Boris Willis' Blog

Choreographers

2007-05-18T09:00:00.000-05:00

Who has emerged in the last 20 years as a choreographer of note? What choreographer or company has risen to the level of Mark Morris Dance Group or Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane and Company in the last 20 years?

I can think of none.

I wonder if it is because there are thousands of choreographers making work based on their academic training. Therefore they are making dances of a similar style and level of effectiveness. Every year a new group of choreographers graduate from universities all over the country. Who in the last 20 years has challenged the kind of work they have been taught enough to break away or form a new conceptual basis for movement or dance.

Remember what happened with the National Endowment for the Arts when it was almost shut down and the fear people felt about the government taking away their livelyhood. I sense that same fear with the current government about the war in Iraq. I feel a fear of challenging the powers that be. I feel the fear of attack if we don't do work in a way that "they" approve of. So I say we must find a way around this and one way is the Internet.

My friends and I have posted a new dance everyday for a week now. We call ourselves the Pre-Futurists because we are forward looking but only concerned with the now. By making work everyday we create a new and unstoppable way to perform. One that does not depend on funding or theaters or audience response. Modern dance is becoming irrelevant as an art form because its audiences are mostly other dancers. But more importantly, the term is too hard to explain and people unfamiliar with it think there is a story that they don't get when they watch modern dance. The term modern dance has to go, and along with it postmodern dance. We make movement art. Say it to your self and identify what comes up for you when you say it. Don't call yourself a dancer, say you are a performing artist and don't limit yourself to just making dances in the traditional sense. Use the tools around you, does your cell phone take photos or videos, do you have a digital camera that takes video, do you have a computer, do you have an Internet connection, do you have a love of movement. In just a week of making and seeing dance everyday I am getting more and more ideas and there are more things that I want to try. I am inspired by the videos that my friends produce and we freely share them for the world to see.

Content is being produced by the people. It is no longer a product of giant media companies and therefore movement artist once again have the opportunity to change the world.

People may devalue movement because it is the first skill we learn but don't let them. People are fascinated with movement. Look at the men who watch sports and talk about the movement skills of their favorite players. We live in a culture with short attention spans and who spend their time actively communicating with others through their portable communication devices and social networking websites. Those of us who want a future in dance should not follow the old model. We need to recognize that audiences want and need different ways to be communicated with. Go where the people are! Get out of the theater and into the clubs, the streets and the web and perform your art everyday.

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2007-05-05T15:40:00.000-05:00

Photos of parents

2007-02-05T21:35:00.000-05:00

Phase 1 complete

2006-11-23T13:49:00.000-05:00

Ok so I did it! Yeah! I am still working on it but you can see it at www.abandonedrevolution.com
Peace,
Boris

Dancers mix old, new for genre defying performance - Arts

2006-11-09T19:14:00.000-05:00

Dancers mix old, new for genre defying performance - Arts

Totally changed

2006-08-13T22:33:00.000-05:00

So it has been a while since my last post. I have totally changed my ideas. No more election. I found it to be too much for me to research while I am getting a masters in Dance. If I was getting a masters in Political Science then maybe I would do it. SO! I am doing a live video game about the future of dance. It is called Abandoned Revolution and you will be able to learn more at www.abandonedrevolution.com. It is the story of an evil director who wants to rid the world of real dancers and replace them with animated characters who never forget steps or get tired or need to take a break. However, in order to create these dancers he must kidnap real dancers and use their movement. You the audience must fight to get the dancers back and you must choreograph their performance. Some special guest will be available to help but you never know when they can help. The last revolution was inturpted by congress and abandoned, don't let this happen again. The artist must survive, but they can't do it without your help.

Rove

2006-01-22T23:11:00.000-05:00

Perhaps Rove is the game. Rove is attempting to get his candidate elected he uses scare tactics to get the audience to vote for him. The candidates will have to work really hard to get elected. Rove is like HAL from 2001:A Space Odyssey hell bent on winning the election no matter what. Including but not limited to putting gay marriage on the ballot.

latest and greatest idea

2006-01-14T00:20:00.000-05:00

OK first I create a website where people can vote. Hopefully have some computers in the lobby or have the lab open and set up for voting.

The candidates are on cam perhaps in studio 5 but maybe they can also come to the stage or mingle with the audience to try to get votes.

Performances happen on stage relevent to specific topics and perhaps the candidates perform. Maybe simulate the passage of time and maybe it all happens on one night.

After the show participants can register and vote performance ends on line.

serious games

2005-12-29T12:39:00.000-05:00

a force more powerful-activism
america's army-how the military works
power politics III- how politics works
second life-live commerce
the sims 2- life simulations

serious games is a 1 billion dollar industry as opposed to entertainment at 30 billion

more ideas

2005-12-29T11:51:00.000-05:00

in my insecurity I am thinking that should do a game about modern dance instead of the election or a game about the history of DC something that I know a lot about instead of a game based on something that I am passionate about but would have to learn on the fly.

I have some characters in mind.

"Mr 911" always returns to september 11, 2001 no matter what. He is a chicken little. He scares people.

"Ms 911 is a joke" says that the attack was a fluke and that it will be 50 years before something like that can happen again. It will happen when we forget that it can happen. Pearl Harbor to 911 was a long time we are too aware in the present.

