May 2006
NottDance Festival 06
‘RoundTable’ Event hosted by Choreographic Lab

Programme

“Tea, cake and a little articulation”

Welcome to the table, and to our companionship. As we eat cake, we shall talk. This event is designed to focus discussions and provide a forum for the sharing of movement practices. Below you will see a menu of topics from which we shall savour - loosely in order. To ensure that everyone speaks as much as they need without interruption we will be playing the ‘conch’ game with the object you will see in the centre of the table. When you wish to speak, please take the conch and when you have finished, please put it back.
Other elements will include performative interruptions, video projections and arbitrary changes of seating!
Please use the pens provided to write or draw on the ‘table cloth’ any thoughts, ideas or responses throughout the event.

Slice it (to wet the appetite…)
◊ a little light hypochondria (a maximum of two physical complaints/fetishes with/without current remedy/treatment)
◊ what are your ingredients? Or, what are your inspirations? (your own background/influences)

Taste it (to muse upon some flavours…)
◊ What moves you?
◊ Why do it?
◊ Performing solo/with others
◊ Inbetween-ness – the things that aren’t

Devour it (whilst pausing to cogitate … )
◊ Considering articulation – textualise, physicalise, verbalise
◊ models of practice that allow us to discuss our work
◊ research environments and the role of the collective (too many cooks?)

Digest it (to satisfy needs…)
◊ Reflections
◊ closings - for now…

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Performed by Mark Adams & Polly Frame

At the Nott Dance event I gave three tasks; the first two, to help us try and find poetic ways of articulating our practice. They were inspired by the salon questions themselves; the first in response to the opening subject “slice it” (“what are your ingredients?”) which I extended to make more playful; the second was in response to a request by Efrosini Protopapa to devise a similar task that engaged with the “Taste it” subject (“why do it?”). Efrosini’s suggestion to (simply) list the ‘why’s’ then pass around for others to provide the opposite meaning (and then the ‘in-between’) seemed to be the most effective, and straightforward process, however; we didn’t get round to actually doing it as the discussions continued to change and move on. I devised the following headings for us to play with whilst we talked, which aimed to at least get some sort of material out of a good idea, whilst at the same time; keeping it playful and light so not to stop the flow of the discussions. The third task was to ask the participants to write me a score; which I had already prepared a flyer for, and simply continued my Lab investigations in the ways I had already been doing over the last year.

The first task was devised in the first instance to lead to a later ‘task’ (I wanted to ask people to write a list of their ‘ingredients’…

“imagine that you are a cake (or dish of your choice); write a list of ingredients which make up the recipe”

This would perhaps lead to a discussion about ‘method’ and ‘methodology’ (how would one put together the ingredients?).

Mine was:

• take a level teaspoon of Grotowski (Richards will do), Nunez, and Slowiak, and crush together in a pestle and mortar.
• Add some doubt and cynicism about the messianic and devotional aspects of their practices to form a smooth paratheatrical paste.
• Take the theatrical aesthetic of Beckett, Wilson, Lepage and Brooks
• Coat with the crushed paratheatrical paste and leave to soak in the flavours.
• Finely chop 3 whole DV8 pieces (pref’ My Sex Our Dance, Strange Fish, and Cost of Living), and sweat in a wok alongside 2 generous cups of Bausch, or Vandekeybus
• Add 2 cans of experimental choreography (Bel, Le Roy and Lehman are ideal) and simmer until reduced into a rich sauce
• Now add the marinated theatrical aesthetic and cover for 2 years.
• Whilst the mixture simmers, blend together 6 years of practice, teaching and research in the field of Performance Studies, 13 years of (poor) state education, 4 years of interdisciplinary practice as research in Drama and Performance Studies, and 7 years of professional practice (mask-work, physical theatre, and street art works best)
• Add a serious need for more training in dance, to taste.
• Pour mixture into a large translucent bowl and add the simmering mixture.

The second task consisted of sheets of paper with headings written on for people to respond to:

This one tries to address the ‘why do it’ question – but I also wanted to reveal or at least encourage us to think about our work beyond ourselves…

WHY THE WORLD NEEDS ME

· Because I don’t get excited too easily

· Because I don’t enjoy performing

· Because I’m different

· Because I scare you

· Because you might see yourself in me

The next two concern ones work as a job; and its lineararity and our lists of ‘things’ that occupy our time and space (‘work’ or ‘not work’)

OUT TRAY (things ‘done’ and ready to ‘file’)

· Too much worrying to do it perfect

o (and me!)

