The inter-disciplinary performance piece of undergraduate students Valentina Plata & Aybi Özel was a perfect introduction to the myriad possibilities of research at Milieux. Plata and Özel met in the cross-faculty class Dance as Social Life and Cultural Practice, which brings together history and performance arts students in an exploration of methods. From that class, their collaboration emerged, with Özel, a visual arts student, leading the drawings and Plata, an incoming undergraduate fellow at Milieux, manipulating the sounds.
Their performance established a sense of joint inquiry for the evening. Attendees had gradually, and then enthusiastically, joined Özel around the paper. I resolved to hang back around the edges, watching them scribble busily. Some sat outside the circle, eyes-closed, listening to the expanding soundscape. The sole child in attendance began hammering on one of the mics, prompting some wonderfully aggressive sounds, though eventually an adult intervened in the intensity. I smiled to myself. The risks of collective creation.