"Performance's potency comes from its temporariness, it's 'one time only' life. The ontology of performance maps a gateway across a different order of production and reproduction. It suggests that matter (and the Real) is created out of nothing - 'the nothing that is not there and the nothing that is' (Wallace Stevens). This reproduction works according to the invisible calculus of the multiple offerings of what one does not have. This then as a coda, a prolegomenon for another book, other words, other eyes. This then in Hope, the hope we fake and perform and the hope we thereby make and have. Hope's power is measured in this faking. Each performance registers how much we want to believe what we know we see is not all we really have, all we really are. That negation reveals the generative possibility of the 'not all' that keeps us hoping. Maybe next time I'll love/be/loved; maybe next time I'll write a better book; maybe next time my I will see"
- Peggy Phelan, The ontology of performance: representation without reproduction
Tuesday, 1 December 2015
Wednesday, 11 November 2015
Please help me make my next production possible!
Dear friends,
We could really use your support for my next creation on 2 Dec with Katarzyna Witek and Chloë Abbott!
Even £10 (SGD 20) will make a difference. Please help us make this possible!
We have been doing some great work in the studio, and I'm confident that this is going to be an exciting, fresh and really quite funny experience. You'll see - click on the campaign link to view our video trailer. The website makes contributing easy via paypal and credit card. Do also pass this appeal on to friends!
Love,
Sze
We have been doing some great work in the studio, and I'm confident that this is going to be an exciting, fresh and really quite funny experience. You'll see - click on the campaign link to view our video trailer. The website makes contributing easy via paypal and credit card. Do also pass this appeal on to friends!
Love,
Sze
Thursday, 29 October 2015
Sze's dance updates Nov 2015-May 2016
Hello Friends!
I'm into my final term now at the London Contemporary Dance School. Having finished the coursework-based Postgraduate Diploma section, I'm now working on independent projects that will complete my work for the M.A. Time is suddenly passing quickly. I have become very comfortable and charmed by London and now I am submitting my final assignments in just a few months!
Some of my work since the last update: While here, I have gotten to make some projects that have been in the works at the back of my head for years.
Along with six wonderful collaborators, I presented The Sunshine Empire, an interactive ensemble of one-on-one personal consultations-performances for public spaces that included a theatre cafe, under a railway bridge, a public park and a charity fundraising open mic between June and August 2015. We asked what happiness meant to us and others... and whether it is something that we can buy. Check out our "corporate" website for videos and images -www.sunshinempire.com
I made my first dance film! 'Indivisible' has a group of dancers floating weightlessly down staircases, in iconic locations for dance in London, reflecting on the ecosystems of artists and art institutions. Film trailer at https://vimeo.com/143942731
Over the summer I had some wonderful exchanges at the European Contact Improv Teachers' Exchange in France, and the Radical Contact Summer Gathering 2015 in Sweden, as well as some research time with Kees Lemmens in the Netherlands that has led me in a new direction for my contact practice and teaching about how we share space.
With Cie Kham, we danced the final performance of Focus in April at Chateauvallon in France. It's been a wonderful 4 years and over 30 shows in France, Singapore and Laos, that have shaped me profoundly as an artist.
Back to the (near) future:
After a busy summer of contact improvisation, networking with other artists back home in Singapore and the excitement of the General Elections and arts festival, I am settling down to my independent study projects. I am writing a dissertation on "Audience Manipulation" and creating some new work! As usual, do contact me for updates if you're interested in the timing tbc projects.
WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get)
A contemporary dance performance with Katarzyna Witek and Chloe Abbott
The Place Theatre, London
Wednesday 2 December 2015, 4pm and 8pm
Do you remember the last time we were here, together? Sitting in the dark, breathing the same air.
Trying to understand.
If only we could present to you something that you could use, just like one of those software platforms that hide all the complex machinery and just give you the illusions of the simple result. The ability to directly manipulate what you see: the reality of what we see and expect to see in the theatre. Manipulating the space we share between our bodies, our breath, two women, two wigs, and a trumpet.
I'm into my final term now at the London Contemporary Dance School. Having finished the coursework-based Postgraduate Diploma section, I'm now working on independent projects that will complete my work for the M.A. Time is suddenly passing quickly. I have become very comfortable and charmed by London and now I am submitting my final assignments in just a few months!
Some of my work since the last update: While here, I have gotten to make some projects that have been in the works at the back of my head for years.