· Nothing yet…the product/presentation hinders the creative journey

IN TRAY (things ‘to do’ and needing doing)

· Need

· Life

· Hunger

· Apprehension

· Ideas

· Connections

· Inspirations

· Desire

· Ideas…ideas…ideas – scattered – incoherent

· Find space + time

· Time

This one is about our aims and ambitions, but also about how we (or whether we) abide to the rules and codes we set ourselves; a signal of ones needs and desires…

NOTES TO SELF

· Remember why you want to do work

· Remember where passion and curiosity lies in work

· Trust what arises – refine the observation – dull the wilful doing

· Believe in the work

· Keep going slowly to open up time

· Trust the gaps

· Stillness

· Let it go sometimes

· Challenge

· Love

· Don’t leave me

· See studio more often

· Get up

· Try and stop – and not do

· Love my fetish…its OK

· Don’t waste any time

· Stay in love

· Pull your finger out of your arse and get some work done!

· Don’t get up

· Take time

· Rem: you need to keep learning…?

The following two consider the artist and his/her work in a relationship…and return to the ‘why do it’ question by providing us with reasons ‘for’ and ‘against’ making work, or even articulating our work…

THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU

· Self-judgement, censorship

· I’ve been here before

· Overly critical

· Not being good enough

· Getting in the way – persistence

· You burn me up

· I can’t seem to define you… (but maybe that’s a love/hate thing…)

· I’m not allowed to have fun anymore

· Messiness

· Too much meaning

· Too much of different stuff

· Noone likes you because you don’t fit in the boxes

· Uncertainty, lack of confidence in ability

· Procrastination

· Fear

· Lack of confidence

THINGS I LOVE ABOUT YOU

· Difficult…writing may be small…!

· Simplicity

· Connections

· Doing it…being in it…losing self

· Being, being self

· Fluidity

· Going deeper

· Sparks, excitement

· Passion, drive

· Too messy

· Lots of different stuff

· Emotional quality

· ‘the old woman’

· Seemingly orderly

· Suspicious

· You burn me up at times, so that you are, like sex, intense, spiritual, contact with fellow human beings

· The strange situations you put me in. the risks you make me take. The demands; the cooperation

· The fun we have together at everyone else’s expense

· You make my belly flop

· The way you push me

The final task – at the end of the event was to ask people to share a little more of their artistic practice by offering me a score…

“a score for one performer…

You are warmly invited as respected peers, artists, critics, and scholars, to offer your recipes, tasks, instructions and ‘scores’ for action and movement.

They will contribute to a performance made from a collection of scores/instructions by national and international dance and theatre practitioners

Perhaps you’d like to share a fragment or task from your own creative practice, or explore the task of describing a way of doing what you do that instigates and instructs creative response AND ACTION in the body.

You can also contribute to the event in the following ways

• Text messages/phone instructions: 07944355661
• Emails/webcam: physicaltheatre@hotmail.com
• By post: C/O Robert Jude Daniels, Performance Studies, University College Northampton, NN2 6JD

• Or you can write your task, recipe, instruction or score below”

(I also asked that everyone supply their names and affiliation/institution in order to appropriately credit each contribution)

A couple of people said they would send a score via post/email, but I’m beginning to accept that (because other people has promised the same in the past and not followed through) they will not. I’m not entirely sure why there’s a reluctance to contribute; perhaps it’s in my asking, or where – in the discussion – it is asked for (?) nevertheless; there needs to be a better strategy of introducing, working on and collecting the scores in future. The lists above and the other stuff on the tablecloth itself provide the lab, and my research within it, with some interesting stuff to muse upon (even on a playful, superficial level), but the end result; where I introduce a couple of tasks in order to encourage their engagement with my final request clearly reflects a need for more guidance and specificity/purpose.

Eventually – a score was dropped through my letterbox. Just the one mind – but it beats a smack in the face…

POSTED SCORES:

From: Linzi Gibbs, Student at DeMontfort University

1) Have to move across the space on a mattress, you are not allowed to touch the floor or surrounding (walls) but you are allowed to use the audience/instruct them to help you.

Mattress can be folded, rolled, slid, shunted, toppled etc. be inventive.

2) RECITE JOHN Keats ‘Ode to Psyche’ whilst slowly walking backwards in a figure of eight in the space…pausing with the natural pauses in the text (and varying these pauses).

Musical accompaniment = (for ambience) drum and bass of your choice (preferably heavy drum and bass…)

I was speaking to Steph Crawford, dance development worker for Dance 4 who sat in on our tea and cakes event. She gave me some feedback that I wanted to share. She benefited from sitting and listening at the event and felt that it was framed well and the right number of people involved. It made her re-focus on her work as an artist and maker that has been lost under her title as ‘development worker’. She did make a couple of comments that could be useful to us in similar future events. She found it hard to watch the videos whilst somebody was talking as it felt that she wasn’t giving full attention to either. Perhaps we needed to have specific breaks for the video? She also found that the ‘conch’ although a good tool inhibited peoples flow - its always so difficult in these types of events. In hindsight I believe that with the type of people who took part in the event, that we could have allowed it to be freer, and that participants would have recognised the need for space and silence within that. I hope this is useful.

Articulate Salon - A round table at nottdance 06.

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