Kelsey Kitzke

An Underground Playground

Discovering Barnard’s Movement Lab.

BY KELSEY KITZKE

Before I could step into Barnard’s Movement Lab, I had to take off my street shoes—a reminder that in some ways, this is a dance studio like any other. Upon entering, I wasn’t greeted by a typical studio’s floor-to-ceiling mirrors, wall-mounted bars, and panoramic windows. Instead, the Movement Lab features stage lights, sound systems, and six different projectors—four project onto the walls and two onto the floor. Even as I found myself struck by the artistic possibilities around me, the bottoms of my feet tethered me to the cool dance floor—an uncanny convergence of the digital and the tangible. Of course, this is just one of the University’s many state-of-the-art performance spaces. But what distinguishes the Movement Lab from other venues is its dedication to exploring the intersection of movement and technology.

Tucked away behind an inconspicuous white door on the lower level of Milstein, the Movement Lab’s learning environment stands in stark contrast with the bustling study spaces and classrooms above. Curiosity in college is most often channeled toward predetermined goals: We learn new skills to complete a project, write a paper, take an exam. The Movement Lab, however, is designed to encourage “lateral exploration,” as associate director Guy de Lancey called it. Others used the simpler word “play.” The Movement Lab is a place for playing—with the technology, with bodies, with space, and prioritizing discovery over the final product.

That’s how Noa Weiss, BC ’21, the Lab’s post-baccalaureate fellow, explained the eclectic array of equipment we came across during my tour. Weiss turned on the six projectors, each displaying a different looping video of a serene landscape. The videos are often used at the weekly meditative Stillness Lab, one of the most common ways that non-dancers interact with the facility. Jellyfish floated below me, a cat jumped through swaying tall grass in front of me, and lava poured down the volcanic rock to my right. When I mentioned that I couldn’t imagine what lava could possibly sound like, Weiss used the studio sound system to demonstrate its crackling. Oh, and these are the skeletons, he added, pointing to the two long black bags of complete human skeletal models. A human anatomy class meets here, too.

First conceived during the development of the new Milstein Center, which opened in 2018, the Lab was proposed as a space on campus to give physical form to the intersection of art, movement, and technology. “We thought it should be like a sandbox,” de Lancey said, “just filling it up with all the latest technology.” The Lab’s equipment constantly evolves to meet artists’ desires. The result is a highly flexible space especially beneficial for the student artists-in-residence (SARs) that the Lab hosts each semester.

Last fall, the Lab’s adaptability had a clear utility: In becoming somewhat of a film studio, dance majors could shift their thesis projects from the stage to the screen. But the Lab has since been able to resume a broader range of in-person activities. And as a space dedicated to the creative utilization of technology alongside bodily movement, the Lab is poised to challenge what the return to the “physical world” even means.

As opposed to other “movement labs” on campus that understand bodily movement through scientific research, Barnard’s Movement Lab attracts more artists than scientists. Still, these artists represent a wide variety of artistic and technical backgrounds. Current SARs Eli Duncan, BC ’22, and Sophie Paquette, CC ’23, highlighted that the Movement Lab and its technology have provided some freedom from the restraints of their other artistic disciplines, allowing for a new kind of engagement with art and the physical body.

A combined architecture and visual arts major, Duncan uses the Movement Lab to experiment with virtual reality. It’s a rare opportunity for him to act upon his passion for the crossroads of architecture and installation art. “It’s really exciting—the idea that you can just take anything that you make on the computer and then instantly

enter into it physically, or somewhat physically,” he said. Initially, Duncan used VR to “test out” ideas for the “real world,” but he described that playing with the technology has allowed him to discover an entirely new visual language. He’s become fascinated with the uncanny juxtaposition of real images and surreal transformations, describing a software process that projects photos of real textures (like close-up images of flowers or food) onto three-dimensional virtual surfaces to create a bright, colorful, and chaotic viewing experience. Rather than gawking at the hyperrealistic techniques in classical paintings, Duncan is interested in seeing the flaws the technological process reveals in his art.

Though she has a background in creative writing, Paquette said that her interest in the Movement Lab stemmed primarily from her experiences as a roller skater. When she took up skating a few years ago, she discovered her body could move in ways she hadn’t experienced before—a form of creativity that didn’t require being hunched in front of a computer screen. When we met, she showed me the bright purple roller skates that she’s carefully painted and tweaked herself, a manifestation of her artistic approach to skating and her interest in construing meaning through movement. Recently, Paquette has been utilizing the Lab’s motion capture suit to project her movements onto an avatar displayed on the Lab’s walls, experimentation grounded in themes of learned movement and muscle memory.

