Ramble (2015)

Video Still from Ramble

Ramble is a dance/video/music collaboration between Aimée Dawn Robinson (dance), Renée Lear (video) and K Scott Maynard (music) performed for the SummerWorks Performance Festival at the Theatre Centre Mainspace, Toronto, 45 min.

Aimée Dawn Robinson says of Ramble:

“Ramble is an outdoor dance performed indoors. A dance that has crossed the country, traveled rivers, lakes, crossed the ocean, and before, existed in another place and time entirely. North, south, east, west, further north and further east, further north again, and through a different range of mountains and gently into the river my grandfather would swim across to visit his girl. Ramble brings north and south, old and new worlds together (possibly uncomfortable) in a shared space within the body and within memory. The live-mixed video by Renée Lear is comprised of altered/combined landscape footage from the Yukon and Ontario. Musician/composer K Scott Maynard brings music from machines, the north, and from his guitar. Costumer Heather Bell Callahan brings her contemporary feminist eye stepped in her Tlingit | Norwegian |Irish| heritages.”

All three artists collected landscape footage from the Yukon and Ontario. I manipulated this material in various ways to create the video for the piece, which I mixed live for the performance, including use of a live camera in the theatre. Below are 5 video excerpts from the performance.

 

Ramble Video Intro: Into the Yukon River, video, 4 min., silent.
This video plays solo and silently on a dark stage at the beginning of the performance.

 

Ramble: Imaginary Landscapes
Excerpt 3 min. 52 sec.
In this excerpt, dancer Aimée Dawn Robinson improvises to a backdrop of imaginary landscapes – video composites of Yukon and Ontario landscapes.

 

Ramble: Aimée as Landscape
Excerpt 6 min. 15 sec.
This excerpt begins with live video mixing of images of the flowing Yukon River and a half-frozen Lake Ontario accompanied by musician K. Scott Maynard. When Aimée Dawn Robinson enters the stage and begins to dance, a live camera mix transforms Aimée into the landscape itself.

 

Ramble: Colliding Landscapes
Excerpt 5 min. 52 sec.
In this excerpt, images of the Yukon and Ontario travel towards each other controlled through live mixing with a vertical wipe, positioning the dancer always at the point of collision.

 

Ramble Video Finale: Clover Sky City, video, silent, 1 min. 25 sec.
This is the closing video for Ramble. It plays solo, in silence on a dark stage.