10 minute read
Five Sensory Online Performances
Аs part of the project we presented five online sensory performances, dedicaed to the five senses – smell, hearing, taste, sight, touch. All of them, as well as the entire creative process that surrounded them, took place in the online platform “zoom.us” between November 2020 and May 2021. Each performance was presented three times with free entrance/registration and after each performance we held an online meeting between our team and the participants.
The trailer for the performances: https://youtu.be/UHDOdcsxRO4
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“Aromasphere” is a sensory online performance, dedicated to our ability to connect with our sense of smell and build emotional bridges through time.
“Somewhere between the fading past and the uncertain future a narrow passage remains Are we able to go through it, bringing all of our memories, fears, hopes and dreams?”
Author: Ana Vulcheva leaders of the Creative process and director’s points of view: Gabriela Petrova and Milena
Stanojevic
Music: Eliyan Arroyo Graphic design: Sasha Hadjieva
Ana tells us more about “Arоmasphere”:
Sense: Smell.
What inspired me about creating “Arоmasphere”: the performance is a tale of the possible-impossible future. While I was working on the creation of the performance the question that kept leading me was: Isn’t the collective memory in and of itself resembling the Noah’s Coffin, that protects the finest particles of the world that we know and love as well as of ourselves?
The biggest challenge in the creation of an online sensory performance:
The biggest challenge for me was to find the point in which the live performance and the online interaction intertwine in a harmonious manner.
What is the sound of Aromasphere”: “Aromasphere” sounds like a strong wind hitting hard on your window and whispering through the cracks “A storm is coming…”
What is a sensory online performance?
Link to the video with Ana Vulcheva: https://youtu.be/s9hVfUqjr5o Аna Vulcheva is an actress and performance artist. She believes in the transformational power of art and that the real spectacle is born in the point of interaction between the artist and the audience. Since 2012 she has been actively involved in different forms of the sensory interactive theater. Ana graduated at “New Bulgarian University” specializing in “Physical and psychological theater”.
Sasha Hadjieva is a freelance performer and a visual artist. She is an answers seeker with a constant inclination for traveling. Sasha works with the methodology of the sensory-labyrinth theater since 2011 and to this day this continues to be one of the most amazing journeys in her life. She has dozens of performances in her professional bio and during the recent years has been part of the team of Inner Theater Company.
During the open performance-lecture “Can you hear?” together we explore the nature and potential of sound. Through the prism of the absurd and the somewhat comical we have the opportunity to make some personal and sound-related discoveries.
“What does it mean to hear? To listen? To perceive? What is the sensation of constructing sound bridges or to lower resque boats into a sea of vibrational noise?”
Author: Sasha Hadjieva leaders of the Creative process and director’s points of view: Gabriela Petrova and Milena Stanojevic Music: Mihail Stoyanov Graphic design: Sasha Hadjieva
Sasha tells us more about “Can you hear?” – an open performance-lecture:
Sense: Hearing.
What inspired me to create “Can you hear?”: For me it was somewhat disturbing to realize how many nouns and their derivatives exist in the totality of human languages. Words that have the single purpose of expressing speaking, generating sound and announcing something. At the same time there aren’t that many verbs designating actions like – hearing, listening, perceiving. It is astounding to think how much energy we spend in creating personal “noise” and how insignificant the portion of our attention aimed at listening and synchronizing with our environment and the others is. As a result of these thoughts, and my desire to change this “sound-ships”, I created a brief performance-lecture “Can you hear?” to which I welcome everybody – with the presumption to hear and to be heard.
The biggest challenge in the creation of an online sensory performance: For me the biggest challenge definitely were the limitations imposed by the online platforms we were using. This led to an approach that was much more abstract and indirect relative to the senses.
What does “Can you hear?” tastes like: Like a hot-hot cosmic soup.
What is a sensory online performance?
Link to a video with Sasha Hadjieva: https://youtu.be/ejPMM04BCKM
“Umami” is an exploration of the memory of the taste buds on the surface of the tongue. It is a performance inspired by the childhood and its different tastes - tastes that led us to important discoveries and experiences.
“In this present moment we seal the pleasant taste of remembering. And we remember everything that once was, and could still be engraved on the pieces of matter. With our lips we bite off possibilities. There - where we arrive with the last bite and then we start from the beginning, all over again”
Author: Yanitza Atanasova leaders of the Creative process and director’s points of view: Gabriela Petrova and Milena Stanojevic Music: Eliyan Arroyo Graphic design: Sasha Hadjieva
Yanitza tells us more about the sensory online performance “Umami”:
Sense: Taste.
What inspired me about “Umami” was my childhood spent at the countryside. A childhood filled with different tastes that led to important discoveries and experiences for me. Eating sour cherries climbed on the tree. Searching impatiently for ripe strawberries in the garden. The grapes that surrounded the swing in the backyard. The warm milk mixed with sugar and bread. The watering of the big rose tomatoes at night. Now I need to recall and remember them, to bring them back into my life.
The biggest challenge in the creation of an online sensory performance: For me it was the proper selection, configuration and implementation of the purely technological resources required for reaching the online audience in the desired way.
