MISCHA BAKA

Saturday, June 16, 2018

Choir Dance Company - Genesis

June 16, 2018 0
Choir Dance Company - Genesis

Tonight Rebekah performed for me an idea she is thinking of developing with her friends. She moved through a series of postures and dance moves while singing along to a pre-recorded song she had written when in her early twenties. She harmonised with the recording of herself. It was beautiful.



I suggested that her dance company be called, ‘ Choir Dance Company.’ I was very inspired by her performance and thought it perfectly combined her families history of singing and choir work, with her love and history of dance.



I described how contemporary dance often tries to include text and voice with mixed results or success. But that her background in choir brought a depth and strength to her combination of the two.



Candice and Sarah, image from the next day. 



I think good creative work often draws on a deep history of family and tradition. From our parents history, occupations, troubles, passions and skills. Sometimes moments arise when we find a way to draw on that deep history and make it a part of our own work and journey. These can be powerful moments, because the work itself becomes imbued with that history and power.



This relationship with personal history and culture informing our creative work can be so varied, sometimes subconscious, sometimes troubled, sometimes too confronting. When you find that history working for you in an honest and powerful way, it must be sized upon.



I think this is such a moment for Rebekah, she can draw on her history, of her father and mothers success with choirs and music and channel it into her dance to create something new and exciting. It will be new, but will carry with it the depth of her families own history and journey.



I love that a choir lifts the spirit by making notions of community, togetherness and expression immediately experienced and felt. It goes straight the heart and makes you feel connected to humanity. I love that dance speaks directly to the body, it inspires strength that is pliable, soft and full of life. Dance and Choir together is a sublime union that speaks to the soul.

Thursday, June 14, 2018

Saltbush The long take

June 14, 2018 0
Saltbush The long take
Saltbush Rehearsal - The long take

 Siobhan Jackson and I decided to establish a performative space that is entered into for long stretches of time. Starting with one hour. We wanted actors to become comfortable with existing in the films world without thinking of an end or what might be expected in the short term. We asked the actors to fill the room. There would be no ‘ audience,’ or ‘ fourth wall’ but for the gaze of the camera, which was to be ignored. The time allowed actors to become comfortable with the camera roaming about.

They started the hour with glances at the camera but soon disregarded it. The whole space started to come alive with an inner logic. Groups of teens formed, unformed, conversation strands travelled with them, collided, expanded and constricted. I was reminded of the manic energy from my own teenage years that would consume my friends and I; excited, yearning and unreal. The teens harnessed their ability to conflate everything and anything as a way command attention. The best thing about today was seeing how comfortable the group of teens are in each other’s company, they are happy to chat, gossip and play amongst themselves, which adds a palpable realism to every task we give them.







 In fact, every specific acting task we give them comes out of this base level of community they have developed, it provides a natural resting place they can return to in a scene, so that doing nothing, pausing or waiting never feels like an empty vacuum. Siobhan and I had a great chat after todays rehearsal fuelled by the productive and exciting energy that was so generous today. I think Siobhan Jackson and I are very good at providing counterpoints of inquiry or invention for each other. For instance, one of us may venture into an ambiguous description about what we are interested in that lacks any great clarity but is full of feeling and intuition, while the other offers a running interpretation that attempts to clarify and understand. This dynamic goes beyond supporting any deficiency in thinking and instead offers a dynamic that encompasses the qualities of two types of thinking. Structure, clarity, feeling and nuance dance together. (As they should on screen.) This is also akin to feeling the answer to a question, but not knowing the answer. In conversation the feeling is expressed by the speaker with all its emotion, stimulus and potency. The listener becomes an interpreter a little outside the experience whose brain can dance with the emotion and search for connections, meanings and insights. When these insights are offered in response, they are gifts won from the meeting of two minds. I think Siobhan and I are good at naturally switching conversational roles where we provide these kinds of counterpoints for each other. There is pleasure in bringing things to the other to find out what will be sparked, understood or invented.

Sunday, June 10, 2018

Dance Film: Background, middle ground and foreground

June 10, 2018 0
Dance Film: Background, middle ground and foreground

A dance film in the Melbourne botanical gardens with Rebekah Stuart, Sarah Hotchin, Ben Jamieson, Candice Polglase and Dale Polglase.

Candice, directing with me, had prepared the group the day before with a series of exercises and dancing.

Working together we explored camera movements that were motivated by performance. Head turns, traveling through the space with dance, and rolling along the ground all carried the gaze of the camera.

Camera movement was at times motivated by dancers in the background, middle ground and foreground and often shifted between the three in one shot. This dynamic helps the eye move into and around the image creating a sense of three-dimensional space.



Ben Jamieson in a tree. 

For instance, Ben danced along a path in the background which led a pan of the camera over to dale in the foreground, who then walked us over to Rebekah, who then ran into the middle ground as the camera tracked after her.

Candice took up direction, music  playback, and wrangling the team which allowed me more space to offer ideas and guide the shoot collaboratively.

The finished film ( In a quick assemble edit) was a good exploration of movement, relationships and emotions, it developed how Candice and I can work together and promised future possibilities.

Thursday, June 7, 2018

Saltbush Trauma

June 07, 2018 0
Saltbush Trauma
Today we shared a passage from Jessie Coles ‘ Staying’ ( Page 248) to explore the idea of trauma within a character. We discussed how and what trauma can be and places in the body and environment that can accommodate and hold trauma.

We began a 'Together and Alone' dance series with guest dancer Rebekah Stuart dancing with Mark Wilson. Her energy and capacity to be bold and wild helped model how far the students can go in an abstract way.





When we gave the teen actors scripted text to include in their dance the dialogue came alive with a great sense of movement and choreography.

Rebekah was impressed by how authentic the dialogue sounded and how easily it was taken up by the young actors. All the dancing had paid off in allowing the body to drive the performance over the text/mind.   

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Seafolly Saviour.

June 05, 2018 0
Seafolly Saviour.

A stills shoot in the city with Caroline Meaden, Alice Dixon and Will McBride.

This shoot was to capture more photographs for a calendar. The calander was offered to supporters of the dance troupes show, Lady Example.

It is a pleasure to work with this team. They are playful, creative and comfortable being themselves in front of the camera.

My roaming flash was broken and I resorted to my built in camera flash. This flash suited a concept I had been thinking of for some time, but never really played with.



Concept: People pose in front of large billboard and promotional fashion photos working themselves into the image and the ideals they represent.
An interplay between the common consumer and the ideal they are being sold.

Caroline Meaden Seafolly Mischa Baka


Alice Dixon, Caroline Meaden, Whil Bride




I would have liked to have found some more explicit images.

I do love the image of Caroline sacrificing her body in an attempt to shield the model, or shield the viewer from the image.

All the women love Will

Friday, June 1, 2018

knots and swimsuits

June 01, 2018 0
knots and swimsuits
After the day shoot Mishka invited her friend Luke over to tie her up in the peach bathing suit. Gathering more material for the swimsuit project.
Luke’s art form of tying ropes and knots around the body was beautiful to watch. Observing Mishka and Luke relate to each other the process of tying, binding and finding what feels right on the body was captivating.



Mishka Beckmann