Defne Onen
Creating immersive environments and choreographed worlds for performance is a complex procedure. In my process of designing I’ve learned to start by separating the procedure into two; the artistic aspect and the technical aspect. These two procedures are explored and constructed together because they augment and support each other. One is a structure and one is a story.
But I find that I’m more interested in the untold story of these two procedures growing together and learning from each other; being in constant dialogue. What does this growth look like in my work? Can I depict this in a performance? Can I turn this dialogue into an underlying structure that I can keep using?
https://defneonen.com/composition-in-confinement
Description
To build you have to learn how to build, to depict what’s in your mind, you have to learn how to tell a story.
I build my stories through and with light. Light and shadow my two favorite extremes because they create contrast together. Contrast can construct dimensions and express feelings. Hiding or showing objects, emphasizing or blurring details, generating movement.
The story I’d like to tell here is a story of the circumstances of our present time. Imprisoned in our homes by an invisible force, we are adapting to this new reality, creating a new normal.
There is a duality that is constant in my new normal. Extreme highs and lows. A person creating, building, socializing and a person empty, grieving, silent and still. My body and my mind are not living in the same reality. My body is lonely and immobile but my mind is racing though the day, determined to create and to work.
How can I build an immersive environment, a choreographed world or a performance within my home to bring my body and my mind together? How can I depict this world through light and movement?
Can I bring the outside inside? What would deceiving my mind into thinking it’s outside entail? Can I depict the separation between the outside world and myself through a specific medium? What is my physical voice; my gestures and movements in confinement. Can I change these gestures and shapes I create with my body through movement and choreography generation techniques?
Classes
Choreographic Interventions