Planet Texas Reflection
I was at a conference over the weekend, so I was unable to attend the Social Impact BuildFest. However, I am excited for the haptics demo with the TXI lab whenever the moment presents!
During planet Texas, I was able to attend the aqueous performance at waller creek, which also incorporated the Japanese form Butoh, with ecology (the presence and moreso absence) of water in Texas, which I thought related to Haiku Horizons pretty well.
Rosemary navigating through the water.
This performance was conducted by Rosemary Candelario, where she navigated through Waller Creek on a small boat that appeared handmade with one paddle. She slowly moved through the water and often had to get up out of the boat in shallow or rocky areas, to move the boat past there. During the times she moved, she did so very slowly, usually participating in the Butoh dance form. Many times, she also interacted with the surrounding nature, tugging on tree branches and playing with the water.
This was my first time seeing this form of dance, and I found that the movements were kinda slow and that created a lot of suspense, leaving the viewers very invested in what could happen next. She highlights water sources in Texas, and I found that waller creek was a good place to do this, as there are areas in which the water level is very deep, and other areas where it’s rather shallow, symbolic of bodies of water in Texas. I understood this pretty well because I sampled water from the creek a couple weeks ago, so I’m well aware of the difference in depth.
Her leaving the boat in a shallow area.
I think this is a great example of a large scale immersive experience, which I’m not sure we will complete, but could be an interesting topic to consider. I do think it was very fun to follow the experience step by step, unsure of what will happen next- something we could add to our experience. This could be in the form of the user walking through a multi-step process with multiple outcomes, or by us guiding the user through a more complicated journey, the way this experience occurred.
