Shabo

One requirement of the Choreography Workshop class was to create a durational work and that was new to me as a performer. I asked my Professor, what a durational project was and as I was not the only confused person in the class, she provided us with links to aid us in developing ideas for the project. It was not clear and had to go to YouTube to watch more durational videos and I still could not wrap my head around what I wanted to do.

It took me some time and I decided to have a durational video of how my body reacts throughout the night when I sleep. That was the idea I came up with and planned to find a day to shoot myself sleeping. Later on, I gave up on the idea of videoing myself in bed and planned to shoot a durational video of an upcoming trip to Cincinnati.  I was still confused about the materials to shoot but the idea was strong and planned towards it. I shot lots of materials of myself packing my setup into my car, driving all the way to Cincinnati, performing, and driving back to Columbus. With these footages, I began editing but the confusion was still present so I made the first draft so I could show it in class, get feedback and work on it for a final showing. With the first draft, I started the video with me on the road to Cincy, arriving, setting up at the church, performing, and ending the video as the performance was going on.

I had lots of feedback and the key one was that the video did not feel complete and also, because I ended the video with me in the auditorium, the sense of time and day was lost. Still confused, I reached out to Mollie (a colleague and assigned buddy in my research class), who gave me ideas to improve the video and what to do to make it complete. So, I added footage of me packing my setup into my car, driving to Cincy and everything that was in the first draft, and then included the video of myself packing my instruments back into my car after the concert and driving back home to Columbus.

That gave the piece the completeness that it needed and as I presented it in class, everyone loved it and the feeling was great. I am so excited I was able to nail this project because I was confused the entire time and I am grateful and appreciative of Mollie helping me out with ideas for the project. In case you are curious about my title, Shabo is term Ghanaian instrumentalists use to describe gigs that they play with different people who are not members of their permanent band. Enjoy the full piece below;