Along with six wonderful collaborators, I presented The Sunshine Empire, an interactive ensemble of one-on-one personal consultations-performances for public spaces that included a theatre cafe, under a railway bridge, a public park and a charity fundraising open mic between June and August 2015. We asked what happiness meant to us and others... and whether it is something that we can buy. Check out our "corporate" website for videos and images -www.sunshinempire.com
I made my first dance film! 'Indivisible' has a group of dancers floating weightlessly down staircases, in iconic locations for dance in London, reflecting on the ecosystems of artists and art institutions. Film trailer at https://vimeo.com/143942731
Over the summer I had some wonderful exchanges at the European Contact Improv Teachers' Exchange in France, and the Radical Contact Summer Gathering 2015 in Sweden, as well as some research time with Kees Lemmens in the Netherlands that has led me in a new direction for my contact practice and teaching about how we share space.
With Cie Kham, we danced the final performance of Focus in April at Chateauvallon in France. It's been a wonderful 4 years and over 30 shows in France, Singapore and Laos, that have shaped me profoundly as an artist.
Back to the (near) future:
After a busy summer of contact improvisation, networking with other artists back home in Singapore and the excitement of the General Elections and arts festival, I am settling down to my independent study projects. I am writing a dissertation on "Audience Manipulation" and creating some new work! As usual, do contact me for updates if you're interested in the timing tbc projects.
WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get)
A contemporary dance performance with Katarzyna Witek and Chloe Abbott
The Place Theatre, London
Wednesday 2 December 2015, 4pm and 8pm
Do you remember the last time we were here, together? Sitting in the dark, breathing the same air.
Trying to understand.
If only we could present to you something that you could use, just like one of those software platforms that hide all the complex machinery and just give you the illusions of the simple result. The ability to directly manipulate what you see: the reality of what we see and expect to see in the theatre. Manipulating the space we share between our bodies, our breath, two women, two wigs, and a trumpet.
Please support our WYSIWYG crowdfunding campaign! This is an unfunded project! Our indiegogo campaign is running for 50 more days. Do help us with a small contribution or a re-sharing of this link - where you can also view our video trailer! http://igg.me/at/WYSIWYG/x/3046203!
Migratory Objects
A durational performance installation with Sylvia Lim and Panos Chountoulidis
Ideas in Action, London Contemporary Dance School/The Place, London
Wednesday 18 November 2015, Drop in 1-4pm (timing tbc!)
I'm really excited to bring on board my music and sound collaborators of the past year to develop a series that I've been working on since 2010. Lost and found physical and sound objects make their way through time, space and boundaries - interacting with our movements, calling to us to transfer them and use them. They move us as we move them, we change their landscape as they change our present and our memory of distance and connection.
The Ice Nymph
A dance film in collaboration with Benjamin Boo
Live performance May 2016 (dates tbc), Royal College of Music
My next dance film was inspired when I was contacted by Benjamin, a Singaporean percussionist in the MA programme at the Royal College of Music. He has the ambition to revive Dr John Sharpley's 1989 composition, created for the Singapore Dance Theatre, in a collaboration choreographed by Mdm Lim Fei Shen, and designed by visual artist Tan Swie Hian. He'd heard that I'd danced this piece of repertory when I too trained at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and studied with Mdm Lim and Dr Sharpley. I'm now thrilled at the chance to interpret this unique material originating from some great Singapore artists who have mentored and influenced me, to create a film that will accompany Benjamin's live performance in May 2016. I also hope to bring this film back to Singapore and elsewhere with Benjamin's recording.
And more projects to come!
Thanks for all the support so far. I hope to see or hear from all of you soon!
Love,
Sze
Migratory Objects
A durational performance installation with Sylvia Lim and Panos Chountoulidis
Ideas in Action, London Contemporary Dance School/The Place, London
Wednesday 18 November 2015, Drop in 1-4pm (timing tbc!)
I'm really excited to bring on board my music and sound collaborators of the past year to develop a series that I've been working on since 2010. Lost and found physical and sound objects make their way through time, space and boundaries - interacting with our movements, calling to us to transfer them and use them. They move us as we move them, we change their landscape as they change our present and our memory of distance and connection.