Paquette joked about the motion capture technology’s imperfections: As she moves, the avatar might completely contradict her movements, its arm impaling its torso or otherwise splaying wildly. “It’s just a different way of thinking about my movements that they’re being read, like they are legible, but also that they’re being transformed [by the technology],” she said. But she also highlighted how the technology’s imperfections are a big part of its potential: “It doesn’t matter if my movements aren’t super perfect because they’re going to be warped through the avatar anyway.” While motion capture might seem physically alienating as a medium, it lets Paquette pursue a new kind of artistic embodiment in which she’s learning the body rather than operating it.

In part because of his architecture background, Duncan resisted the idea that this technology connects the digital and the physical worlds. “When you’re in a space, you feel like you can pick up on the presence of things that are physically around you, and VR is a completely visual medium where there's no actual mass or volume that surrounds you,” he said. Sometimes, though, VR plays tricks on your body: Your arm tingles when you put your hand through a virtual wall or you feel like you’re falling as you walk down a virtual hill. Sound is particularly tricky, Duncan explained. “There’s so much that we absorb and process about spatial environments like based off of the sound that we hear, and so I’m definitely really interested in using sound as the main property that kind of keeps it grounded.” In the VR experience Duncan is building, you maintain an understanding that the world you’re in is virtual—he’s not trying to trick you into its tangibility. But the experience also forces you to surrender to how your body and brain will try to make sense of the nonsensical. As a result, it’s the imprecision in the technology—its failure to create a hyperreal experience—that shapes the artistic process and product.

The Movement Lab maintains a close relationship with the dance department, where director Gabri Christa is also a faculty member, and with the campus’ dance community. Dance and art history major Sophia Fung, BC ’22, emphasized the Lab’s specialness as a campus performing arts space. President of CoLab Performing Arts Collective, a group dedicated to building a community for creators of all kinds to present their work, Fung hosts its semesterly showcase in the Movement Lab, where she is also a SAR this spring. She highlighted both the Lab’s access to an array of technology and its intimacy as a performance setting, particularly for experimental or unconventional works. “I think that a lot of artists are drawn to the kind of expansive ideas that you can have in the Movement Lab, because you can have so much more interaction between, say, yourself and the projection, as a mover,” Fung said.

While the Movement Lab emphasizes fun, curiosity, and play, it doesn’t shy away from the biases this new technology can initiate and illuminate. The Lab isn’t pushing a world in which technology rules supreme over our lives and bodies; it’s invested in critiquing the racial, gendered, and classed implications of the world of

technology.

“This technology is new and exciting and pretty accessible and also so racist,” Weiss said while discussing the Lab’s work with media artist LaJuné McMillian’s “The Black Movement Library Potrait Series.” The October installation consisted of motion capture representation of Black performers from their online archival project Black Movement Library, designed to push against the underrepresentation and misrepresentation of Black movement in existing databases.

It’s exciting to play with the latest technology, to wave at your virtual avatar and see it wave right back. But as de Lancey noted, the Movement Lab’s always been about more than marveling at the latest gadgets: “If we get past the first phase of wonder about it—like, there’s you waving, what does it mean socially now?”

Illustration by Madeleine Hermann

Anywhere But Here

Down the runway with Paloma LaMona

BY HART HALLOS

Are you pro or anti gender norms? If yes, you might have heard of a little something called drag, which has been sweeping New York City ever since Season 10 of Rupaul’s Drag Race aired in 2018. Kidding! The drag scene’s recent influx of performers is no joking matter. Local competitions offer students, artists, and twinks vital exposure and connections in an industry where Exxposure and Connie Xtions might be the names you need to know to get booked.

Enter Paloma LaMona, CC ’23, who started performing in drag in June of 2021. In her first competition that September, she placed fourth and earned the judge’s gushing praise. But Paloma doesn’t just perform—she designs and makes her own costumes, does her own hair, and mixes her own performance audio. To walk into Paloma’s room is to walk into a veritable drag atelier: Wig heads gaze proudly over a floor dotted with pins and sewing patterns, and the entire back wall disappears behind a packed clothing rack.

