DAY THREE

Charlotte Vincent
Wendy Houstoun joins the group

Morning Discussion
Ellie- I am struggling with what a new language might be or look like
WH – The problem is that you wouldn’t necessarily recognise what you don’t yet know
Discussion around emotion as subject and that emotional catharsis is not necessarily expression

CV - I think part of what is going on for me is coming to terms with who you are, how you are in a space and the psychology of performance. Here are two quotes -
• Artists are rarely satisfied people. They like it this way. Their creativity is fuelled by unrest and dissatisfaction.
• Creativity is less successful when it tries to RESOLVE contradictions than when it embraces those contradictions within its structure.
•
My own tricks bore me now. I fell fatigued with them. I am more interested in the constructs now perhaps.
WH - John Cassavetes film Opening Night - questions of power and responsibility
CV I think I have become fearful of outcomes that are not ‘good enough’ or are mediocre. I am becoming more interested in not so much the content anymore as the language.
Jem - The thing that keeps rising out of these discussions has got something to do with how you hold a room and a structure. Why don’t we make what we fancy?
WH- Maybe the scale is too big? This catharsis approach – it seems old fashioned now. It feels like Choreography as Dentistry?
CV – I think that’s why I am drawn to making solos with the 10x10 thing. It’s almost like intimate practice framed in a middle scale construct.
WH – I decided to pursue dance because, unlike many other subjects at school, I knew I could do movement whether or not I fancied it and despite any mood I might be in. The environment you are in determines how we react.

What we may be interested in is making explicit the choice-making in the choreographic process.

Repetition as part of what we do – might be interested to make this part of the Language we use. Seeing the attempt to do something and keeping uncertainty alive in performance reflects the process we go through to make the thing.

As soon as you see unison in a work, you know that the piece isn’t interested in the individual or in choice-making. The dancers seem to be hurried through the piece to the end. Don’t make a monkey out of the dancers.

The group did a Yoga based warm up with Rachel then had lunch.

AFTERNOON
Technical Lesson from Dom, how to set up PA system in the space, record mini-disk etc.

JEM TASK
Paper placed on the floor with the words
WONDER / HUMOUR / RAGE / STRENGTH / LOVE / DISGUST
Group asked to go around and add any drawing, symbol, word etc onto the paper
Then he led us through a series of tasks, using breath/ voice/movement / jump cutting and cross fading into these places
Improvisation in trio and duo form

Reflection
A trio involving WH and CV and PK became an interesting when WH played RAGE with silly hands and tried to read the words from the page in a very understated way. Finding what she was doing funny, CV hovered around Humour page on the floor and so the real and played got mixed up. The WH sat on a chair with the RAGE page stuck to her wrist and said ‘I’m really angry (9 second pause) No I am (5 second pause). I’m really cross about that.


Points of Interest
• Stopping and starting – like repetition- is part of what we do and could be reflected in the end product.
• Rage delivered in an understated way could be interesting – unlike say sadness as sometimes sadness is understated – rage isn’t by definition.
• Let the improv run on for longer – sticking at one thing for a long time reaps new rewards
• Singularity – one action picks up other resonances if repeated over and over
• If a group starts together and one person gets stuck in some inexplicable paralysis could be interesting. – that you maybe somehow left behind in your own moment.
• Collisions of performance style is an interesting thing to include in one task - that differing approaches that comment on each other may be jarring in a good way.