The Ice Nymph
A dance film in collaboration with Benjamin Boo
Live performance May 2016 (dates tbc), Royal College of Music
My next dance film was inspired when I was contacted by Benjamin, a Singaporean percussionist in the MA programme at the Royal College of Music. He has the ambition to revive Dr John Sharpley's 1989 composition, created for the Singapore Dance Theatre, in a collaboration choreographed by Mdm Lim Fei Shen, and designed by visual artist Tan Swie Hian. He'd heard that I'd danced this piece of repertory when I too trained at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and studied with Mdm Lim and Dr Sharpley. I'm now thrilled at the chance to interpret this unique material originating from some great Singapore artists who have mentored and influenced me, to create a film that will accompany Benjamin's live performance in May 2016. I also hope to bring this film back to Singapore and elsewhere with Benjamin's recording.
And more projects to come!
Thanks for all the support so far. I hope to see or hear from all of you soon!
Love,
Sze
Monday, 28 September 2015
Wednesday, 16 September 2015
Maybe I will see a kite looking for its string...
I hadn't realised till last Friday how absolutely beautiful the Bengali language is.
Musical phrases spilled from the lips of a lovestruck youth, wandering in a forest of airy bamboo frames. As the stanzas repeated, four female dancers who had sat listening rose to take the centre of the stage. Their steps wove a decisive counterpoint around his words. His companion, another poet, reclined in the background, making a bed next to a rustic bench and...a yellow hard hat. A reminder that this dreamy poet longs not only for love, but for his home and family in Bangladesh, while he spends lonely days hammering in the hot shipyard.
"From Another Land" is choreographer Raka Maitra's collaboration with dancers she has trained at the Chowk Academy of Dance, poets Rajib Shil Jibon and Zakir Hossain Khokon, musician Bani Haykal, and set design by Kiran Kumar.
I've studied and worked with Raka on and off since 2010. Of the many works that I've danced and seen so far, this is by far her finest.
During the performance, it mattered little to me that I don't speak Bengali. It reminded me of how many people say they love to hear French spoken even when they don't understand it - the words take on a musicality and rhythm. Before the show I was already astonished by the translated poems in the programme notes (excellent translations by Subir Nag), and I was able to transfer their poignancy when I heard the words spoken by the poets themselves.
At no point did I imagine this as a token charitable project to glorify the "underprivileged" stereotype of the Bangladeshi migrant worker. It was apparent that each performer was fully an artistic contributor in their own right. Both Rajib and Zakir are published writers in Bangladesh. The biographies and post-show dialogues were a potent reminder of the richness of the lives and talents of individuals who are often invisible to the more privileged here in Singapore. I appreciate that private donors had made it possible for a significant number of Rajib and Zakir's Bangladeshi colleagues to attend the performance when they might not otherwise have had the means. I sat among a group of them, refreshed by their bafflement and absorption at what seemed to be an unfamiliar form to many of them. I realised that I am from another land, too.
*The title of this post is an excerpt from "Shades of Light and Dark", Rajib Shil Jibon.
Musical phrases spilled from the lips of a lovestruck youth, wandering in a forest of airy bamboo frames. As the stanzas repeated, four female dancers who had sat listening rose to take the centre of the stage. Their steps wove a decisive counterpoint around his words. His companion, another poet, reclined in the background, making a bed next to a rustic bench and...a yellow hard hat. A reminder that this dreamy poet longs not only for love, but for his home and family in Bangladesh, while he spends lonely days hammering in the hot shipyard.
"From Another Land" is choreographer Raka Maitra's collaboration with dancers she has trained at the Chowk Academy of Dance, poets Rajib Shil Jibon and Zakir Hossain Khokon, musician Bani Haykal, and set design by Kiran Kumar.
I've studied and worked with Raka on and off since 2010. Of the many works that I've danced and seen so far, this is by far her finest.
Over the years Raka has developed her distinctive contemporary dance idiom - a blend of classical Odissi, martial Chhau, and evocative tableaux of restrained movement and fragments of storytelling set to abstract soundscapes. What struck me right away with this new production was the sophisticated layering and interweaving of the various elements. I am quite amazed that the work was so integrated when two of the performers - the poets - had been able to join rehearsals only on their one precious day off every week.
In terms of visual composition, each tableau had an impressive depth of foreground, background and texture, with the casual lives of the poet-workers backgrounding the vivid dancers, then surfacing again as the poets stepped forward to share their words with animation and sincerity, anchored by subtle chords and drums. A series of contrasting lighting scenes by Josiah Yoong transformed the simple decor from town square to metropolis, to a technicolour vision of Bangladesh.
