Choreographic Lab

Dear all, Coming to the end of an intense Autumn Term, some updates on my research activities and some things to share: I have been continuing to study basic design with Sally Jacobs that involves doing a lot of drawings and thinking very interestingly about space and form. I have now scores of images and am thinking of creating a kind of digital slide show so that I can share this thinking with you later. This work is having a direct influence on how I am teaching and structuring information in relation the the video taxonomy I am building about the training methodology. It feels like the beginning of something much larger than I would be able to accomplish by May as it has/is involving actually ( for me) an extraordinary journey in reverse as it were - of decoding and deconstructing/unpicking a lot of embodied information to look at it ‘out there’. I hope to have sequenced the video material by the summer and have an idea of a storyboard for developing it but do not know if by then I will have achieved more than this, as the actual programming design (so that it might become an interactive tool) would require some clever programme designing not currently in my time or money budget. I have also continued to develop the Performance Analysis Questionnaire and its application as a hold-all/catch-all tool for students (and myself). I have just conducted a version of the Salon at Soho Theatre for Writers. This was a day I ran called Theatre as Metaphor and tried(struggled with) the introduction of figurative/spacial/visal metpahors into the writers imagination. The Salon lasted 3 and a half hours following a practical workshop/talkshop and was painful at the start but extremely vibrant and invigorating for all by the end. Finally I would like to share the best Graphic Body performance I have ever seen in my life: this is a Czech company called The Farm in the Cave and they are post-Grotowoskian young geniuses, working through the expressionistic body ( with evidence of much new dance info) sound, music, speech, harmony and utter brillian composition. The piece was called SCLAVI and was researched in villages in Slovakia with stories of contemproary and historial emigration, suffering, departure, loss and death. Guy came to the Performance Research Forum in October and Sara is coming in Feb. I always feel I am not demonstratively ‘doing my Lab research’ but in truth find that it is there with me every day, shifting the way I look, organise, speak and think about my theme. I am so delighted to have this opportunity and look forward to sharing more with you.It is all ongoing…. Would love to know what you are all up to and wish you seasons greetings and the best and most productive of new years.. love, Anna Furse Artistic Director