is there a hierarchy between movement, image, or object?

MV It’s very important for me to place the body in vast (undetermined) locations. These places are non relative. I suppose they can be derived observationally from children playing vernacular games to the mold that forms on cream cheese. I see these daily activities as situational realities that hold many meanings and contribute emotional instincts to our daily experience. I see the fuzzy mold as a bush and the cheese as the ice. I think of things in this way when I imagine terrain and bodies and shapes. It’s almost like a synesthesia of form. How does a bush grow out of ice? How do we perceive ourselves finding these abnormalities and perspectives? Do we find them strange or do we live with them if the time is right? Within these material, embodied and imaginary circumstances, I begin to define what it means to subsist within these places. In terms of all my research specifically choreography, it’s the investigation of these almost microbial circumstances where I find the movement that would best expresses the body in its location. In relation to my costumes/props/sculptures, I suppose there is no determined hierarchy of value. There is no caste system among them and between them and my choreography. In this sense, my work thrives on being nomadic. I’ve initiated many projects with the idea a specific color evokes, or a determined shape made of wire creates. These are expressions of visual forms I have learned by heart. Like walking, coughing, sleeping, eating, I have repeatedly practiced sewing, building and precision in terms of space, geometry and form. I come from a very hands-on, homemade, grass-fed approach that is inherent in me to understand one subject: that of body based and time based work. I place all these images: the body, the spaces the body defines, and the way in which the body relates to specific out-of-body elements that bring forth the entire picture. Its a tripod of sorts that aims to focus onto one vision depending on the project at hand. Sometimes all I work on are my slide collages and that’s all I exhibit-- just relating color, light and shape in space and in 2D. Sometimes my body forms a solo performance work that somewhat harkens the ideas the slides of another project have represented. It’s all related but never the same story or form though continually under my rules of scope and presence.

SBL How do you see your work relating to or fitting into the contemporary art world?

MV This is interesting you ask because I see it as a movement based form that is dance prone and visually inclined. It’s the anti nothing but at the same time it’s the middle of everything. I think it’s a contemporary mind fuck that fills the spaces which makes the spaces exist. More clearly, what I do comes from skills. The way I communicate these skills is in the choreographic form. When I wear a certain costume, or place a sculpture over a body I do so with the idea of the moving body underlying everything. Even if it’s just my slides, I choreograph their sequence, I find where they are going in our minds and in space. There is always an arrangement but not necessarily a linear quality. I don’t work on stories because people will always place that weight on visual and acoustic material-- even in fashion, there is always a story or a description of where the visual information comes from. I see my work within the contemporary volume of desire and I see this as the many derivatives of what it means to make choreography in the contemporary world. I’m researching within it all visual, choreography, design, etc.

SBL With live performance, experience is elevated (in comparison to static 2/3D work), at the same time, access to this kind of work is hindered by its temporality. What kind of experience do you want your viewer to have? Who is your audience?

MV I like temporality. It’s never a question when after a performance all the other elements need to die with the end of the performance itself. I like destroying what I make because whether it took me more time to make a specific costume or static element for a performance I see it the same as the live body. To be more specific, my performances subsist within the same time frames as the things/items that stay forever. They no longer exist beyond the performance. I throw it away or keep it but rarely do I use the same visual 2/3D elements from one performance to another. Rather, like a certain emotion that a moment of choreography evokes, I see my constructions in the same way. I hold on to the essence but never the same quality of substance. It’s a research that I explore on many levels and within various mediums. I make it and leave it just as well. It’s not about a product or an inanimate object. It’s more about how they came to be and how I can further their meaning by killing their imagery in the end. I want my audience to see each work as the place where I’m at regardless if they see a reference or if they’ve seen my work prior to what they’re experiencing. My goal is to give the essence of where I’m at to its fullest capacity. I assume this is the common practice among artists. I assume we re-locate idyllic moments within new lenses.

SBL If we flatten and spread thin our idea(l)s of politicality, how does your work function politically and/ or socially inside or outside the realm of art making?

MV It’s all relative. Politics are the functions of ideas and perspectives and the dialogue they bring forth. Their power however holds strengths socially, that then become information of the present state. I’m not necessarily current in terms of content. I make love and death complicated and keep them as mainstays in my work, I believe this will remain for a long time. I do however approach specific dynamics and content to my methods of information processing. It’s all a circle because it only shows my perspective on the current state but not necessarily my political opinion. This question is complicated because politics are ideals that are followed or denied. I don’t wish for anyone to be on my side or not. I like to have them question their own side which is hopefully inspired by my outlook on humanity and its place within visual material. I see neutrality as a common place of opinions where we find common denominators among many strands of ideals. When I view work, I don’t expect to know what is happening, the only thing I expect is to have at least one glimpse of a daydream into at least one image or moment. I expect my audience to leave and re-enter my work with familiarity while they’re seeing it. I want to give them clarity, to give them a place where their experiences can somewhat brush and be parallel to my forthcomings.

SBL Your work seems to continually shift between fantasy and the everyday, often in the same performance—giving the work tensions relative to time and place. How do you see your functioning in relation to time (histories and/ or movements within, or otherwise) and place (personal, physical, metaphorical, mythic, or otherwise)?

