Although not a dance practitioner, my work deals with movement and the navigation of space, particularly focusing on the codes and patterns of activity we develop in reaction to an environment. I began to explore the idea of mis-performance during a residency at A3 projects in March 2015, under the steer of Simon Poulter – aka Viral Info. Poulter instructed exploration between two texts during the 5-day residency, the first James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (I selected only one page at random and stuck to it) and the other being A Users Guide To Demanding The Impossible:
https://artsagainstcuts.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/users-guide-to-the-impossible-web-version.pdf
I resonated with the quote lifted below, and used this as an instructing notion for much of my work during 2015:
There are things that your body wants to do, things that you know are right, and yet the social norms manage to shape our bodies into “good behaviour”, rigid and regimented. (Mis)performing is simply having the courage (from the french coeur meaning literally from the heart) to let our bodies do what they want to do.
From this point on, the body, my body, and the way it behaved, was a focal point for further residency commissions that I was awarded during the year, including The New Art Gallery Walsall May-Jun 2015:
http://go-nagw.blogspot.co.uk/.
Still wading through a franticly busy 2015, I was selected to perform in Florence Peake’s ReMake at Vivid Projects Birmingham Oct 2015. A weekend schedule curated by Polly Hudson, formed part of a wider series of events and happenings within Vivid’s 9-evenings programme:
http://www.vividprojects.org.uk/programme/9-evenings-vis-er-al/
This was my introduction to Polly’s practice, and her work as a dancer and teacher. As part of the training leading up to ReMake, I took part in a 2-hour Skinner Release Technique (SRT) class at Dance Exchange Birmingham . I walked out of the class feeling as if I belonged to a new body, and the following days – working and performing with Florence Peake and a team of dancers – were revelatory in terms of the way I moved and connected with my immediate environment.
http://www.florencepeake.com/remake/
Having being so deeply struck by the impact of this work, I was adamant that I would pursue further opportunities to develop this process within my work – both as an experimental research tool, and a performative output within my work. I was invited by Polly to consider a 5-day intensive programme in Wales in August 2016, and so this was placed on my list of development needs for the following year:
http://www.yogawithmeriel.co.uk/skinner-releasing-intensive—polly-hudson