In terms of visual composition, each tableau had an impressive depth of foreground, background and texture, with the casual lives of the poet-workers backgrounding the vivid dancers, then surfacing again as the poets stepped forward to share their words with animation and sincerity, anchored by subtle chords and drums. A series of contrasting lighting scenes by Josiah Yoong transformed the simple decor from town square to metropolis, to a technicolour vision of Bangladesh.
Choreographically, I had the sense that Raka had chosen to pare her building blocks even more carefully than previous works - from the simplest of Odissi steps, the dancers patterned from unison into rhythmic canons and counterpoints. They danced solos and movement-chatter as they discovered a new universe (migrants arriving to Singapore? Singaporeans discovering Dhaka?). Raka herself danced a couple of the impeccable solos that she has always done so well - expressive, precise, coloured with modulations of dynamic and gaze. But she also took moments to retreat into the layered background, leaving the stage open to the other dancers' fluid grace and the poets' tender narratives. Karishma Nair stood out from the ensemble with a magnetic focus and clarity of movement. Poet Zakir seized my heart when he rushed forward, laughing, with a child's excitement, recounting his son's letter, to end in a bittersweet embrace from his proxy family - another migrant worker.
At no point did I imagine this as a token charitable project to glorify the "underprivileged" stereotype of the Bangladeshi migrant worker. It was apparent that each performer was fully an artistic contributor in their own right. Both Rajib and Zakir are published writers in Bangladesh. The biographies and post-show dialogues were a potent reminder of the richness of the lives and talents of individuals who are often invisible to the more privileged here in Singapore. I appreciate that private donors had made it possible for a significant number of Rajib and Zakir's Bangladeshi colleagues to attend the performance when they might not otherwise have had the means. I sat among a group of them, refreshed by their bafflement and absorption at what seemed to be an unfamiliar form to many of them. I realised that I am from another land, too.
*The title of this post is an excerpt from "Shades of Light and Dark", Rajib Shil Jibon.
Friday, 11 September 2015
The worst performance EVER
With my chum Kasia we saw the WORST performance one evening two months ago in London. I don't think that there's a need to name the place or the group. We agreed wholeheartedly on its badness. In future it will be our reference: "That show was bad but it wasn't as bad as THAT show."
Then pressed by another friend to explain what we thought was so bad, we floundered for words. I suggested that this was a task we could persist in. What made something bad, SO bad? Took us a little while to get it together between two countries, continuing via comments on each other's text, but here it is now.
____________________________________________________________________________K: To be in a really administrative language: lack of investigation, lack of depth in the movement itself.
S: My first words were useless, meaningless, obvious, amateurish, literal, cliched! Unfortunately I know that these are really not very concrete.
K: It was cheesy. I said cliched!
S: I said it last night too! Double cliche. Double cheeseburger. Yuck. But these words don't actually tell us very much. I'm still very frustrated.
K: It was embarrassing. Didn't you feel embarassed? Don't you feel that when you watch bad work?
S: A news review once said that about one of my best friend's work in Singapore. Later she won an award in Prague for that same work.
K: Really? Well S.N. loved the show last night.
S: She loved some things about it.
K: She only disliked some things about it. As opposed to us hating the whole thing. I felt so uncomfortable that I had to go on twitter, online on my phone because I didn't want to watch what was happening.
S: It was cringeworthy. But the piece before it was cringeworthy in a very intelligent way. (Bravo!)
In contrast, horrible shows like that second piece are pretty much the only times that provoke me to resorting to the vocabulary of traditional dance composition studies.
K: I know what you mean. Maybe that’s because it seems like they might have made it with a choreographic handbook in hand? (Not Burrows though... ) And it read like a choreographic handbook too.
S: First, my pet peeve. It was so OBVIOUS. In case they didn't announce the theme into the mic, they danced it, they mimed it, they said it again and again. Without much development or elaboration. Well...what's the rest of the show for?
K: Has it also struck you that they were almost always facing us (the audience)? Yet they were looking completely past us... One of the things I dislike most in theatre.
S: The physical vocabulary was predictable. Really packed-with-cliches literal and predictable stuff. A text about the enforcement of prudish social mores: a naked dancer is looked at disapprovingly by clothed companions who grab her, paint her, and clothe her. There are several scenes where the dancers pretend to be embarrassed about being naked and try to cover themselves up. The naked girl returns and there is a fuss about trying to get her to keep her dress on. Next section, a text about futility in capitalist working culture. Dancers make repetitive working gestures and conform, thanks to surveillance by boss.
