Article five part one…
So what does happen when a choreographer is situated in the role of curator? From our discussion I glean that Siobhan put together the collaborators for this series of commissions, in a way was in essence very choreographic. She set the initial scenario in which three pairs and one trio would come together, the rule being that neither party was to compromise but that true collaboration would be honoured. Collaboration is at the heart of making dance and dancers are a huge part of the process. They carry inside them a knowledge base for the work as well as being the physical material for it. This is acknowledged in varying degrees by choreographers and Siobhan is the kind that openly recognises the contribution that the dancers make. She says:
‘ I have always worked best with a group of artists in which the feedback loop between myself and them is a constant exchange of what is possible with what we are doing. I like that variety of voice and intelligence in the making of the work and I honour the fact that it is the dance artists, the performers, that have to be the work when we have reached the point of having a dialogue with the audience’.
I asked why it was interesting to her to commission collaborations with visual artists that were, in all cases but one, previously unknown to her dance artists. She told me that these commissions are an opportunity for her and the dance artists to see that dancer’s bank of knowledge and experience in a new light, through the lens of the newcomer with a freshness and new vitality. Siobhan and her dancers have worked together for a long time and moment had been reached where she wanted them to make work. To trigger this she choose four visual artists for them to partner.
I was interested to know how long these new relationships had taken to build and how they had started. As all the dance makers reading this will know, a common starting place for dancers is to move in the space together and see what emerges, establishing the physical relationship first. Siobhan told me that in this case, this was not the only option due to the different art forms coming together, and that also the act of discussion about the work presented new opportunities. The pairs soon found that they had different reference points and words that normally brought connection, initially brought confusion, holding different meanings for each person. In order to find a process with which the artists could work together, a sort of archaeology had to take place, an uncovering of their experience and understanding of things, words and concepts.
Further conversations with some of the collaborators revealed that it was through this process that some of the most interesting things came to light. Things that each person had previously taken for granted, things that formed part of their automatic knowledge base that they brought to a work, which may not have played a very large part before emerged as new and interesting ground for discussion. As dance artist Gill Clarke put it:
‘The very special aspect of this commission was that it gave time – and trust- to explore and not to have to turn our attentions immediately to focus on ‘what are were going to make ?’, which is the scenario much more likely to have kept us in what we already knew, in our own separate practices, somehow brought together or combined.
Instead we were free to explore interests that we discovered we held in common or propositions we could get intrigued by, and allowed different forms to emerge that were not at all restricted by our individual disciplines. And yes, this did both reveal insights into each other’s practices and a chance to reflect on our own’.
Read on to part two …
