Amoment in time with TikTok on the mind has pros and cons
New Zealand Dance Company choreographer Ross McCormack is in two minds about TikTok.
On the one hand, he says, dance is the perfect medium for the short form video sharing app, and dance is in fact having a moment as a result.
On the other, our attention spans are already pretty shot.
He likes that it sparks creativity, that it’s a ‘‘short, fast response, reactionary artistic platform for creating something and just flicking it out there without having too much time to think about it’’.
‘‘TikTok has become this medium where you are basically creating movement bites . . . as a form of expression, and as a medium, movement has the perfect vocab for it. I do like that some people are using it to find a voice that they otherwise wouldn’t.
‘‘I don’t like how it’s just another medium to sink into your personal device and view and switch off.’’
McCormack’s show is heading out to Nelson and Dunedin for upcoming performances of the site specific dance slash theatre work Artefact: How to Behave in an Art Gallery, which he choreographed and directed.
One of the themes is to explore the notion of what art is, fuelled by stories about lost and found objects that have ended up being viewed and photographed as artefacts, such as the tale of the art aficionados who left a pineapple in an art gallery in Aberdeen, returning a few days later to find it had been placed in a cabinet.
Similar things have happened to spectacles, placed on the floor as a prank, which people photographed, and took to Twitter to interpret in metaphors likening the glasses to ‘‘society’s perpetual blindness’’.
McCormack wanted to put these ideas in a space and to play on the experiences of looking after relics, making fake art that gets broken.
He has had the experience of metamorphosing into an objet d’art himself – once making ‘‘good coin’’ as a concrete statue, a money-making exercise before heading off to The Gathering, Golden Bay’s legendary new year dance party.
‘‘Each year I would do it in Nelson down the main street, and I’d always make a killing.’’
His dad would come down and watch and offer his own unsolicited feedback – ‘‘You’ve got to stand still longer, mate’’.
‘‘I’d be like, ‘Nah, they like it when I move’.’’
The next time he’s in town, he might yet be recognised by longtime residents with sharp recollections of turn-of-thecentury buskers.
‘‘Who knows? Maybe someone will be like, ‘I remember that weird concrete statue guy. He was terrible at keeping still’.’’
Artefact: How To Behave In An Art Gallery, Friday, October 28, and Saturday, Oct 29, 6pm and 8pm each day. Tickets available at nelsonartsfestival. nz/event/artefact-how-to-behave
■ For a full list of What’s On, go to nelsonmail.co.nz.