Bravadoa

Event Info

Date	10.27.17
Format	Film Screening
Medium	Film Participatory
Admission	Free

Involved

Event artist

Terri Thomas & Scott Stark Terri Thomas Scott Stark

Each cycle includes a 10 min. video and 3 mins. of voluntary play, engagement and/or observation.

Bravadoa is a new collaboration between artists Terri Thomas and Scott Stark to introduce a new form of intimacy. The expanded cinema project posits notions of trust, vulnerability and self-reflexivity within a symbolic playful, consensual, somatic sphere… the Ouroboros.

The Ouroboros, which depicts a serpent or dragon eating its own tail, symbolizes the eternal return, introspection and the endless cycle of creation and destruction, life and death.

Viewers are invited onto a platform to watch a 10-minute film. The film is inspired by Gabrielle Roth’s 5 Rythyms: Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness. The idea behind the rhythms is that everything is energy and thereby moves in patterns, rhythms or waves. These five states of being are considered the markers of a passionate, instinctive self, and the repetition of these states allows for deep eternal wisdom and transformation.

The transformation begins with ambiguous figures practicing the feminine discipline of martial arts, WING CHUN, which means "eternal spring" created by a Buddhist nun through the observation of a fight between a snake and a crane. Gradually, the two subjects strip themselves of their guises, while engaging in a less-familiar form of personal contact, a masculine construction called SLAP-BOX: a playful, improvised style of street boxing with open hands.

Once the film ends, spotlights come on from above, highlighting circles on the floor, each just large enough for two people to stand facing each other. Viewers suddenly find themselves on a mimetic stage, revealing an opportunity for physical interaction or observation. Participants can relate with each other using queues suggested in the film, mirroring elements from the 5 movements, or inventing their own. Standing in the circle gives consent to the other; stepping out ends the engagement. Each individual contributor decides their own level of participation or withdrawal.

While intimacy and secrecy are thought to be affiliated with our desire to withdraw - a form of hiding out with others in the dark periphery - Bravadoa attempts to show that our participation, by stepping inside the circle, might reveal a new form of intimacy, trust, vulnerability and self-reflection.