Choreographic Lab

Being in the practice.
To write from the practice.
Stopping to write.
Not waiting to complete before I write.

Putting myself into my physical, emotional and mental mind/body space.
Dwelling…………….
Trying hard not to dash.
Taking time.
Coupled with a development in my own practice to the yin rather than the yang.

A surprise to make another, a new work.
And video at that.
I thought I would be reflecting on past work and making bits of new live performance choreographies.

On trying to understand process a product has emerged.
And how important the heart of it is.
The heart is.
Yvon is right.
The heart of the work.
The heart of the lab.
The red river pulses on too scared to stop or slow for fear of being stagnant.
This has given me heart.

But what a difficult thing to do.
To offer up something. To place it under a microscope and to keep changing the lenses, even ever so slightly.
Or switch to a new frame?
To let it go and then to be given it back, only to try to understand more.
Muddy waters.
Some clarity.
More mud.
(Like the squid changing shape).
Critical reflection or action research?

And the tremendous gift, courage, as words start to spew out not in carelessness but in an attempt to delve deeper.
To understand, in a deeper way and to ‘acknowledge’ who you are and all you are made up of and where some of that may sit in all of this stuff. Such a tremendous (sense of) responsibility.

Enough. Too much solely in the head now. Return.
And I’m cold again.
How on earth do we represent the richness?
Remember a slice of not a superficial scratch at the whole.

The presence.
Palpable.
The palpable presence of the felt sense in THIS room.
Here and now.
The privelege.
The priveleged.
Struggling.
Struggling to find the words.
(For Yvon from Guy).
The difficulty in beginning, in locating where it is, where it is coming from.
Oh my.
And listening. Learning to listen more.
How has that one slipped me by and permeated my whole being?
To take time.
Enough.

Hearing their voices saying their words.
And sitting still.
Not dancing.
Noticing all the nuances as we search for the sensation.
But not dancing. A six year old got us dancing together. (Thankyou Naomi).
We cluster around. We cluster around technology and I grow stiffer.

However it feels to me that if we hadn’t ever moved together, watched each other moving, guided each other through those practices that ground us, our level of understanding and generosity would not be as rich. Now I understand more. Now I can connect the words with how you move, with what is important, I understand more.

I asked for time to reflect upon practice, to further explore my practice in order to articulate, be more articulate! I hadn’t really considered how being part of this collective would really impact upon this. How I really came to understand my practice more was through careful, often difficult, feedback loops from all the other lab members over an extended period of time. Visiting and revisiting. Searching and re-searching. Understanding much more through the generosity of others.

And through action-research, less planning, acting & reflecting but rather reflecting, re-making, making. Both cyclical but we start in a different place and each moment contains all of those elements all at once.

Getting nearer to the practice through the practice itself. Writing just after I have moved, or stopping to write and then continuing to move. And now I find myself dwelling in the minutae and then to the magnificant and the magnificant minutae. In the figurative in amongst and alongside the natural, the enviromental. Happened upon - Ella’s feet dancing in the water then ‘lifted and copied’ in performance. Focussing on those beautifully dancerly unchoreographed moments made up from the naturalistic, the found.

Oh more than that. Embodied. As my son Callum runs down a corridor and slides to a halt on his knees. The night after I watch Peter Kay’s observation of this exact single moment, sequence of events, howling with laughter with my Dad.

The focussing in on a moment, or a series of moments. What draws us, is it me and you, to that? What do I know, what have I learnt that draws me to that? What focusses my attention?
Trying to understand the ‘draw’ of the moment, the movement, the image, the sound. The pre-image or pre-sound. The post-image and post-sound. This in relationship to other frames of reference - the painterly, the filmic, where else?

And how does all of this become relevant to a wider community? To a contribution of knowledge?
To be continued………………………

Three seasons, three ages, three places. It is definately an old device invented to represent the multi-dimensionality of reality - each part is independent and self-contained but also part of a whole too - what happens then with a triptych in the age of “multi media”? It becomes a highly complex compositional device, image and sound are used to both indicate a subject matter and dissolve it. One would think that this piece is about children, which is true in some ways, but the rhythm of the editing and slow initial quality of the child’s movement has another effect on the viewer’s brain. We occasionally see the world through the child’s eyes, but also how the child might see the world in a few years time, there is a peculiar sense of now and tomorrow, now and after - after what? I don’t know but I suspect that the child becomes a metaphor for the world not in a naive way but perhaps in a positive sense that life is hard and painful but there is hope and potential.
So the triptych creates a space in-between, between now and then, here and there, old and new, painful and pleasant and it doesn’t settle into any of these.

