Another jump to the present, but just a quick one this time…
I have just come out of a full-time development – the first one for this project. And yes, I know it was only in the post before last that I mentioned I was applying for funding to make this happen, and now I’m saying that it’s already happened! But I’ve been even busier than usual - as well as this project, I am currently choreographing for ADP, and I’m getting married in a couple of weeks!
I will get around to filling the gaps in the tale, but for now, let me share a quick little something between posts...
For this development I collaborated with Beth Lane, who is a dance artist based in the Bega Valley on Yuin Country, a uni mate and a great friend of mine. Our creative process was largely based on the practice I’ve been describing on this blog, and so we generated a fair amount of written text along with the dancing. We collated some of it into a rambling poem, which served as a sort of program note, or at least a window into our process, for a mini-showing at QL2. Here it is, enjoy!
(PS, we will be performing our work-in-progress Implications [working title] at Cahoots Lab at the Courtyard Studio on April 16th if you want to see us in action!)
Every moment is as important as the others
Treading and treading water and hunting for something
Surely that’s the answer to all our problems
If I don’t do it early, I’ll regret it
Was that a dance?
I have all these companions
Dance is boring, find an occupation
Get distracted by the inevitable renaissance opera unfolding
I’m in standing and there’s the expected tension remaining when you freeze mid post-modern tragedy
Inevitably my brain dissolves
Come back to your damn body
NOISE – I’ll give you attentional distractions.
I tumble away sending a ripple of chattering teeth through my body. They lasted a little while – particularly around my armpits, but I lost them just below the pelvis.
**clowning
The huge possibilities of distances between things & the unfortunate realities of the tightness or catch
Careful, the only way is down
Delicacy and pleasure hovering above the surface
The yawn space. Maybe it’s the yawn space to release the tension
The removing responsibility & the holding responsibility
The holding space & the expanding space
Filling it up & filling it out a little bit
Attention endurance
Map the room with your awareness
The choreographic hat
Building hieroglyphics
Make it about the objective stuff
How to climb back in? Just jump
A long, arduous, slow Shakespearean tragedy by dance 4
Repeat – repeat – repeat – repeat – repeat
It’s a little bad dance event
Potential for absurdity
Underwater predator
I’m aware of exactly what I’m slicing through, like a chef quality Japanese knife
I’m obsessed by the back space
The diagonals are now underlining everything. The underscore
Mud is better because it’s substantial
Do I let this thing be something that pops up now and then or do I intentionally cultivate it? Train the thought processing like I train my body
Drop your bloody arms
For sore arms – I didn’t bloody drop them.
The mud was drier than yesterday
The score is the admin I haven’t finished
Settling on a meander
Holding on by a thread
Borrowing – borrowing – begging and stealing
Letting the brain improvise while the body moves
Accumulating questions & calling on them like movement scores
*Put a pin in that for a second
CUT TO THE MEAT
It’s an argument, not objective truth
This is it! This is the dance!
The gaze is the main event
Is there a way to get the audience to check in with their own attention?
You can’t just notice the mud because it’s not actually there
Non-sensical objectivity
Leave that but cut to the meat of the next thing
Too tired to retain any unnecessary action. Maybe fatigue is good
Colour the body scan
The puzzle of the nervous system and the adrenal ride
Curl the tail - Curl the tail - Curl the tail - Curl the tail
Lead with the armpit – knee cap (trust the thighs) – pelvic wings – sit bones – guts
I followed the rhythm of my stream of consciousness
The work is the work. The work comes from the work
Don’t give away your agency
I dance to find out why I dance
Be everywhere all at once
It’s a duet
Open passages
TRAIN SIMPLICITY
Collapse upwards into gesture?
Perform your abstract score as if it’s a narrative
Echoes
Scores – Underscores – Overlays – Tools – Contexts
What fuel is there to feast on?
Fall and the body follows
Discover a gesture
Transition into knowing
The body is doing the thinking
Tapping into the next stage of not thinking
My body knew the score
What’s down is down so what’s up is up
DIFFUSE into the floor so what’s up is up
Back fury not front fury
A little bit more of a study
A Puttanesca warm up
Almost uncomfortable, but also kind of lovely to sit in
Also a question about tone, but in different words
I’m only just realising now how different that is for me
I’ve heard this before
Time and space for things to happen in
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