An image may tell a thousand words, but put it with music and I'm sure it multiplies. This video says a lot about the type of work I like to do, despite its manipulated format. Meaning in theatre is something of a "special interest" for me, especially the kind that works on multiple modes - music, movement, text and so on. Zen Zen Zo work with a variety of physical and text-based theatrical styles, but their work is often rather visceral. When I first began working with the company, Director Lynne Bradley explained to me, and I paraphrase. "Some movement forms are quite cerebral, like classical ballet - form and technique are very important. Others, like much contemporary dance, are more based in the emotions - we feel it in the heart. We approach the heart and the head from the guts." There is much in this dissertation about the difficulties I have in recognising emotion, in fact a whole section is dedicated to emotional response in the Insights. This video shows the kind of events for which much of my music is provides an emotional component.

The montage is photographs from several productions with Zen Zen Zo over the past several years. It is very difficult to convey a theatrical experience outside the theatre. The movie at the beginning of this thesis is a single camera video taken live, but it too can not reproduce the true context. The montage method at least has the possibility of moving the focus on to specific aspects of performance, the faces, particular bodily positions and the like. While the images and montages certainly do tell a thousand words, it is nothing to the millions of the performance itself. Thanks to the photographers, Simon Woods and Morgan Roberts, who allowed me to use their work, and to the members of Zen Zen Zo.

The music is "The Lamb" from SubCon Warrior 2.0 (2009). Our heroine has realised the hopelessness of her own situation and must sacrifice herself to the the Game Engine to save the players from a real death in the virtual world.

Related Posts

1. Video Complexities: People are much more complex than I thought possible.
2. Un-words and art-i-facts: Web-based, non-linear, no paper version, multimedia, reflective of thought process ... These are concepts guaranteed to raise questions in the hearts of university bureaucracies.
3. What will I want to know next?: This document will live on. What are my own hopes for learning from it?
4. Game On!: Sometimes it feels like I'm trying to do things differently just for the sake of challenging the University's guidelines!
5. Colours and Images: The images have been chosen very carefully to enhance the text that they are associated with. They each mean something quite particular to me - they carry "baggage".
6. Eye Contact: On some occasions an unexpected emotional connection occurs, and can be overwhelming.
7. You don't know what you don't know ...: Giving a label of "different" to an experience that is "normal for me" results in a re-evaluatuion of a whole life.