Trying out some ideas for improvisations... We played with the simple idea of question and answer. 
This was this evening in Leblon on the rooftop of an apartment block, my first time dancing on a roof, the stars were out (not that you can see many in Rio) and in the distance (behing the camera) is Chirst the redeemer lit up on the Corcovado looking down over the city. 
Something that I love about Rio is that any space is the perfect space... right in the middle of the city I felt very connected to the environment I was in, thinking about all the hustle and bussle going on below us of the daily lives of the city. However with the expanse of the sky above and with the task we set between the two of us I was also able to have a private space, to move and play and be separate from the many different lives going on below us.  
After watching and reflecting I would like to play more with time and timing... but please let me know your thoughts...

Also excuse the watermark... after many dropping of cameras and trying to elastic band camera's to chairs we used a camera where the format of the file is not recognised by my mac so I have had convert it with some free software!

A short clip of our processes so far.... lots of talking, discussing and sharing youtube videos as well as making music and dance!

The lovely Pedro Reis has joined us in our improvisations and collaborations! This was a little something that happend whilst we were waiting for the rain to stop! I know, its rains in Rio too! hope you enjoy it....

So the rain didn't really stop so I decided to join them.....only briefly but it was fun. My favourite part is where I hit the lamp! I meant to do that.... honest! I thought it would make an interesting lighting effect......

Before it started to rain....

Our last rehearsal in Rio was soo lovely, we were joined by Yuri Parkinson who also gave his musical talents to our improvisations. This time we rehearsed at the Senzala Capoeira Academy in Copaleme. This space is the second home for Ruan and Pedro who train there three times a week and also became mine for my time in Rio. The space is very different to the roof top and so was the improvisations. We again focused on the ideas of questions and answers and responding to each other.

Whilst talking and discussing the process we also had a bit of an impromptu game...we realised we weren't recording so had another not so impromptu game! 
It was great to play with Ruan in this context and have the question and answer of capoeira within our creative process. Everything we are exploring in our collaboration of music and dance also lies at the fundamentals of capoeira, question and answer, time and distance. It hadn't quite occurred to me until Ruan mentioned it after this game. It seems quite appropriate that this naturally occurred as part of our process... 

Quando eu venho de Luanda
This song is famously sung within capoeira circles by Ruan's father. It has a great significance and meaning that I found quite intimidating when improvising...
This posed an interesting question for me to respond to.. I found it quite challenging as this is something that is very much from Brazilian culture that I have only dipped my fingers in...

So this concludes this chapter of the work in Rio. I flew back on Saturday after having a brilliant rehearsal and improv jam on Friday. I left feeling very excited and very positive about the work we will do on this project. We shared our culture, time and experience with each other discussing, dancing, playing music and capoeira. This time together has been integral to our process and has set the groundwork to inform our future work that we will continue now I'm back in Wales. We look forward to receiving Ruan and friends in Wales soon!

I've spent my weekend with my new best friend Daniela Pozino and her family in Itaipuacu (It-eye-poo-a-sue) near Niteroi eating delicious food, learning Portuguese but primarily making a dance film! We met on Leticia Ramos' course at Danca em Foco two weeks ago and decided to make a dance film together.
The idea of the film is to explore with movement of the dancing body and the camera the meaning of the Itaipuacu. Itaipuacu name comes from the original native language here which is Tupi and translates too
ITA- Rock 
Y-  Noise 
PU - Water 
ASSU - Big
Daniela improvised with these ideas with movement whilst I used them to influence the camera (and movement of it) we've played alot with perspective... making things seem big or small and echoing the movement of the sea.
The music has been provided by Daniela's brother Luciano, he is a musician and this track as well was created during an improvised jam so it was a perfect choice for our film. 
We spent most of the day yesterday filming and then the evening (and a bit of this morning) editing. We used my Toshiba flip camera to film....

Us after a long day of filming!!

a small edited clip from my experiments with Thiago in botofogo yesterday......

Today was the first day of the course with Roberta Marques... I saw her films for the first time on Sunday Night at the Danca em Foco Festival. The personal nature and use of time in her films is really interesting and I am very much looking forward to doing this course with her this week!

Not the best image ever.... but.... It was the presentation of my film at the festival on Sunday. It was very surreal to see Moel Siabod being shown at a Theatre in Rio de Janeiro. I received lots of positive comments about the film after the showing which are very encouraging for more film work to come...

So some lovely new friends took me here on the weekend
http://www.mangueira.com.br/mangueira/
Turns out I'm not so bad at samba if there is a cockroach on the loose by my feet!!!
Amazing energy and passion for samba and life.. very inspiring.

So Friday was the last day of the workshops with Celina and Leticia.... It was really good to share with the other people what we had been working on in the workshops... sadly I have no video (as yet) from Celina's workshops on video projections... but... hopefully I will soon.
I do however have a video of a short choreography with the camera ( that I would like to work on much more) I'd would like now, to keep working on this, and get to a point where I am less concerned about how I move the camera and I am comfortable with moving and manipulating it and focussing it on certain parts essentially dancing with it. I also want to develop and extend certain parts, take more time over some things... lots of things to think about, maybe there will be another version soon ... Let me know your thoughts.....

This week has been really interesting, exploring lots of ideas and doing lots of movement research and playing with ideas. Tomorrow is the last day of the workshops and I am really looking forward to see what everyone has made in the video projections workshops. Our group have been working on projecting the body on the body... lots of experiments and many different ideas later we have a small performance we will show tomorrow.... video to follow!
The dancing with the camera workshops have been optimum... so much to explore... a completely new way of working and thinking about time and space for me... here is a snippet of what we did today 

So I managed to find my way to from Copacabana to Espaco Corpo Seguro in Botafogo and then back to Recreio today with getting lost... I am quite proud of this... 
I went to the contact Improvisation class there http://corposeguro.jimdo.com/atividades/contato-improvisa%C3%A7%C3%A3o/
my new favourite phrase in portugese is foi ótimo which I think (hope) translates to it was amazing. In this city, I never fail to be amazed about how open and welcoming people are. 
The class was with Fernando Neder and there was just myself and another person there. We explored weight, perception and polarity, lots of interesting exercises to help heighten perception and awareness. How can I perceive my space? and how do I sense the presence of another person? and what do I do with this information? how does it inform my movement? what choices do I make from my perception of my space and place?
Questions Questions Questions......
Maybe I will have more tomorrow 

Today has been a very exciting day....the first day of the Danca em Foco Festival here in Rio. An International festival of video dance and dance film. Today started off with a workshop on Video Projections with Celina Portella and then the afternoon continued with Dancing with the camera with Leticia Ramos. 
I love how you can travel half way round the world and find people who are interested in the exact same things as you are, completely different language and culture but the same questions of presence and relationship in dance. 
Video Projections raised quite a few questions about how you work with the camera and the projector itself, distorting ideas about time and space. She showed us some of her work, these two were particularly interesting, the layering of images, creating ideas of a reality that are then broken, leaving traces of ideas and passages..... all fun things to think about for tomorrow!
Have a look below...

Leticia Ramos' workshop was also very interesting, and looked at how to dance with the camera and not for the camera, using it as a dance partner or object that is part of a performance. We also had discussions about the notion of choreographer and editor in terms of video dance/ dance film..... lots of interesting things to think about again before I head back tomorrow....