To
design the City Score for the class, I kept several things in mind:
- There
is no standard formulation for scoring a site; each site suggests a different
score to the author. It is exactly this extreme site-specificity of the
choreography that will make it rich and relevant.
- The
score should, if possible, be designed on the site itself, both to ensure
the aforementioned site-specificity in the instructions and also to allow
the score to emerge naturally through the author's own deep experiential
involvement with the site. First and foremost, the author of the score must
react to their own corporeal experience, paying close attention themselves
to the interplay between the site and their body and movement.
-
The instructions should be geared toward drawing out reaction to certain
elements. They should address some issue, theme, or feeling of the place.
The specific score section might address some scale issue at a particular
spot, or some key element that seems to be preventing the success of a place.
So long as there is an opinion on the part of the author embedded in the
instruction, participants may react with or against this opinion.
- While
it may be useful to tell participants to be perceptive, it is more effective
to allow them to become deeply engaged through specific activities, especially
at the beginning of the score.
- The
score should have a flow- in the beginning, the participant might be asked
to notice behaviors in other people on the site first to allow them to key
in comfortably to the activity, and then to direct their perceptive attention
towards their own reactions and responses. As the score continues, it can
shift in tone from directional to more inquisitory-- as the participant
becomes more deeply involved in the activity, they may begin to formulate
opinions and make connections. At some point in the score (towards/at the
end), the questioning should become more general, allowing for synthesis
to occur on the terms of the individual participant.