First night of rehearsal fed my childhood pastime of counting and moving in patterns. Based on Samuel Beckett's teleplay, Quad, Kan had 8 of us work out a double quad choreography. Set to the sound of a metronome, with some surprising sound effects - I found myself lost in a rhythmic and meditative pattern. I felt I could work on this for hours, all throughout the night. Below is a description of Beckett's Quad:

Samuel Beckett
«Quad I + II»

‘Quad', the first in a series of minimalist experimental television plays made by Beckett in the 1980s for the broadcaster Süddeutscher Rundfunk, operates with a serial game involving the motional pattern of four actors, but equally accommodating four soloists, six duos, and four trios. Four actors, whose coloured hoods make them identifiable yet anonymous, accomplish a relentless closed-circuit drama. Once inside the square, they are condemned to monotonously and synchronously pace the respectively six steps of the lengthwise and diagonal lines it contains, in part accompanied by varying drumbeat rhythms. The mathematical precision and choreography is made possible by the exactness of the timing. Choreographic variation is confined to the number of performers, and the resultant changes in colour constellations. The middle of the square, which is marked by a dot, must always be bypassed on the left-hand side. In the course of the production, the feet leave behind faint traces on the diagonals of the white square. ‘Quad' (here you see the first version) is, for all its reducedness, the most dramatic of Beckett's last teleplays. The playwright also shot a black-and-white version with four figures dressed identically in white and acting to the beat of a metronome.


Rudolf Frieling
www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/quadrat/

Studio 210
8pm
Corner of Valencia and Cesar Chavez
old Sears Bldg.
Donations from $5-$25
Refreshments provided

An evening of improvised and choreographed works from SF Bay area butoh artists.

I'll be performing both nights.

Asain Art Museum Performances Presents: Katsura Kan's Saltimbanques and Ledoh's Salt Farm Butoh performance of "Harvesting Beauty in the Dark" in collaboration with SF Butoh LAB and salto donec moriar (UK). Directed by Katsura Kan.
Dance Artists: Molly Barrons (Metropolitan Butoh), Christina Braun (SF Butoh LAB), Deborah Butler (Kitsune), Shelley Cook, Gabriella Daris (salto donec moriar), Jennifer Hicks, and Douglas Ridings.
Katsura Kan and Ledoh's Butoh-fu research and collaboration is supported by the Japan Foundation through the Performing Arts Japan Program.
Thursday, January 24, 2008 7pm
free with museum admission ($5 after 5pm)
Samsung Hall, Asian Art Museum
200 Larkin Street San Francisco 94102
(415) 581-3500