Random T.
I thought I’d be too tired tonight – and I am! – to write another post. So I’m going to keep the writing short this time…
It’s quite interesting the way you learn something positive when you least expect it. It’s good for the Soul. It’s actually good for creativity as well. This week I’m (re)-learning about a simple fact of life: no matter how one bigs himself up, only the quality of their work will do the right talking! It’s been shown to me earlier on in the week and proved again twice today.
Question: How to apply this observation to myself if needed to be?
#TDE
It was a full on rehearsal day today at 35 MHS – formerly home of Theatre Delicatessen, Marylebone Gardens. The afternoon was spent with Prams In The Hall, working on the stylization of a poem about a single father longing for his young son. It was a bit of a chaotic session, not because of the little one running through the room almost the entire time. Because everybody had to catch their breath after a late start and somehow things had to be done in a hurry. We still managed to make some discoveries – to steal director Ain Rashida Sykes’s saying – which, I presume, will probably be more useful for the workshopping of the other scene than the one we’re exploring at present. To me, today’s objective was mainly about checking the actors’s ability to move and to think with their bodies first as opposed to their mind or their acting logic (if you can call it as such?). In that sense, think my mission has been fulfilled. The next rehearsal will be the real challenge though, trying to find the “correct” characterization through physicality for each actor. I’ll be looking forward to it!
After Prams in the Hall rehearsal and catching up with the director about what has been done today I went to my own session of workshopping ideas. Or a session of fooling around as I like to call it. The original idea was to go through some ballet and pilates to refine my movement range and get back in tune with my body. It has had its moments, since I’ve started 3 weeks ago. When it works, it is really fun and I can see myself pursuing some of the ideas I accidentally discovered more seriously when making a new piece. When it fails to generate any improvised movement which doesn’t feel part of an healthy set of exercises, it leaves me with some frustrating thoughts about my limitations and lack of inspiration. After a while, I have to remind myself I purposefully came with no plans in mind except that going through what I’ve learnt a few days before in class.
Tonight was a mix of both emotions. Felt ecstatic after the first part of rehearsal then quite preoccupied with the fact my movements seemed to be similar to the ones I had the session before. For quite a while, I had a moment of panic: I wondered if I was still in it – in other words interested in moving, communicating heavily through my body or simply making movement-based work. I have had this sort of faith’s crisis before and still haven’t got the solution to get over it. I usually tame it by working on other ideas and then come back to my choreography work. This time, though, I seemed to have known why this panic occurred. I have been stuck with this rehearsal for the past two sessions. I’m half-way through the month period and I’m clearly reaching the point when I need to give the sessions a proper direction. It’s probably a good sign. It probably means that I’m ready to actually explore ideas in the aim of making a piece. It probably means my body has a few more things to say?
The next stage then is to decide how I want to use the remaining rehearsals, how I would like to use my body and what for? The ideas I’ve got need to be put in a proper context, which means some proper “academic” research first before thinking of developing them in the studio. The ones that came out of my fooling around need more practising and pacing. And I’m not at that stage yet.
So we’re back to square 1.5. I’ll need to find out over the next few days what sort of direction I’d like to give to my “fooling around” and how to use my body in this new context. And what for?
New Year? New…
So the triple bill I’m featured in promises to be an interesting one. The group piece will be quite emotional, if I understood well, while the other solo will be quirky and fun in some places. As for mine? The way I described the piece seems like it might be a heavy affair. Deep even – as one of the other artists mentioned. Philosophical maybe, I’d say.
The quirky solo will (in-)directly deal with integrity, chronicling highs and lows of making work for free. A recurrent theme of discussions which doesn’t often find a happy medium. ‘What to do with the money you’ll earn?’ The group’s choreographer asked. Surely, they should keep the money as reward for the sweat, hurdles and anticipated emotional turmoil they’ll be facing throughout the process…That was my suggestion. The choreographer’s observation raised a good point: do we realistically think about earning money as soon as we agree to make work for free? Or is it some wishful thinking that we keep in the back of our mind, knowing we probably won’t see any penny in our purses from the performance we’ve produced?
