One performance in this week’s Collage will have choreography, creative writing and vocal music. And it will all be performed by one student, Kendra Prat. It’s the debut in Collage of a 3-year old department at Interlochen: Comparative Arts.
Kendra Prat enters the stage singing and miming the planting of seeds. Alone, she takes long, gliding steps along the stage. Her movements look a lot like modern dance. In fact, you expect to hear recorded music any second. But instead you hear Kendra’s recorded voice as she reads a dictionary definition of the word germination. And as her choreography continues, Kendra starts talking live, as she dances.
In her dance, Kendra says, "The TV is on for no apparent reason stuck on the same channel because no one is interested in it. To the sounds of the commercials, I am dancing..."
Kendra’s performance is part dance, part performance art, part creative writing. It’s the result of her study in a new department at Interlochen – Comparative Arts.
Johamy Morales is Kendra’s instructor in Comparative Arts and she says one of the points of the department is to refrain from limiting students to the tried-and-true arts templates.
Johamy says, "Some of the students will start with writing because that's where they feel the most comfortable and then from there they'll add layers to it. Other students will start with movement or drawing or doodling or music or playing an instrument or writing a song so there's really not one format of creating original work."
Kendra Prat started with writing. Her assignment was to write a “manifesto” of her theory of the arts. She wound up comparing the growth of herself as an artist to the growth of plants.
Kendra says, "I created this long sort of plethora of words and I thought, 'What could I do with this?' I want to move and so I just sort of put two and two together and danced to the words because I didn't create music so I thought there's even the sounds of the words (that are) so musical."
In Kendra's piece she says, "The growth of my artistry has involved headphones on my ears like inspiring light, movement in my limbs as flashing air, a tangle of experiences, my past, my roots, words in my throat like water..."
Her work goes in and out from speaking live and on tape. Her movements and facial expressions reflect the text. This is the first time Interlochen’s new Comparative Arts Department will be represented in Collage.
Collage takes place in Interlochen's Corson Auditorium Thursday and Friday, October 4 and 5 at 7:30 p.m.
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