What does “Umami” taste like: It tastes like you are consciously devouring life. Because the pleasant taste of being alive is essential for the pleasure we experience for simply existing and being here.
What is a sensory online performance?
Link to the video with Yanitza Atanasova: https://youtu.be/rpvQJZwVUWo Yanitza is an independent actress, dancer and choreograph. She graduated at NATFIZ “Krustio Sarafov” and currently teaches contemporary dance techniques at “New Bulgarian University”. She works in the field of dance theater, video dance, theater and performance. Yanitza is interested in exploring the topics of emotional intelligence and body language. She is in integral part of the Playback theater “Story catchers” troup, director of the artistic dance movie “Mandatorily pleasant”, as well as part of the crew for the performances “Hold on” by Tsveta Doicheva and “Transition” by Ivailo Dimitrov.
Еliyan Arroyo graduates at “NATFIZ” Krustio Sarafov specializing in “Acting and musical theater”. He loves the dust on the theater stage, but also takes pleasure in acting in front of a camera. He has participated in numerous performance and interactive sensory theaters. Due to the large scope covered by his specialty he tries to be equally proficient in all three disciplines – theater, singing, dancing. When imparting classes to children he tries to develop the same three skills in them. Eliyan never stops looking for new undiscovered talents in him – recently he has been experimenting with his abilities in the art of drawing.
“Wannabe in your hands” is a personal story that avoids the mundane and the standard narrative structure. One of the main topics is the Home and how we all changed in recent times. The performance shows the catalysing, beneficial effect of living a life that is out of the ordinary (a life we are all living right now), and how we can use this time and circumstances to create beautiful worlds with everything that is in our immediate surroundings. Whether in our homes or in the virtual realm – nobody can be sure about that anymore.
“Which has a greater power? The old dream or the desire that was suddenly and unexpectedly fulfilled? It doesn’t matter if the person has the power to keep believing and doing. If one has this power, he doesn’t need to know – he already IS.”
Author: Eliyan Arroyo leaders of the Creative process and director’s points of view: Gabriela Petrova and Milena Stanojevic Music: Eliyan Arroyo Graphic design: Sasha Hadjieva
Eliyan tells us more about “Wannabe in Your Hands”:
Sense: Sight. For me the senses are an entrance to the human soul. The soul in and ofitself is a powerful tool for communication with the rest of the seen and unseen world. It is a tool that is more direct and unambiguous than any verbal method of communication. In other words – through the senses, in each and every soul lives the delicate mark of all other souls and entities.
What inspired me for the name of the performance: It was the creative process behind this “experience” itself - during the exploration for ways to achieve adequate sensory communication with the audience in an online environment. The title “Wannabe in your hands” came to my mind also as a result of the art form that has been possessing me for the last year or so – drawing. Nobody is vaccinated against the “Wannabe” that lives actively, or is deeply asleep in each one of us – it can suddenly activate itself at any given moment in time. During these strange months, in which we exist lately, drawing turned out to be my wannabe. Right here, right now it is my biggest love and that is why I decided to share it in a peculiar and personal way.
The biggest challenge in the creation of an online sensory performance: The challenge in this specific case was that while searching for the narrow openings in the digital version of the specific art form we are dealing with, I recognized there was a danger of me hopping into a different art form that is already acclaimed and defined – in
that way there was a risk that consisted in avoiding the challenge itself. I want to be a student and a discoverer at the same time, and not someone who looks for the “easy way out”.
What does “Wannabe in your hands” taste like: It tastes like the sea – a sea you know is salty, but you have no idea how salty it would actually be. When dealing with sensory and interactive art forms you cannot have expectations in regards to the final result and the reaction of the audience. It is very similar to a dream – it begins and ends somewhere, often times with an unknown final because we woke up too early to see it. The dreams themselves, once born in our consciousness, probably continue falling down on their way to a huge ocean, until we remember to dream them again. The important thing is that from here on our lives have a taste in a literal and metaphorical sense. And it’s not only taste that is needed – life must be felt and experienced through all senses.
What is a sensory online performance?
Link to the video with Eliyan Arolyo: https://youtu.be/S17WRgVV4oY
„Lifestream“ - a sensory online performance
Lifestream – performance for digital sharing of non-digital stuff. And why: “In a sea of information we are drowning in silence?”
Author: Eliyan Arroyo leaders of the Creative process and director’s points of view: Gabriela Petrova and Milena Stanojevic Music: Eliyan Arroyo Graphic design: Sasha Hadjieva
Georgi tells us more about „Lifestream“:
Sense: Touch.
I was inspired to create “Lifestream” by: Our lives in a digital environment, our residence in the digital and the conflict with the physical world.
The biggest challenge in the creation of an online sensory performance: the interaction and the lack of living energy that usually flows between the artist and the audience.
What does “Lifestream” taste like: It tastes like Home, Nostalgia and Christmas. Georgi Naldzhiev develops his artistic and poetic language through years of experience in the fields of cinema, the open spaces of contemporary theater, performance and visual arts. He is an artist whose work accentuates on the interest and curiosity for the human nature.
