Choreography in Altered States of Gravity

For several years now, Kitsou Dubois has been developing a process of experimental movement performed in an environment of altered gravity conditions.

She intervenes in the domain of art and science, creating an insight into the rapport between humans and their environment. By appropriating the new spaces created by space travel, she has contributed to the emergence of a new artistic space. From this new relationship with movement she brings out references, such as, the establishment of a subjective verticality, continuous flow motion, the actual existence of an "in-between" space… and this in water, on a trampoline and in a state of weightlessness aboard a parabolic flight.

These experiments have engendered a poetic domain where the video image is always present as a trace for memory. That ingrained fear of falling is overcome by the freedom apparent in the floating movement and by the release of a body no longer weighed down. Here, one can experience empty space where survival does not depend on keeping one’s balance; where one can establish an identity with no other reference but the unknown in all its instability. In Kitsou Dubois’ choreographic and visual process, the weightless body seems like the symbolic scene for the discovery of new spaces , enabling a rediscovery of the self, giving another meaning to weight and gesture.

Through dancing and working at constantly re-appropriating the body, Kitsou Dubois raises the issue of its place in our communication systems: is it a spirit, an imagination no longer confined by corporeal boundaries, or is it a physical entity which can redefine itself through the exploration of infinite time and space?

The different stages of research into altered gravity environments are all part of the very process of creation. The work is impregnated with them.

The aim is to confront different attitudes, all of which relocate the limits of the body, by taking risks – the rather abstract ones of dancers and the more practical ones of circus artists – and in the space/time approach of image and music.

Her choreographic approach puts the performers in bodily states similar to those felt in zero g. flight and defines a natural or staged milieu providing them with supports conducive to the emergence of proposals which will lead to the final choreographic style. This is an atypical one and is akin to what we call “dance in an environment”. The incessant to-and-fro from inner to outer perception takes on a theatrical form which gives the spectator the impression of weightlessness.

The lines of force which induce the tension required for the performance are the result of random situations. They have a decisive effect within the common structures engendered by experiment and research on perception.

http://www.spacearts.info/en/db/get_artist.php?id=49
http://www.orbit.zkm.de/?q=node/307
http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/space/SPACEkitsou.html

NASA has a new tool to study the physiologic effects of microgravity

NASA

Vertical treadmill to improve workouts in space

"By changing how strongly runners' feet are pulled towards the treadmill, called the Standalone Zero Gravity Locomotion Simulator, researchers can simulate microgravity conditions on the space station as well as the Moon's gravity, which is one-sixth as strong as Earth's."

Choreographer's Approach to Microgavity

Artists and scientists work on what dancers call "being." We belong to the species Homo sapiens, ruled by gravity. Our "being" is thus deeply connected to gravity. "Modern dance" uses techniques inlolving kinesthetics, anatomy and improvisation, which are are adapted to a cultural, technological, political environment. It deals with an adjustment process that would enable human beings who suffer from the division of inner self to find greater harmony between body and soul.
It symbolizes lightness, freedom of movement and an active search for elevation, defying rules of gravity.
[needs complement]
Kitsou Dubois, Dance and Weightlessness: Dancers' Training and Adaptation Problems in Microgravity, Leonardo, Vol. 27, No. 1. (1994), p. 57-64.

Confessions of an Astronaut #2

What strikes you powerfully when you return to earth?
"Smell; smell is the most powerful. Also wind and snow. We landed in a snowstorm. I was so happy to feel the touch of frost. When I breathed I blew out steam. It delighted me like a small child. Everything surprises."

What does it feel like to experience gravity again when you are reentering the earth's atmosphere?
"On the journey back to earth," Genady tells us, " two books were resting against my chest - instruction manuals. They got heavier and heavier, as if they were crushing me. When the hatch was opened and my belt was unfastened, I could not get out of my seat. It was like I was pressed down to it."

Does the imagery of your dreams change in space?
"I dream that I am on earth, lots of ground dreams. But the strangest sensation is waking up. I sleep in sleeping bag but have no contact with the bag's frame - I'm suspended in space. When I wake up, if I think I was lying on my back, I feel muscle tension in my back. If I sleep on my side I will feel tension in my side."

COLORS 45

Confessions of an Astronaut #1

For me, the most powerful, unique and memorable feeling in space flight is the physical freedom of weightlessness, which is an utter delight. My favourite recreational activity in orbit was just to float freely and let every muscle in my body become totally relaxed, so much so that I often lost the sensation of having any body at all. I see the experience as more than just physical: it has psychological, emotional and even spiritual dimensions. Have you ever dreamed of flying? In space you can do it! Weightlessness gives you a wonderful sense of freedom, an ability to do outrageous things barely imaginable back on Earth. The joy of weightlessness is one of the main reasons I believe that humanity has a future in space.
space.newscientist.com

Hesselgren's "transformation tendencies" between various senses

Hesselgren constructs his architectural theory on the foundations of perception psychology. He describes "transformation tendencies" between various senses, whereby a perception in one modality may produce a mental image of a perception in another. For example, visual texture gives rise to a mental image or expectation of tactile grain. One modality that he never discusses, which is taken for granted on Earth but cannot be in space, is vestibular perception. It might be possible, through experience in a properly designed environment, to acquire a transformation tendency to vestibular perception from visual, acoustic, haptic, or other perceptions. The goal is not to induce motion sickness by the mere sight of some visual cue. Rather, it is to provide visual or other reminders that motion relative to these cues will result in certain inescapable side effects, inherent in the artificial gravity. These perceptual cues would act as signals, triggering adaptive coordination in the inhabitants. From the designer's point of view, a consistent "vocabulary" of such signals would have to arise from convention. From the inhabitants' point of view, these conventions might to some extent be taught, but the unconscious transformation to a vestibular image would rely on association based on direct experience.
www.spacefuture

THE THEATRE ON THE EDGE OF SPACE

Gravitation Zero is a theatre performance staged in a weightless space on board of a parabolic airplane. Russian scientists use parabolic planes in order to train astronauts, since the plane enables one to experience a gravitational vacuum inside its body. In order to create zero gravity conditions, it’s necessary for the aircraft to fly in a parabolic arc not dissimilar to the trajectory a rocket makes as it escapes Earth gravity. On December 15. 1999, a massive high-winged Ilyushin-76 aircraft, which normally serves as a training plane for the Russian cosmonauts, took off from the Star City airfield with a cargo of fourteen actors and spectators, and about the same number of Russian trainers and crew members. At the back end of the plane an intricately designed set had been constructed-one component of what director Dragan Živadinov calls an “inhabited sculpture”.

vertigo and spatial disorientation, vestibular relation to visual clues

vertigo and spatial disorientation: Without a stable gravitational reference, crew members experience arbitrary and unexpected changes in their sense of verticality. Rooms that are thoroughly familiar when viewed in one orientation may become unfamiliar when viewed from a different up-down reference. Skylab astronaut Ed Gibson reported a sharp transition in the familiarity of the wardroom when rotated approximately 45 degrees from the "normal" vertical attitude in which he had trained. There is evidence that, in adapting to weightlessness, the brain comes to rely more on visual cues and less on other senses of motion or position. In orbit, Skylab astronauts lost the sense of where objects were located relative to their bodies when they could not actually see the objects. After returning home, one of them fell down in his own house when the lights went out unexpectedly.
http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/artificial_gravity_and_the_architecture_of_orbital_habitats.shtml