Mandala-Dance
Performed at UCLA, College of Fine Arts, 1985

 

I took dance classes for one year at UCLA. For my culminating project, I choreographed and performed a dance to the Plurality of Worlds musical theme.

I danced in a light blue-gray sleeveless shirt and China-blue pants with large front pockets at the thighs. The objects incorporated into the performance were a 3-channel digital timer and 12 transparent rectangular prisms (3 red, 3 yellow, 3 green, and 3 blue).

The timer was placed at the center of the dance floor. All three channels were set at 3 minutes and 12 seconds, the duration of the music. As soon as the music began, I started all three channels.

The prisms served as the points of a mandala that was composed of triangles and based on the following design:

At the outset, the prisms were in the front pockets of my pants. During the course of the performance I arranged them on the dance floor to form four triangles centered on the timer. I then danced a ring pattern around the mandala.

Once the music ended and all three channels of the timer had completed the countdown, only the alarm for channel 3 sounded at 3 beeps/second. I turned this alarm off after 9 seconds, whereupon the alarm for channel 2 rang at 2 beeps/second for 6 seconds, followed by channel 1 at 1 beep/second for 3 seconds.

The photograph on the left shows me in the opening and closing position of the dance, with my body forming triangle shapes.