Choreographic Lab

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.

The idea behind my residency at the Burst Festival at BAC (www.bac.org.uk) in May 2006 was to allow members of the public to come and observe my research for the last hour and a half of the day (between 17.30 –19.00). BAC thought this would be a good time because it was the period prior to shows opening in other spaces in the building so they thought there might be a large number of people looking for something else to do before their shows started. People could come for the whole hour and a half of my open session or could drop in as they so pleased (for a minute or whatever). Initially I intended to do nothing in particular for them – ideally I thought if people came and they happened to find me and my collaborators in the middle of a coffee/sandwich break, or just lying around, or chatting then so be it - that is what they would experience. I thought this way people would realise, if they didn’t already know, that the creative process is not necessarily continuously and consistently highly focused, disciplined work, constantly searching for and/or receiving inspiration, instead it can often just be long periods of time sitting around, not particularly doing anything, thinking and talking about anything but the matter in hand.

In the end I found this difficult to sustain as an ideal. I found that my desire that I should be able to conduct my research unaffected by the presence of other people was impossible. I knew this already really – I knew that whatever I am doing, be it a finished piece, a work in progress or just sitting in a room at home looking out the window, once a person or a number of people enter the room the relationship is changed – the room is changed.

I felt that I had to address the observers form time to time to check out if they needed anything - explanations, permissions to interject, permission to leave the room and return if they wanted. I should point out that they had all received a “programme” briefly explaining what was going on and how they could or could not interact with the process. There were also a number of information sheets on the wall before they entered the room, detailing who I am, what the work is about, what the Choreographic Lab is about and some explanation of who my collaborators might be, plus a video of some of the films I had already edited. Rightly or wrongly I perceived that whatever information they had before entering, it would not be enough for them.

Articulate Salon - A round table at nottdance 06.

Click to enlarge:

The first of my voice-movement rough edits. Its a continuous loop. Though the clip lasts about twenty seconds this is for the purposes of limiting uploading size only. Actually the loop could go on indefinitely. Though I’ve come to no firm concusion about this I envisage that loops like this might become projected backdrops to be interacted with live in some form by the performer/s featured in them or by other performers. The interaction could involve music or movement inspired by the sound-movement in the film or in contrast to it and could be improvised or set. The films may also stand in their own right, or play in cannon/syncopation with copies of themselves, or they could be edited together with other films to create some kind of visual-vocal-physical melody.

Guy edit 5

Size: 6 Mg
Resolution: 320×240
Format: Quicktime