Reflections written by Sophia Lycouris.

Task 1: Responding quickly to note images, resonances etc:

I don’t wanted to rush… but the task is to be quick. ….
Child, Old woman … Seasons passing — and as I write this I not that the seasons stand in opposition to the ageing process.
Struggle and sadness but a lightness touches me…. perhaps it is the tender voices that are singing - real voices - the summer sky that fills the far right screen.
Three screens — three stages of ageing.
The old womens voice tingles as the words grey on white appear on the screen.
Feet — in sand, making stepping patterns on stage, in snow, in water, in a summer meadow or garden…
Stepping and falling through life.
The middle screen… shifts in context.. layering images… what is it about three?
Life and death - a circle.

Task 2: Respond in a haiku (are your version of!)

White steps fade, summer - sand.
Looking out over water - blue sky, a child plays
Gentle tussle with life, birth

(Vida)

voice speech old frail loss, white hair, wash away, frament remains, softness of the body young, podgy, soft, old tired loose, snow muffled fire water air, fingers and arm crosses across the camera, relationship between the 3 images - creating a narrative connection, table carriying body - a body dragging itself across the floor pulling the tired body draining the strength away. red material floating in and out of the cameras eye. black white surround - symbols, hiding hide and seek, resting standing arm swings down. body hangs off the raised arm. pulling the body down water overlapping the shoulders then what? the face head summerged, sinking swallowed by the vastness of the ocean the vastness of life swamped by it all, a yearning for something that is invisible, a big sigh, lulled by the music voices sending me off someplace else, some otherness, other place, a place that is muffled and padded with cotton wool. squeeky.

haiku

a body dragging
sunk - swallowed by the vastness
let the breath go out

Sara’s Triptych

• First task: As soon as you have experienced the work, and as quickly as you, can write as many key words, images, ideas, fragments, connections as you can …
• Make a response in a haiku (or your own version of!)

I feel I’m not just ‘looking’ (watching, observing, seeing, sensing, feeling) the work and then – afterwards – trying to remember something, but that I’m looking at the work knowing I have to remember. It changes the way I ‘look’ (etc.) – I am looking for things…

Goo goo ga gaa
Baby in the snow
Baby in the field
Baby at the beach
Grey hair
Sea
Sand
A long table in the middle – a high angle
Inside and outside are coloured differently; inside feels black and white (the nostalgic aesthetic, outside is warm, and “glowy” feels softer.
Synchronicity: walking, shifting, lift the arm, scoop it down together
Spread yourself out on the floor, the table,
Walk in the grass, let the water rush round your feet
Sing a song o’ something
Slow motion, reflecting, nostalgia, remembering
Fleeting hazy sunshine, soon overcast
Words are friends and they sometimes leave you like friends do. But some come back, and you feel they were never gone.

1.
Sing goo-goo-ga-gaa
Raise arm slowly. Scoop it down
Words leave you like friends

2.
Feet walk slowly through:
Snow. Grass. Water. Sand. Inside. Out…
Sometimes happy, sometimes sad

A tightness across the chest, a heaviness.
A reminder of knowledge……………….of this process, of this work.
Seeing more - children, small steps, open spces, 3 screens, colour and an immense sadness in ME.
A woman dragging herself across the floor.
Why do I want to make sense?
A separation of eyes and body. Are they separated?
————-
A shower of colours, of green and white.
My body chased by nostalgia.
I think I resisted that, my body resisted it, my head and my throat.
I wanted to feel and I loathed to feel.
————
Lots to see.
Meanings in images and associations to images.
Nowhere near an image. I didn’t see, the first sensation was in my ears.
A child’s cry and the manipulation of the child’s cry. Nostalgia cut by the manipulation of the sounds. The strings being cut.

