Waking up my dancers on Primrose Hill

So my first process up to the festival is waking up my dancers.

I can’t expect my spectators to be engaged with the surroundings if my dancers aren't.

They have all taken part in workshops which involve connecting with the senses and creating relationships to spaces through tuning scores exercises. However, due to practicality a lot of this has been done in the studio.

However, this beautiful Friday evening was the perfect time to take them out and see the beauty of the city.

I want my dancers to create their own vocabulary to the city through their senses. So my plan is to take them to different places around the city and carry out similar exercises so I can understand how they individually connect to their senses and the sensoral offerings of the city. I think it is important for them to be part of my choreographic vocabulary because the piece should not be my representation of the city, but a group of individual relationships. Especially as my piece invites the individual to engage with their OWN London.

I took two of my dancers to Primrose Hill.

We started off with a walk; I sent them off individually as I wanted them to think about how they related to this space through their senses.

One dancer related mainly to the sights, which isn’t uncommon because, the city is controlled through the visual via advertising, directions, brands...

My other dancer connected to the smells, she explained that because the trees were blossoming it was a smell that stood out to her, as a contrast to ordinary city smells. 

We followed this with a tuning scores exercise, as I wanted them to see the little within the big, and really start to connect with the vast areas of the outdoors, rather than the confined space of a studios. I really wanted to move them out of their comfort zones and see them really connect through an improvisation task. We started with sound, and we all moved with this as our inspiration. The brief was:

Move like the dynamics of the sounds

Move as if you are embodying the sound

Move as though you are creating a duet with the sound

I wanted them to let they body control this relationship.

They then created 3 motifs which embodied this idea. This was then their relationship to the soundscape through movement. 

 

In Michelle's (above) the middle was static and the top and bottom were moving. She started off already very engaged through her performance of these senses, which was exciting, however, her movements were all quite jazz based.

With Sarah (bottom) Her first two were moving and her last was transitioning. She really tried to encapsulate the different dynamics of sound she heard through the style of her movement.

The both moved towards the sounds of laughter and quiet, and created edgy movements directed towards the loud cars driving past. However, as there was a very distinct contrast between the two sounds there was not much more within the soundscape to relate to.

We worked to link these together as a transition and as a finally development they performed these together, and this became a trio, Michelle, Sarah and Primrose Hill Soundscape:

This was a beautiful piece of installation, where they both worked together and individually with the soundscape of the city.

Essentially, that is what I am inviting the city people to do, be part of the London community, but at the same time, have an individual relationship to what it is offering.

They ended this with creating an individual motif to the sound improvisation.

We then did the same exercise for sight. This one was very interesting, as there was much more in the visual landscape on offer, so I could begin to see how individually, we see or engage with the surroundings.

Michelle chose:

A big white angled crane

A cloud which looked like it was shooting upwards

The trees in the distance

Sarah chose: 

The people sitting on the hill -->

Flat bottomed clouds 

The boxy shapes of the buildings

As we progressed I saw a change from movement that was not so much guided by their comfort zone within dance, but was movement that was their gut reaction to that sense.

I was a development in the way they were relating to senses, they were exploring different connections, whether it be becoming that sound, contrasting it, embodying it or playing with it.

This then saw a change in the execution of these moves. Their eyes became more engaged, from this I became more engaged watching them. I found myself wanting to see or experience what they were experiencing, as I wanted to feel this engagement.

This was it!

We ended with Aromas, I took out the tactile sense because it began to get really cold and I felt this would affect their movement too much.

Within this improvisation their movement, really began to play with the aromas of the trees and with each other, they were becoming more playful and enlivened through their blossomed relationship to that sense:

This was the start of my piece. My dancers were really beginning to wake up to the city, and create relationship to their surroundings through all the senses that were on off.

The movement was about their relationship to that sense, they were using the dance abilities to allow them to articulate this rather than it being their stylistic outlet. Also, their facial expressions were a natural awareness and an inquisition into their surroundings.

Primrose hill was no longer a pretty space; it became a place for each of us.

These motifs will be added to a bank of movements that I collect with my dancers from different areas around London, and I will then put these positions into my choreography. 

To end the workshop, we performed a piece of choreography that they have both done a few times. I wanted to see how they presented a sequence that they knew, so they could concentrate on their new found relationship to the city via Primrose Hill.

I could see them becoming aware of how they relate to their senses and how they could translate this through movement. Michelle's fascinated eye, transformed the choreography into a duet with the visual. 

Where as Sarah, was allowing herself to engage at different moments, to the gravel as when her head lowered, and then to a spot in the sky, making her articulation of the movement very detailed and interesting.

Now, Primrose Hill has a lot of nature to offer the senses. Now will this become more difficult in more industrial areas, where there are a lot to offer the senses but are sometimes discussed in a derogatory way.....

M.J.B