STUDY FOR PORTRAIT 2006-2106

Study for Portrait 2006-2106​​ is a choreographic study portraying an anonymous subject from 2006-2106. This 100-year period is inspired by Martin Rees’ book Our Final Century (2003) – it is a choreographic representation of a human being over 100-year time span. The work was premiered as part of “Terrain: Multicultural Contemporary Dance Festival” in November 2006, produced by Ausdance Victoria and Multicultural Arts Victoria, at Fitzroy Town Hall, Melbourne.

Naree collaborated with fashion designers Hoshika Oshimi and Tatsuyoshi Kawabata of ESS.LABORATORY to develop the piece based on three thematic concepts: “portraiture”, “pneumatic” and “mutation”:-

Portraiture: The project borrows an idea conventional to visual arts – to create a portrait. In the title Study for Portrait 2006-2106, “study” refers to a tradition in graphic art and sculpture to make studies of the human body. In the context of this work is firstly derived from one of the definitions of a “portrait”: an image, representation, likeness, similitude. Inspired by Martin Ree’s book Our Final Century and portraits by late-British artist Francis Bacon, we aim to find a representation of comparative image of a human being in 100-years’ time, a short duration in the evolutionary timescale.

Pneumatic: This idea sprung from research in form for the initial development of the project. “Pneumatic” is an adjective describing something that has air pockets, or works by means of compressed air. In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley used “pneumatic” to describe the breasts of a female character and a “feely” chair (a chair which is inflated by air). To me our respiratory system is also a pneumatic system. Our movement is fundamentally related to the respiratory system. I am interested in exploring the notion of our “pneumatic” system (respiratory system) as a symbolism representing human existence. I see pneumatic inflation as a symbol of the consumerist society and its future tendency for ‘success’ to be measured by economic growth and prosperity, where our “human” qualities (ie creative, spiritual and, even, physical) are in decline.

Mutation: is an idea sprung from the question, “What would human beings be like in a 100-years time?” Would we change very much?  Very unlikely.  Would there be any change at all?  Possibly, according to Martin Rees, “...in the 21st century drugs, genetic modification…will change human beings themselves – their minds and attitudes, even their physiques.” Throughout the course of evolution, genetic mutation occurs regularly from a cellular level to a more apparent physical manifestation – a DNA damage could manifest in form of behavioural abnormality. 

The idea is consistent with the fact that our movement/costume integration also has a “mutating” effect. The black fabric is large enough and constantly in motion with the body as if the shape that the movement creates is constantly mutated. This idea inspires me to continue exploring the possibility of movement that conveys potential yet possibly slight mutation in our genes and how this can affect movement behaviour as a choreographic resource. We wish to explore how spatial design, together with costume/textile and choreography, can convey the sense of mutation further.

Other source of inspiration for the piece is a quote written by Charles Darwin’s father:

 First, form minute, unseen by spheric glass,

 Move on the mud, or pierce the watery mass,

 These, a successive generations bloom

 New powers acquire and larger limbs assume.”

Erasmus Darwin, Zoomaina, 1794

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