Performance & Installation
At the intersection of graphic design and dance performance lies HAPPINA, a performative installation created to present the philosophies of revolutionary choreographer Pina Bausch, and the 1960's Happenings Movement. Through the efforts of myself, my colleague Charles Lin, and LA-based modern dancer Charlotte Smith, HAPPINA exists as a three-level performative dance piece with graphic interventions in space.
HAPPINA was created in connection with a 10-week intensive book project on the German modern dance choreographer Pina Bausch →
2016 — Instructor: Brad Bartlett — Projection Media / Print / Performance Choreography
Related Projects:Pina Bausch book and posters →From Silence symposium identity and installation →
Through the two-and-a-half week rehearsal process, Charles, Charlotte and I worked together to blend the story of Pina Bausch's spirit and life with the alogical, haphazard, and absurd performance art of the Happenings.
In order to best channel our respective talents into the piece, the three of us decided to start by writing a "score." During her own rehearsals, Pina Bausch kept meticulous notes of seemingly disparate thoughts, feelings, situations, and expressive experiences. Her dancers were tasked with reacting to these notes, or prompts. Their rehearsed, reworked, and perfected physical interpretations of the prompts are what Pina would collage together into her final choreography. This working process became the model for our "score," incorporating emotions we were trying to harness and questions we were trying to provoke.
Here below, pieces of our final score guide you through moments from the performance. The full score was made into a 12-foot poster which formed part of the installation design in the final movement of the performance.