It’s a slight change from two years ago, when Paloma and I (famously) lived on the same John Jay floor. But there might have been signs: Juliàn, Paloma’s out-of-drag identity, didn’t not wear heels to our 8:40. Since Paloma’s birth, I’ve followed her to gigs and competitions around the city—including last month, for a preliminary round of Lady Liberty on the third floor of the Q. Maybe it was food poisoning from the night before, or maybe it’s because I’m an empath, but something about the night felt special. You want to find out why? Okay, but you’ve got to control your erection. … 5:39 p.m.: Paloma and I decide to meet at an up-and-coming psychedelic brunch palace that plays God to day-in-my-life-NYC TikTok: Carlton Arms Suite 8A. It’s also where we both live, and where I often run into Paloma and their whirring sewing machine on late-night trips to the bathroom. 6:52 p.m.: A knock on the door reveals itself as Dominique: Paloma’s roommate, a makeup artist and SEAS student. She’s shimmering in a mintgreen slip and matching sparkly eyeshadow, sipping Fireball from a Dixie cup. I opt for blue Gatorade, memories of vomiting in the communal bathroom still fresh. 7:10 p.m.: The next knock is Paloma and her boyfriend/dutiful drag helper, Julian. Both carry a huge bag stuffed with supplies; I spy an entire roll of paper towels, some boating tape, and a lavender Telfar mini. My eyes refocus on the huge pink poinsettia in Paloma’s hair—somehow chic when paired with a black knee-length down jacket and hot pink Crocs. We walk briskly to the subway, Paloma nervous about missing the 7:30 call time. 7:25 p.m.: We discover that we’re missing black eyeliner, which Paloma had planned on using to add a beauty mark. Possible solutions include a packed eyebrow pencil or Dominique and I doing a mad CVS dash, but the pencil is too light, and Paloma wants us to be able to enter together. The beauty mark is abandoned. 7:39 p.m.: Paloma goes straight to the dressing room upon arrival. Dominique, Julian, and I check out the empty second floor, which will host the sex party Qruisers later tonight. The floors and walls are Despicable Me black, decorated with graffiti and papered with posters of Elvira and hunkily-rendered cartoon characters. Passing by a Ned Flanders with particularly bulging pecs, I realize it’s okay to be gay. 8:06 p.m.: The third floor is also classic Grucore (Grore?): cold black walls, vaguely industrial fixtures, and a high ceiling where iridescent plastic snowflakes dangle loosely. The pre-show crowd is us and the DJ, who sways somberly while puffing on a Juul. He’s wearing a cropped gray hoodie and black mesh boxer briefs layered over white cotton briefs, so the pre-show music is incredible. A club mashup of “good 4 u” and “Watermelon Sugar” plays, and everyone in the room simultaneously cums. Shaken from the collective orgasm, I stagger down blue-lit stairs to the first floor—a jazzier vibe, think big velvet curtain—to get cash. A possibly-bearded man (though I could be projecting) performs intensely on the piano, but no one is paying attention. Above the bar, stock footage of Earth as seen from outer space plays.

Illustration by Phoebe Wagoner

8:15 p.m.: Dominique and I decide it’s time for a drinkey-poo (industry term!) at the third floor bar. I ask someone whose porn I’ve watched on Twitter if he is in line, and he replies, “Yes,” in a way that makes it clear he is extremely attracted to me. In a pleasant and possibly sex-party–related surprise, I spot blue Gatorade behind the bar and get one, receiving with it a small gray puzzle piece. The mural across from the bar features two boys in medieval-esque attire (neck ruffles and jockstraps). 8:25 p.m.: I ask Julian how he thinks Paloma is feeling. “Nervous,” he replies. Tonight’s prelim consists of a runway, a performance, and a lip sync between the two top-ranking contestants. Lady Liberty is a staple competition in the NYC drag community: Winners earn scene recognition and have been known to appear on a certain RuPaul drag show. Tonight’s hosts, Brita Filter and Nicky Doll, introduce the judges, seated with a bird’s-eye view above the stage. 8:34 p.m.: The first contestant walks the runway in a satiny, pastel bodysuit embroidered with rhinestone avocados. Midway through, she pulls an actual avocado out of her bra and hands it to someone else in the front row. Obviously, I am crushed. I realize the “runway” of Lady Liberty is a small stage three feet above the ground, which contestants ascend via apple box and descend via shaky staircase. Brita offers an arm to contestants who seem like they might snap an ankle. 8:42 p.m.: Paloma is the eighth and final contestant to walk the runway. She’s adorned in cascading tiers of ruffled bandana fabric: blue, pink, white, pink, and blue again. Brita clocks the trans flag reference immediately.

What Brita doesn’t know is the painstaking process and repeated dorm floor consultations that went into choosing each specific shade.

