ESCHERESQUE WORKMEN

(M. C. Escher, Dutch graphic artist with a taste for illusions and paradoxical constructions drawn in 2D.)

(Robert Leighton, cartoonist. A short article on how this one was created can be found here.)

DANCE THE FACADE

More dance! As a follow-up of my last post, I got several tips about the phenomenon I now know by the name of site-specific dance. This example is a particularly lovely one, which a dancer (Thanks, Karin!) tiped me of. The performers from Project Bandaloop, suspended in ropes, are using the context of an old stone and terracotta facade as a means to create a new and interesting interaction between body and architcture. The variation between windows and walls become variations in movements, with jumping and landing movements enhanced by the slow speed allowed by the suspension, leading me to speculate about toher ways architects could encourage diffent ways of moving.

"Oakland City Hall 1917" by Oakland Chamber of Commerce, Publicity Bureau - http://imgzoom.cdlib.org/Fullscreen.ics?ark=ark:/13030/kt7199q9d0/z73. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The building is Oakland City Hall, designed in the Beaux-Arts style by architects Palmer and Hornbostel and completed in 1914. A steel-frame building, it was damaged in an earthquake in 1989, but had its foundations redesigned to withstand new earthquakes.

Lovely, simple music by William Ryan Fritch.

DANCE THE ROOM

What is the relationship between the body and architecture? Are rooms all about seeing, or should designers also take in account sensory experiences such as touch, sound, smell, temperature and balance?  And do we use the whole space of the rooms we are in, or do we simply stick to restricted movements through restricted zones?

Picture credits: Not me. Sia, I suppose?

In this rather amazing music video, 11 year old Maddie Ziegler performs a choreography that to an (to my eyes) unusual degree, engages with the room in which it is performed. Sia's rihannesque (they've collaborated earlier) song is complemented by Siegler's moves through what looks like an early 20th century apartment, with rough and stained surfaces. She moves from room to room, playing with light and shadow, as well as constantly interacting physically with the shapes and borders of the spaces in new ways.

Although I unfortunately can't use or experience a room this way myself, due to my being a well below average dancer, I think this video serves as a reminder of the possibilities that lie in the meeting between bodies and rooms, possibilities that perhaps should be more explored by both designers, dancers and daily users of architecture.

P.S. If you (as I) were truly fascinated, have a look at the one-take version of the video at The Guardian. A bit rougher than the official video, it's perhaps even more captivating in the unrefined honesty of what was happening on the set.