Black Forest

Mouvements du Centre de Gravité, 2013

Performance Documentation

Movement: Marissa Ruazol

Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis Instructor: Ed Groff

Videographers: Sadie Strangio, Lili Soto

Assistant Video Editor: Sean C. Flaherty

Performance part of Kelly Nipper: Black Forest at Hammer Museum, December 21, 2013 – February 23, 2014.

Black Forest is co-commissioned by Tramway for the Glasgow International Festival, Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland,

Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Additional Support from Foundation for Contemporary Art, New York and The Workroom, Glasgow

Mouvements du Centre de Gravité, 2013

Rehearsal Documentation

Movement: Marissa Ruazol

Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis Instructor: Ed Groff

Videographer: Pino-Max Wegmuller

Video Editor: Sean C. Flaherty

Production Assistant: Claire Nereim

Co-commissioned by Tramway for the Glasgow International Festival 2012, Scotland, Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Additional Support from Foundation for Contemporary Art, New York and The Workroom, Glasgow

Black Forest, 2012

Rehearsal documentation

Lead Dancer and Rehearsal Director: Marissa Ruazol

Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analysis Instructor: Ed Groff and Sarah Leddy

Movement: Lucy Boyes, Penny Chivas, Charlotte Jarvis, Rosalind Masson

Costumes: Leah Piehl

Videographer: Johnny Barrington

Video Editor: Sean C. Flaherty

Production Assistants: Sean C. Flaherty, Claire Nereim

Assistant to Dancers: Harriet Bolwell

Installation view, Tramway, Glasgow

Co-commissioned by Tramway for the Glasgow International Festival, Scotland, Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland,

Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Additional support from Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York and The Work Room, Glasgow

Production

Notes

My name is Tessa Pattern. I’m related to Thora Pattern a character from The Edge of the Alphabet. A composition of letters pressed to pages and printed in 1962. I was educated at the technical school for clock making in the Black Forest. The school is connected to a clock museum by an underground tunnel where time is stopped in order to be counted.

The sky over the forest is flat and made of manually stitched together fabric parts designed by my schoolmate Theo Weather. The floor is a series of horizontal stripes to match a horizon line that was never there, a house conceived of endlessness, hallways with wave symbol rugs, an elastic spatial concept, stacked in an arrangement that appeared to move under itself and a series of rolling hills. He would talk softly to me during class and say all ends meet in the endless. I pulled the bottle of chemicals from the shelf to mix with water in the tray and pushed light to melt and then harden into the paper.

In school we made percussion instruments and learned that the human body is often referred to as an accordion pleat. The evening classes were organized so that lighter dances were framed by darker dances and emphasized the embodiment of qualities and gradient tones rather than adhering to narrative structure.

My sister Tulip made pattern drawings on the inside walls of the museum with her plaster hands strung on a rope around the neck and passed petals out to the audience to place over I and I. Rays turned inward. Decorative markings stuck to the face. We turned the room to the right to reach the ceiling and she continued drawing.