Kickstarter

With ViewFinder, I want to bring audience members out of their seats and detatched minds into the engaged world of the dance, and subsequently to an engaged version of their own world by contrasting the evaluative and empathetic ways of experiencing emotions.

To do this through dance, I want to give at least six audience members in each of two performances a single-use camera.  They will be told to use all of the shots on their film roll during the course of the piece, and to use them well.  They will be onstage with the performers, following our own photographer/performer as she records and participates in the process of the dance.

In this participation, the audience will discover the dilemma of recording objective data through photographs, which can only catch limited information and distance us from the real action through the lens (the scientific, evaluative viewpoint), versus watching and feeling part of the piece but losing the solidity of a still image (the artistic, empathetic viewpoint).  Their process and challenges of confronting that choice are what the dancers also embody as they proceed from objective to subjective.  No sure solution or better alternative is provided, but it is the question itself that is important- How do you view life?  With limited objective sureness, or with encompassing but fleeting subjective involvement?

After the performance, the film will be developed, which this proposal also funds.  Audience photographs will be added to photos by my collaborating photographer as contact sheets, prints, and other film-based presentations.  These will create an interactive lobby display encouraging the audience to manipulate others' perspectives and their own through actively rearranging layers of photographs and transparencies.

The budget:  There is no budget provided for this project. Your contribution relieves the toll on my own student's budget: without your help, I will be buying far fewer, cheaper cameras on my own PB&J money.  You can provide a camera, including shipping and film development, to an audience member for as little as $5!  I would like to do this for at least six people at two performances.  Donations beyond my goal of $60 will go towards the prints in the lobby display and more/better quality cameras, depending on the level of support!

Background on this project:  ViewFinder has been in process for nearly a full year now, with the support of the University of Florida's University Scholars scholarship program.  The original proposal was inspired by emotion-inducing psychological stimuli, and grew through my experiences as a volunteer phone counselor to a deepened understanding of my own ways of viewing and understanding emotion.  Rather than seek to induce emotions, then, the project became about challenging others to realize the disparity of ways of viewing emotions which I have discovered this year.  The work will be shown April 14-17 at the University of Florida McGruire Dance Pavillion in the BFA showcase, "ECNAD."