(1)
HOW DO WE KNOW WHERE WE ARE AND WHAT TO SAY AND DO BY USING THE SAME BRAIN ALL AT ONCE?
Monday, May 4, 2009, 5pm
Judson Memorial Church Gymnasium
Conceived by and moderated by Daria Faïn and Robert Kocik
As part of the Studies Project Series, choreographer Daria Fain and poet Robert Kocik will engage neuroscientist André A. Fenton in a dialogue about the multiple types of memory and the mental representation of space and experience. In particular, the focus will fall on the brain's polyglotism--the coordination of multiple processes by rapid 'switching' or 'doubling up.' The dialogue will wend its way into a consideration of language. Perhaps some light will be shed on the unanswerable question 'is language acquired or hardwired?' Kocik will trace a broader physiology of
language by involving the hypothalamus, glands and organs. Faïn will attempt to extend the findings into movement by experimentally acting out the questions and conundrums surrounding the hippocampus as presented by Fenton.
André A. Fenton is a neuroscientist at SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn. His research focuses on spatial memory and the hippocampus as model structure for understanding all parts of the brain. His SUNY team is responsible for the recent discovery of a very promising 'memory molecule'.
A New York Times article about Andre Fenton's work:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/health/research/06brain.html?em
(2)
MOVEMENT RESEARCH at the JUDSON CHURCH
The Phoneme Choir by Daria Faïn Robert Kocik
Monday, May 4, 2009, 8 p.m. - Free
Location: Judson Memorial Church 55 Washington Square South New York, NY
10012
The Phoneme Choir is an orchestrated performance of the forty phonemes that are the English language's most basic structural units. Speech sounds such as vowels and consonants are examples of phonemes. In performance, the Phoneme Choir will bring the subtleties of our language to life through a musical composition of sound, rhythm, unison, and discord. As philosopher Rudolf Steiner wrote, “The entire universe is expressed when the alphabet is repeated from beginning to end.” This is the second public presentation of the Phoneme Choir, a work that Faïn and Kocik are developing through the Movement Research Artist In Residence. Faïn and Kocik conducted a series of four workshops leading up to this performance.
Article by Thom Donavan in the Brooklyn Rail:
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2009/04/dance/choir-praxis
