the first ever bodycartography project
by Olive Bieringa

Wellington, New Zealand, Aotearoa, 1998

In a wave of excitement (possibly desperation) performers are taking to the streets with their art, seemingly not just my fellow performers in San Francisco or those experiencing a European summer. This is no profound new phenomenon. The sixties and seventies have been and gone. We continue to struggle, trying to make sense of the urban jungles we inhabit, the ever increasing cost and contradictions of living in them.

The intention:

1. To inhabit with integrity, as experimental dance artists, the context of an art festival (the marketplace) in which work is viewed as a commodity. The bodycartography project provided an alternative framework, which attempted to embody the nature of the work it produced.
   
2. To share the notion of "art as an everyday practice".
   
3. To appreciate and utilise the sheer magnificence of the physical surroundings of the city we inhabit.

The beginning:

"A vision toward creating an experiential and sensorial map of the city, the land, the sea that is Wellington. The project will be developed by a diverse collective of body-based artists grounded in improvisational dance forms such as contact improvisation as well as musicians and visual artists who will create site specific events in indoor and outdoor locations around the city. All events will be documented through different media; video, writing, photography, drawing, audio recordings to create an experiential/sensorial map at the completion of the project alongside a culminative performance event at the autumn equinox."

The who:

Participants were invited in on whatever level they could invest; as organisers, performers, photographers, drivers, tech crew, teachers, community resources, sponsors, for the whole distance or for occasional events. Structure manifest organically from there. Performers ages, physical ability, dancing and performing experience varied greatly. It was not a mixed ability project, but a vision of inclusiveness and diversity.

The what:

Basic group and solo improvising skills, contact improvisation and 'score' exploration/development provided our ground. Attention was also given to the fact that we had three performers on board who were differently-abled. Out of the studio our key focuses became sensory research (such as blind walks), developing site specific performances and Autoplay, a score derived from the 'tuning score' of Imagelab, which we worked with and performed in many different contexts. This score was a fantastic tool in framing our dancing together especially in large outdoor locations, where our listening watching sensing skills were highly challenged. Drawing the internal out and the external in. A heightened awareness of our external reality was necessary whilst invested in our internal narratives. Learning and performing outside of the studio is challenging on all levels. Our task became to utilise the city as playground...a site of empowerment, a theatrical setting for our performing.

Finding our freedom/Funding our freedom.

The project was devoted to the notion of art-making not art-selling. We received funding ($1250 US) and much community support by way of free footwear, video equipment, performance space, publicity, food and skilled labour. We put together over the month duration of the festival twenty-three events, beginning with our opening benefit party at the James Cabaret and ending with our three hour closing performance installation in the Exchange Foyer. Some events lasted as long as six hours. At our largest we had nineteen performers and at our smallest three. We were witnessed by as many as 2200 people and received TV coverage with Inside/Out, Local Link and Saturn TV. The entire project was documented in video, photographs and writing. AIl our events were free ... one level of pressure removed ... there was no pressure around getting large audiences. Unfortunately the performers weren't paid in hard currency. It was a labour of love and learning.

The questions:

If we didn't have audiences, were our events ritual rather than performance? If we were out doing research and collected audience how did this effect our exploration and was what we were doing being conceived as performance? How did it effect our research? Can a dancer only have one leg? Do adults have the right to play in public space, or should we say dance, should we say work? If so, are we getting paid for this and who is paying for it? Who is the playing good for? For our self-exploration as artists, or is it entertaining enough to be considered a commodity?