In this platform’s context though, the pressure is tripled! Not only each featured artist has to earn money from their performance to cover the costs making the piece will require but also to avoid owing the venue the hiring fees they will charge if we haven’t reached the box office target to break even. On the top of it, each of us needs to guarantee bums on seat to make the night pleasurable (at the very least), which, if we think about it, is just a given.
What becomes of artistic integrity then? For the quirky solo, an easy, obvious selling point. For any other first-timers, it’s a “rude’ welcome to the independent performing artist’s reality. And for the established one who’s used to self-produce his work? A different approach to the same game. In my case, it’ll raise the question of what I’m selling, through my piece and to whom. Dance is the medium of communication I’ll be using to explore a sensitive subject, quite personal to me but is it really how the audience will perceive it?
I have thought about the question of integrity since the moment I submitted the proposal about a month ago but it didn’t really concern me until tonight, being surrounded by dancers who know pretty much they’re making a dance piece as we know it to a large sense. All I know, at this stage, is that the body – my body – is the centre point of ideas and reflection on social paranoia and persecution. Can the performance remain true to the subject if the body becomes dancing? Or does the idea have to be altered to fit the exercise?
Questions I shall carry with me when I’ll start the process for this piece…
Thoughts of the late night
Back from my second holistic rehearsal session. I call it holistic as its aim is to give my body a good work out. So there’s a lot of pilates and ballet-based exercises to slowly warm me up before the improvisation part gets me to move harder. The improvisation lasts in theory 30mn, serving as a moving laboratory for ideas.
Last week was all about the feet. It felt like they were on fire. The music I had in the background probably had something to do with it. The improvisation started quite slow but very quickly my fiery feet broke the rythm, gyrating around and rebelling against the pace my mind wanted them to be in. It was a surprising out come. It certainly felt like a first step towards the making of a new piece.
This week’s session had mixed results. The body work out hour felt positive and gave me an energy boost. The improvisation part was a bit more complicated to experience. The foot work was still the core of the exercise but added to it were gestures’s exploration while some ritualistic movements found their way into the jam too. While last week’s improv’ was structured and tight despite the strong influence of the music in the background, today’s jam was clearly an organic mess. The structure didn’t flow as well and the overall feeling I had from the dance was monotonous. Perhaps, the music influenced the direction even more heavily this time. Maybe I was in a different headspace. All I saw was a recurring movement pattern that didn’t much room to expand. These limitations were caused by the configuration of the room. I had 6 chairs in front, creating a line and somehow I was physically stuck between the semi-sprung space and the little carpeted green area. In this awkward shaped area, my feet had nowhere to travel (far) and they felt the pressure! Funny enough these “obstacles” didn’t frustrate me. Even if I got bored with some of my own movements, I just kept going until the end.
I’m not sure what to make of today’s session yet. Maybe I’ll have to up my (rehearsal) game for next time. Initially, I wanted to take it very easy, not rushing back into the same way of dance making but maybe the time is right to get back into it as last week’s session indicated. What’s the next step now? That’s the question to occupy my mind for the whole week!
Anything Could Happen
I’ve been off and on the saddle since my last post: missing opportunities, (narrowly) missing deadlines, clinging on small bursts of inspiration, but not following them through, getting frustrated at my rusty movements, at my lack of fluidity when being on pointe, at not keeping up with the fast-paced counting, getting excited again by the prospect of organizing an art event next year, getting more frustrated by the fact that – for the past 3 weeks, I struggled with my daily to-do-lists – feeling enthusiastic about the work from some fellow artists and friends.
I’m not sure where I am going with this [post]. Not sure I should read anything into this “chaotic” period either. Perhaps it is a perfectly normal state to find myself in – I have not fully reconnected with my practice so why shall I put unnecessary pressure on a work that has yet to be created? Why not just enjoying the moment when anything creatively could happen?