Harmony and dis-harmony.
Together and apart.
Fuzziness around the screen.
Familiarity with the triptych, trying not to remember.

Images in the middle. The studio work. Felt different. I noticed the difference and it feels significant.
Evocative image of the older woman on the beach.
Stillness unwatched but remembered,
Looking at right (hand side image) but noticing that the left is there more. The song at the end completes that meaning.
Watching and seeing difference.
Looking and not looking.
I’m noticing rather than watching.
————–
(An acknowledgement first) an anxiety about getting this process right.
An annoyance with having to watch within this framework.
This colours my experience of watching it, for fear of getting it wrong.

The enjoyment of watching the images, the cut.
How do I watch this?
The connection between the three images. Easy to watch and not easy to watch.
Annoyed by music and (not) hearing it.
It never felt easy to listen and watch.
Closing eyes to hear the words.

Surprised by being delighted by the simplicity of the four flowers in the frame.
The colour and simplicity.
My eyes held by an image outside of the body……………….and tinsel.
Silver tinsel dust thrown up into the air.
Being held. By a lightness.
Curious as to whether it is enough to be intrigued by nothingness.
I liked the feet in the water. But feet are always interesting to look at.
Is it enough that I like it?

Studio sections - is it important that I have seen this show before? (Or that I haven’t?)
Human beings doing things that are set.
A really different quality and relative to other images. Not set.
————
Hazy baby gaze.
White feet. white sheet.
Eyelashes, eyes up close and fluttering.
Cold and cool. Feet to head. Faceless womans head. Stroking and comforting.
First steps. Last steps. Lulling and plodding.
The sweet sound of babyhood.
————
I loved that.
The arm across the face.
And so did you.
The way the arm fell across the face.
————
Floating boat people.
Studio stuff on nocturnal sand.
————
A pressing in the chest and a twang in the shoulder blades.
Empathy and discomfort.
The pleasure of life on-going.
Empathy, longing, flow.
Chest pressing (low diaphragm).
A warm sensation, mothering, life processes.
Beginnings and endings - hard.
A discomfort with the work.
Twanging, sting.
The tension between the live work and video. The aesthetic of the studio and filmic images. An unease.
If I have not seen the live work, then how is it?
Liking the recontextualisation of the live work.
And wanting to stay wallowing.
————
A tightness in my neck.
A real discomfort.
Silence.
An inordinately long wait.
The relief as someone speaks.
(Thankyou).
I receive, gratefully and feel amazed by the generosity.
The generosity in dwelling within oneself and the work, the difficulty in doing that.
Taking time, taking time up.
The struggle to be within.
Close up and alongside.

Strangely, like me and like the work.
To take time to form the images and the sounds.
(For us) the fascination in pre, literally before, language and how an image comes into and out of focus.
The clarity from the blur………………someone said fuzziness.
Seeing and not seeing.
Listening and not hearing.
Coming to a point of articulation.
Had anyone seen the (repeated) images of the annunciation?
(Fra Angelico).
(Mary and Gabriel).
No-one said so.
I could have asked.
I didn’t.
Maybe it doesn’t matter?

How does this work, the thing itself, this little bit of a dance, of sounds, words and images so full of emotions for me,
absoloutely steeped in them…………
so very present and yet a real, all too real absence…………..of a dearly loved one…….
collide, collude and confuse how we respond from our felt sensations?
What is the difference (in) between nostalgia and sentimentality?

Thankyou for all of this (in alphabetical order only) to Donald, Guy, Jane, Kerryn, Rob, Simon, Vida.

And I just wanted to say I also so wanted to hear.
(although I hadn’t realised how much until I did)!
I loved it, I just really loved it.
And it moved me.
I was moved.
Thankyou for that too.
————

For Jo.

Following is an unedited version of series of responses (using focusing/felt sense) to viewing of video/film by Sara Giddens.

Who by Fire - Bodies in Flight

Click to enlarge:

Who By Fire
by Bodies in Flight and Angel Tech
performer Tim Atack

Click on image to open video in pop-up window. Please be patient whilst the movie downloads.

Size: 164 Kb
Resolution: 320×240
Format: Quicktime h.264