Sent from my iPhone - Rosa Strati
22/05/2020 - 26/05/2020
Tempo Dance Festival 2020 #goingdigital
Production Details
A party game for ages 7 and up.
Each participant will sit alone in their houses. We will create a story by alternating between writing and dancing. Don’t worry about your artistic ability, you won’t be graded on it.
1) Write down a phrase.
2) The next person will interpret that phrase into movement.
3) Repeat these steps until we get through a selection of friends and family I thought might text me back.
4) Gather all the contents and see if we can tell some sort of story. Most importantly, have fun.
Rosa is a Tāmaki Makaurau-based freelance contemporary dance artist. Since graduating from Unitec with BA in performing and Screen Arts in 2001 she has been performing, creating and exploring movement through a multitude of mediums and performance platforms. As well as being a passionate freelance artist, Rosa works with the community through producing and arts administration roles, working with Independance, Wellesley Studios and many independent projects.
Created by Rosa Strati and collaborators Diane Provost, Rudolf Boelee, Shani Dickins, Sofia McIntyre, Rose Philpott, David Toomey, Molly Green, Jessie McCall, Presley Ziogas, Nathan Joe and Alby Yap.
Webcast , Performance installation , Multi-discipline , Family , Dance , Contemporary dance ,
5mins
A wondrous example of collaboration at a distance
Review by Caitlin Halmarick 25th May 2020
A wondrous exploration of the powerful combination of short film and dance, Rosa Strati’s collaborative work Sent From My iPhone is a part of Tempo Dance Festival’s #goingdigital initiative as a response to Covid-19.
The process involved in the creation of Sent From My iPhone is deliberately shared with the audience, adding both a layer of curiosity to what the finished result will be and a feeling that you have an insider’s look at the structure of the film. This combination of curiosity and personal exclusivity is the perfect recipe for an online presentation of dance. Playing with our fickle attention spans regarding online artistic films, Sent From My iPhone perfectly captures the interest and creativity of an online audience.
The creative process of Sent From My iPhone involves Strati’s team each writing a poetic phrase (which in themselves are stunningly eloquent yet charmingly innocent works of art), the next person interpreting that phrase into movement using their unique movement qualities and techniques, and gathering the results into a narrative film with a priority on having fun and not worrying about artistic ability. The result is a short film that captures the collective experience of Covid-19 lockdown and the exploration of everyday people’s creativity during this time. In viewing the film, one gets the sense that this is a project born out of today’s ‘collaboration at a distance’ model of producing theatre and hunger for the continuation of a creative outlet.
The editing of the various pieces of film, voice recordings, and music makes this work of art both highly professional and detailed. Editor Isaac Strati plays with the interaction between the written phrases and the visual cues created in the dancer’s movement. Separately these two elements could be presented as abstract, but when woven together they create a fascinating story that on the surface may sound like a bit of nonsense but cannot help compassionately touching the hearts of the audience.
Sent From My iPhone is an enchantingly charming film that transcends the traditional aspects of dance theatre and successfully welcomes the digital age of theatre that we presently find ourselves in.
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