MV Fantasy and the everyday are the same to me. On a daily basis we think, we idealize, we suggest and propose. Within each day we conglomerate. I pull ideas from texts. I pull ideas from the bodega down the street. To me it’s about being aware, perceptive, receptive. I can’t tell you how artistic decisions are specifically made if I encounter certain situations, but I can say that I allow them to affect me. I purposely let them through me so as to find their later meaning in the visual world. I am constantly making ideas and shapes. I am constantly aborting my sensations: these are the ones I like, these I don’t like. In terms of mythic stories, I see my place within them as a place of knowing. I know and understand the morality within a mythical lens. I see how the myths bring forth the modern, actual lens. We all come from a birth, what’s more alien or mythical than that? I see the word primordial enter my work’s description at all times. I’m not attempting to give you the one and only truth, rather I want to give the sense that we can relate our reality’s many truths. That we can move beyond what they represent and that they also hold a place in the world today. Myths are a form and a structure of information that inform our everyday. This is where they meet for me. They meet because we can relate morally. There are primary colors and then there are secondary colors that come forth when those primary ones blend. In the same way I see green as the primary color and if you break it down, then it becomes blue and yellow. If you change the idea, we then gain new truths. I think if myth/fantasy hold the meaning of fiction and the everyday holds the meaning of fact then we could speak to his more clearly in the modern lens. Again, fiction and fact are the same when I make something; they shape and inform each other. If they are polar opposites, then what we’re really looking at are the many degrees of truth or difference. My attempt is to reach earnestness as often as I can to give the viewer the clarity of daydreams.

SBL Could you talk a little bit about narrativity vs. abstraction in your work? Not that they are necessarily crossing swords, but there seems to be a pretty clear juxtaposition. Feel free to talk about them separately too.

MV Abstraction is a form to me that exists to be complicated by narrative. I utilize narrative in a time-based mode. I see narrative as a structure of form that’s convenient to disseminate information. I was working on cycles of repetition in two of my last works, Three Weeks Till Blackout and Tunder Creeps. The main rule in making these works was not to present a lifetime: a birth an interest and a death. I solely wanted to cut out a section of the work’s “day” and loop it all along manipulating and clustering it with a different ingredient in each repetition. What is first seen is then renewed a bit with each repetition though the material is the same. Maybe we do a rep in the dark, maybe a loud song plays, maybe I destroy something I am wearing etc. In any case, I wanted to make something simple that becomes familiar to me and the audience and complicate it with additions and subtractions. If anything, to me this was meditative. It allowed me to take the time to observe how the cycle functions and how it subsists with each rep. Three Weeks Till Blackout was a duet and Tunder Creeps was a solo. Going from duet to solo with similar compositional games made the solo more private and less playful. It helped me focus on what was important in terms of the movement material. I really was playing butcher and cut off all the bone and fat off the meat in Tunder Creeps. It ended feeling very quiet and when it ended it almost felt mid-sentence. I think when you become accustomed to a cycle, you can leave it and enter it somewhat seamlessly, like a relay. You do your part and the rest will carry on, let’s just exhaust space for a second.

SBL Your work is most often solo work, though it often feels more full. Do you consider yourself a solo artist? Does this perhaps separate you from a lot of other contemporary choreographers? Does this inherently equate you more with performance art? I 'm not asking how you identify as an artist because I don't think that is important, more so, I am wondering if working interdisciplinarily and most often alone has a value or purpose and how you see it relating to the specialization of artistic disciplines?

MV I used to think of all of my work as a solo even if I was working with another person. For a while I kept them in the place of inanimate objects. It became strange to me to think of another present body as an object and I felt like I wasn’t taking enough chances with what they could do for the work. So I began to listen to their body’s information more closely and observe how we could work as one. My research was then more about relationships and actual contact. Then I made a bunch of works where we were a duet but really a unison-- still somewhat under the form of a spatial solo. It wasn’t until I worked with three bodies that I could see equality among us and a sincere support. This was funny because I don’t necessarity think of a heirarchy of materials when making work but it was becomeing obvious to me that I was moving into that direction when dealing with bodies in space. Somehow my body was “better” because I had the idea, the imagery was coming from me. I grew out of that phase when I began to finetune my vocabulary of information in rehearsal. That’s when I knew I could become a counterpart and to some extent a teacher to myself and them. I suppose this is a difficulty to many choeographers who are dancers in their own work, there are many levels of awareness in rehearsal that only get better with practice and developement. I stopped feeling like the bossy four year old telling the other kid what to “pretend” like, “ok, now let’s pretend you died and I saved you. Yeah, get down like this, over here. Uh huh, close your eyes, put your arm there...” I love all the people who have worked with me and I find that I seek out those whom I have friendships with. That is the most important thing because I feel like they are engaging with the material outside of rehearsal because they somewhat see my visions from a personal and private point of view. There is a lot of privacy in my creative process, I don’t really open up until it’s almost time to show the work. My dancers/performers are always in the know but not necessarily anyone else who is not directly involved. I like a lot of silence and my scream is the work. I sometimes wish we could be in the middle of a dance and then explode before it even finishes. If I had the power to explode I would totally milk it. I also don’t really like to be touched.

SBL When you do employ other performers what role do you see them having? How does their role relate to the role props and sculptures have in your solo work?

MV Like I said before, it’s been a genuine growing process to find my comfortability within small group work. I’ve been working on two solos for about nine months now and I can’t wait for my dancer Caitlin to return from Spain. This year has been wonderful for me to find and cherish everything I like about duets specifically with her. I really like the exchange that happens when she asks me questions. It’s so simple to have verbal exchange, when I rehearse alone it’s a bit schizophrenic. I can’t wait to complicate the room and have her question me. It really helps me become more clear with my standpoint on the project and it feels nice to have company when growth is involved. It’s nice to make a history with someone and it’s nice to look back at what we’ve made.