Venus Enroute uploaded by Brenda Clews to YouTube.
The poetry is an excerpt from my "Botticelli Suite of Venus Poems":
She stopped to rest. Momentarily, in the field of pure possibility, her position unfixed, indeterminate.
Without hovering, or insecurity.
It was an image of being in the vast field of life.
Without knowing. In a position of unknowing, positionless, I suppose. Existing without location or momentum. Vibrating with possibility. It wasn't exciting or fearful, just what is.
Nothing is fixed or certain, though there are always solutions to problems.
Then she continued on.
She didn't doubt her certainties.
Without hovering, or insecurity.
It was an image of being in the vast field of life.
Without knowing. In a position of unknowing, positionless, I suppose. Existing without location or momentum. Vibrating with possibility. It wasn't exciting or fearful, just what is.
Nothing is fixed or certain, though there are always solutions to problems.
Then she continued on.
She didn't doubt her certainties.
The music clip is from Lena Selyanina's 'Sarah's Dance,' from her album, "Piano Poetry," which carries a Creative Commons license and may be found here: http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/45056.
The chair sequence and the poem added to it had no original connection. I cut the clip from two hours of footage as perhaps 'workable.' Then I searched for a poem. It's amazing how the poem 'fits' the movement, huh? Creatively perhaps we are a gesture, a gesture where here poetry and dance are an aligned fusion.
Albeit, the resulting video is a bit comic. The tag on the back of my dress? As soon as I saw the footage I grabbed the dress and cut it off. The other camera? Ahh, I'm still just learning how to make videos and don't have a clone plugin to remove these elements. Enjoy the humor!
(Or perhaps, in context of the poem, since Venus has swung her scallop shell around to enter the world of experience, we could say the tag on her dress reads: 'If this Vintage Venus is found wandering, send her back to "Mount Olympus"!)
I'll watch it Brenda as soon as my computer is running at full speed again - at the moment it's a bit slow
ReplyDeletebut it should be fine in a few days time.
Looking forward to it.
The body of poetry on your blog and here connects modern and Renaissance perspectives. Aphrodite is at once both sensual and impressionistic - an astute observation of how the Botticelli painting is at once realistic and surrealistic. It is going to take a few more readings but the long lines seem like waves and the dance a wave in itself. The eye for detail, the favorite book that bruises and opens to the page of Aphrodite, is painterly but the lines like Whitman or Collins. Its a tremedously ambitous work in every way.
ReplyDeleteThe film is done like an imprssionist painting - matching the dance and the longer work on your blog. Its courageous work Brenda - I'll be back to read it again.
Thanks, Boris. Your comments are always appreciated. xo
ReplyDeleteNathan, I am honoured that you are viewing me as an artist, and my video & poetry as art productions. That means a lot, you know. I got stalled on the Venus manuscript, so much more to say, and hopefully inspiration will visit again soon.
It is a serious work, and you have seen this. Venus was the patron who ushered in the Renaissance, if we consider what mythological figures/gods/goddesses were in ascendance. The ocean is everywhere in those poems, yes. Venus is born from the foam, comes to us on a shell, the ocean is always in her.
"The favourite book that bruises and opens to a page of Aphrodite" -wow! You are writing poetry for me in your comment. My painting, 'Women in Summer,' has a rendition of Botticelli's Venus in it.
Thank you for your astute appraisal, offering poetry in your reading of poetry, and seeing this video in context of the larger work of which it is a part.
xo
You've seen it, it's here: Women in Summer.
ReplyDelete[from ning site]
ReplyDeleteComment by John F Walter on August 9, 2009 at 11:23am
The dance piece both enacts, and comments upon, the poem´s meditation on purpose amid Heraclitean flux with panache and yet perfectly controlled movement of sequence through doubt to the dancer´s ´certainties´, whirling in the field of possibility. Chaos not so much tamed as claimed by expression into fluid tracery of poetic beats, or vectors.
Another huge thumbs up, Ms. Clews, as poetry performance video. You make full use of your body´s stasis, opening to steps, and finally effortless flow.