ANICONIC is a three-part interdisciplinary dance performance negotiating materials, images, and a sense of place.


A central inquiry is the conceptual, religious, and personal ideas of the iconic (especially human representation).  Here, the work is articulated by the terrain of still tableaus and their ability to reflect on precarious notions of a “soul” or ideas of “presence”.  In a process of image making and unmaking, the work acts in an uncertain space, questioning the object quality of human relationships and the life of objects. 


A basic premise is that sometimes such things as a brick, a chair, water, wood, or a lamp, may have a more pronounced sense of a “soul” then a human being. Here, the setting of a scene, the given environment or landscape and its makeup, is filled with questions of presence, memory, and an unsettled occupancy. 


As a discursive project, it is composed of three distinct movement choreographies, recorded text, video, and installation that question the context for a body, its images, and its living trace.

ANICONIC

Additional notes:


The third part of the work, 'water stations', is developed around a series of still and moving tableaux and a circuit of four plastic water bottles.  It is primarily staged in cyclical actions of drinking and releasing, pouring, vomiting, spitting, or spilling water.  Through drinking, bodies are carrying water and carried by water.  As traveling containers/water-bodies, they are constantly shifting and changing form.  The sense of time exists in simplified durational repetitions and as an uncertain ritual.  Within the precarious physical and liquid environment, repeated activity remains as a residual image containing humor, humanity, and a skewed spectacle of the quotidian. 





“Once there was a time when images were used to help navigate the world, now we live in a world where we must navigate images.”

  1. -Vilém Flusser, Towards A Philosophy of Photography (1984)



“Those hundred thousand thousand shapes that clothe...

I show thee all my semblances, infinite, rich, divine,

My changeful hues, my countless forms. See! in this face of mine...”

- Bhagavad Gita 11.32  (5th - 2nd Century BCE)



“Angels do not enter a house where there are pictures.” 

  1. -Sahih al-Bukhari 7 : 72 : 841  (846 CE / 232 AH)



“In photography, the liquids study us, even from a great distance.”

- Jeff Wall, Photography and Liquid Intelligence (1989)

dance / performance:  

Surjit Nongmeikapam, Marina Fukushima, Isak Immanuel


artistic direction, choreography, installation:  

Isak Immanuel

photos, top of page:  


ANICONIC  -  a quiet landscape  

at the Attakkalari India Biennial, Bangalore, 2013 


ANICONIC

indoor installation for full performance work

at Headlands Center for the Arts, CA, 2014.


photos, above:


ANICONIC  -  a day without images

outdoor installation for performance

at Djerassi, CA, 2012.  


ANICONIC

indoor installation for full performance work (wide angle)

at Headlands Center for the Arts, CA, 2014.


ANICONIC  -  water stations

at SOMArts, CA, 2014.

> VIDEO samplehttps://vimeo.com/65115425

Part 1.  a day without images   18min

developed / initially performed at Djerassi, in Woodside, California, 2012.


Part 2.  a quiet landscape   22min

developed / initially performed at the Attakkalari India Biennial, Bangalore, 2013.

(with Yeonwoo Na)


Part 3.  water stations   18min

developed, performed at ST Spot, Yokohama; Dock 11 Berlin (with cokaseki); Headlands Center for the Arts, CA, 2013-14 (with Christine Bonansea).



Full triptych versions of the work have been performed at:


SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco, US, 2014.

ST Spot in Yokohama, Japan, 2014

sound/music:  

‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ composed by Modest Mussorgsky, performed by Kazuhito Yamashita, anonymous cover songs from YouTube, and various sound constructions by the ensemble


recorded voice/text from:  

Satyajit Ray, Malala Yousafzai, Jeff Wall, Abu Mussab Wajdi Aakkari 


directorial advice:  

Jayachandran Palazhy / Attakkalari FACETS Mentor Group (part 2)

Tableau Stations   |   Isak ImmanuelTableau_Stations___Isak_Immanuel.html

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