"Mr Elect a black president now" It will never happen because Americans are accustomed to seeing a White male as president. It is part of our identity as a nation. This is why people were so upset with preemtive strikes it is not who we are as a nation. everything changes if a black person becomes president all of the years of psychological domination by Whites gets altered somehow. Every decision becomes a matter of race. every mistake and every triumph becomes a racial issue and we will see how racist this nation really is.

Grandparents

2005-12-12T01:53:00.001-05:00

More Family Photos

2005-12-12T01:53:00.000-05:00

Restored Family Photos

2005-12-12T01:51:00.000-05:00

The Theater Experience

2005-11-26T12:31:00.000-05:00

What if going to the theater was similar to the Rocky Horror show. A truly interactive experience. We ask the audience to dress up we tell them to yell out things outloud. We get them to use their cell phones to call someone in the theater or call someone onstage. Have a roaming camera to put them on screen like on Oprah. Make the theater experience better than the gaming experience.
The story must be compelling and it must take presidence over all technology. Technology must be driven by the story.

What if

2005-11-26T11:53:00.000-05:00

This would be very cool. If I performed on the Sullivant hall Stage and in the Mocap Lab at Accad. You could show up to either place to see the performance one on video and one live at each place. The Accad experience would be more interactive and the sullivant performance would be more like a traditional theater performance.

dance dance revolution and other games

2005-11-26T11:28:00.000-05:00

I recently played a dance game from Atari not dance dance revolution but similar. I think I will use the patterns from these kinds of games for my movement. I also saw a video made from Sims 2. This could be an easy way to use high quality graphics and animation to create sequences for my project. currently I am playing No One Lives Forever 2, a first person shooter. I think that Bacchanale is going to be cut out of the picture except as inspiration.

http://gamesfirst.com/?id=1010
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/01/23/ddr/?CP=RDF&DN=310
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-04-02-obesity-video-game_x.htm
Article about popularity of DDR

convincing people

2005-11-26T10:23:00.000-05:00

We need to convince people that they need to do (A), they need to feel that it is in their best interest. That is what we need them to do. This is not lying?
Todd Clark

Video Games

2005-11-19T12:21:00.000-05:00

I just read an article in USA Today about Dance Dance Revolution a game that uses a pad which players stomp out patterns that they see on a video screen. The article was saying how much weight teenagers lose by becoming addicted to the game.

I had a thought about using some of the ideas of the game like following directions, giving orders, telling the dancers how to move, when to move, using the rhymic patterns of a musical score only those who completed the task with a perfect score could move on to the next level. This would mean repetition until the task was completed. Saving the game would become important so you would not have to always start a level from the beginning.

There needs to be an objective such as becoming president.
Ah yes maybe you start off being a neighborhood leader, then the city council, then mayor, then govenor, then congressman, then senator, finally president. Seven levels to take over the world.

Catch Phrases

2005-11-18T16:08:00.000-05:00

Axis of Evil
Doctrine of Preemption
Shock and Awe
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Jessica Lynch
Looters
Coalition of the willing
Decapitating
Embedding
Minder
Old Europe
Regime Change
We will be welcomed as liberators
September 11, 2001
End to major combat operations
Operation Desert Scorpion
Guerrilla-type campaign
87 Billion needed
Suicide attacks
Party officials will be allowed to return to their posts
Abu Ghraib
Beheadings
"no credible evidence that Iraq adn al-Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States"

Spoiled Rotten

2005-11-02T23:33:00.000-05:00

Ron Vernon- "When I was a kid I got everything that I wanted. I never learned to appreciate anything except manipulation. If I could get you to give me what I wanted then I was a success." This is how I got into politics. I knew how to get the vote.

My New Camera

2005-10-25T12:04:00.000-05:00

I just got this yesterday and I am more that a little excited. I have to get to know this camera very fast because I have a project due tomorrow and I plan to use it. Too bad it is raining out. I am excited that I will be able to film my project in HDV. Now, how do I get an HiDef projector?

Perhaps, power destroys

2005-10-18T14:31:00.000-05:00

I just had a thought about looking at how power corrupts. Looking at the government and the arrogance of power and how it makes people do things that they eventually regret. Also how people forget and after a while even the once most hated man in America can return to run for president.

Sitting at the EMMA Lab

2005-10-16T15:03:00.000-05:00

This is me. Sitting and thinking about this project and trying to imagine what it will look like. I think I will create a character based on me, my look and to some extent my life. However, much of it will be fictional but based in reality.

Ron Vernon

2005-10-16T11:11:00.000-05:00

Ron Vernon is the main character in this game. He grew up in a small North Carolina town. Religion was central to life in his small town and he was a very religious person mostly because that was all he knew. The world that he lived in was very specific in its ideas and in its purpose. Everything changed when he left town and met people who found his way of life to be strange and unatural. He looked for others who believed as he did so he could find comfort and so that he could know himself. If everything he had ever belived was wrong then he was no one. Nothing created more fear and panic in Ron Vernon than being without an identity. Soon he would discover that giving people and identity made him a very powerful person. This power would allow him to ingest great amouts of evil and still have people see him as good because of an ability to make them feel important.

First Idea

2005-10-16T11:04:00.000-05:00

So, I want to create a live video game. However, it is not the video game I am interested in. I want to touch people and make them understand something that I believe. That is that everything must exist. The good, the bad and everything in between. We must find goodness whenever we can but we must also accept the bad when it approaches and arrives. We should not let bad linger neither should good become the norm. Somehow we should live on the edge of both worlds falling frequently into both.