The judges don’t know that each tier was hand-ruffled by Paloma over weeks of latenight lounge sewing sessions, or that the entire outfit, including matching headband and shoes, was rhinestoned by Paloma and Julian during finals season. Still, I watch the crowd nod approvingly as phones are rushed out of pockets to record the moment. As Paloma exits the stage, Nicky Doll reads the description she wrote for herself: “A little hood, a little classy, and proud of it.” 9:10 p.m.: Performances begin with live singing that leaves the audience unstirred. After each number, contestants walk around collecting tips in a plastic fishbowl. Audience favorites include the highest jump split I’ve ever seen and a TikTok-themed performance. 9:39 p.m.: Paloma is the final performer of the night. When she walks out in full Dora costume

to the Dora theme song, a judge rushes down from their seat to tip her before she has even started lip syncing. The performance follows Paloma as a grown-up Dora: working at a job she hates, getting fired from said job, disappointing her parents, and drinking tequila. One of Paloma’s earrings—a gold bamboo hoop, worn for both the runway and performance—falls off midway and clatters to the ground. But when she kicks it determinedly offstage, sending it flying into Julian’s lap, the audience cheers. I glance at Brita, whose beam is unmistakable. 9:47 p.m.: Dominique and I nab another round of drinkey-poos during votey-poo time. Every puzzle piece cast into Paloma’s fishbowl fills me with a little bit of hope—until I notice one contestant’s bowl is conspicuously empty. It’s almost as chilling as the half-shaved head I just spotted in the crowd. Dominique and I savor the final minutes of votey-poo time by dancing alone near the bar (in a cool way), and I spot a Grindr match but don’t approach after convincing myself he was catfishing me. Cue the And Just Like That … theme song, hun! 10:02 p.m.: Brita and Nicky call the contestants up on stage, where Paloma, who drunkenly “fell” at the end of her performance, has a spot of blood forming through the knee of her tights. After a lot of gay drumrolling (in which gay people do a drumroll), the top four are announced: the second contestant, the fourth, the one who performed the TikTok number, and … Paloma! We absolutely lose our shit. Another round of drum rolls (less gay but more vers), and the fourth- and third-placing contestants are eliminated—leaving Paloma, holding hands with the other TikToking member of the top two. Later, Paloma will tell me that “people in the scene” told her to prepare for the top two lip sync after her Dora performance, but onstage, her surprise seems genuine. 10:13 p.m.: The top two lip sync is a classic drag anthem—“Levitating” by Dua Lipa—that even Brita admits has too many words. Both of Paloma’s knees are bleeding through her tights now. Still dressed as Dora, she claps to the beat, mashes my face with her hand, and steps over her opponent’s onstage barrel roll. Before I can process what’s happening, the song is over and Nicky and Brita are announcing the winner of Lady Liberty: PALOMA LAMONA! I watch Paloma’s face crumple as the space around me dissolves into cheers. Dominique and I jump up and down together; I get squashed amidst a crowd of people trying to get pictures; DJ Double Briefed-Up whispers (shouts) into my ear: “Your friend is such a fucking star.” 10:30 p.m.: My proposal of c’mon guys let’s just check out Qruisers for a little bit is roundly rejected (virgins!), so Dominique and I chat with contestant Lori Lu as we wait for Paloma. She teaches music to children, and says that they love her drag—“they want to touch everything.” As we leave the bar, someone hands us t-shirts wrapped in plastic. I ask what they’re for, and he mentions something about it being our lucky day. When I see what’s on them—No SHIRT, No SHOES, No GENDER, with a small Corona Beer logo underneath—I can’t help but agree. 10:52 p.m.: Paloma’s blood spots are growing slowly, but she’s more focused on recounting the night—were people living, can you believe that judge tipped her, why would someone barrel roll? Most importantly, she is already starting to plan what to wear for the semifinals. There’s a future here that is impossible not to feel excited about. A name—Rupaul—flickers excitedly and nervously on our tongues as we fantasize on the subway ride home. 11:34 p.m.: Paloma gets her first taste of the glamorous life of a Lady Liberty winner—a wig cap duct-taped to her hair. Quora offers no help, so Julian takes matters into his own hands, cutting Paloma’s hair in the dorm bathroom. Paloma winces as she cleans her knee scrapes. She will later reflect on the evening as “pain. But also good things happened.” 1:07 a.m.: We end the night in the lounge of Carlton Arms 8A, eating Koronet Pizza and watching Too Hot To Handle. If I were more poetically inclined (sorry: lame), I’d highlight the circularity of the moment: The very space where Paloma made her runway outfit from scratch, mixed the audio for her performance, and so often works on her craft is, for tonight, the space where she can just enjoy the win. But all I can think about is the delicious taste and widespread variety of Corona©’s new line of 2022 Pride Products! With new Hard Seltzers That Use They/Them Pronouns, everybody can join in on the fun—because life is a cele-GAY-tion! #Ad.