It was 30 minutes of a sort of lousy pantomime without going deeper to examine the illustrative cliches, comment on them or contrast them.
K: Question is: how do you dig? What is your way for digging deeper Sze? Do you let things take their own course as you improvise around the subject and see what unfolds? Do you transfer questions onto different aspects of life? I just don’t know...
S: Digging! I mean reflection, development, tension.... The music use too, was really cliched, it was a bit of a silent film where the orchestration mickey moused the action or vice versa.
K: Well put...
S: And it was incoherent. The scenettes were just two of something like seven or eight "stories". Generally on the theme of anti-neoliberal frustration. They were rarely linked, but they weren't very juxtaposed either. Or do I mean too coherent.
Gratituous spectacle. I am generally all for running around naked. I am all for body paint and powder and wrecking the stage. But wield these sacred tools judiciously and wisely! They easily lose their impact. Or maybe they are the medium and the language of the universe that you are creating, they might mean something. They might influence the texture of the movement...
["Nudity is no more neutral than a large hat" - Jonathan Burrows. ]
I wanted to leave so many times but I kept trying to find something redeeming. Something surprising or at least mildly interesting.
K: I do admire you for that. I must admit I stopped trying pretty early on...
S: It didn't have any of the following - of which I'd like to think that I am a proponent of not thinking that any of these are necessary to a performance when there is a strong idea or aesthetic.
1. Pretty dancing - I am really not a pretty dancing person. I am the first one to jump at working with pedestrian movement and performers who haven't been poisoned in a conservatoire (unlike me). But I can watch that in the absence of anything else. In this case... absent! It was ugly...and it wasn't even authentic! It was so overdone!
K: Do you think that what this performance was, was due to the fact that they were in fact non dancers (which could have been honest and beautiful) desperately trying to create a piece which could be read as dance. That it was desperate in their attempt to fall into a category of “physical theatre” - gosh i really don’t know. It’s mind boggling...
S: 2. Pattern. Even the most unspectacular elements would make for me a genius composition if thoughtfully patterned. Repeated, alternated, varied, progressed... which brings me to
3. Arc or trajectory. Whether in narrative, energetic quality, or visual richness, Rhythm of the show?
4. Tension/Irony (as I said earlier about not digging or reflecting deeper).
S: If you can't do any of these... at least 4. some surprise? Please? Even if it's the surprise that you stick to your guns and never change a pattern that nobody dreamed that they'd be able to watch for 60 mins? (Maguy Marin. Xavier le Roy. Yes.)
K: At least the performers were completely committed and spent the whole time really trying to make it work. Bless them.
S: Bless these guys at the Edinburgh Fringe. Really.
["Nudity is no more neutral than a large hat" - Jonathan Burrows. ]
I wanted to leave so many times but I kept trying to find something redeeming. Something surprising or at least mildly interesting.
K: I do admire you for that. I must admit I stopped trying pretty early on...
S: It didn't have any of the following - of which I'd like to think that I am a proponent of not thinking that any of these are necessary to a performance when there is a strong idea or aesthetic.
1. Pretty dancing - I am really not a pretty dancing person. I am the first one to jump at working with pedestrian movement and performers who haven't been poisoned in a conservatoire (unlike me). But I can watch that in the absence of anything else. In this case... absent! It was ugly...and it wasn't even authentic! It was so overdone!
K: Do you think that what this performance was, was due to the fact that they were in fact non dancers (which could have been honest and beautiful) desperately trying to create a piece which could be read as dance. That it was desperate in their attempt to fall into a category of “physical theatre” - gosh i really don’t know. It’s mind boggling...
S: 2. Pattern. Even the most unspectacular elements would make for me a genius composition if thoughtfully patterned. Repeated, alternated, varied, progressed... which brings me to
3. Arc or trajectory. Whether in narrative, energetic quality, or visual richness, Rhythm of the show?
4. Tension/Irony (as I said earlier about not digging or reflecting deeper).
S: If you can't do any of these... at least 4. some surprise? Please? Even if it's the surprise that you stick to your guns and never change a pattern that nobody dreamed that they'd be able to watch for 60 mins? (Maguy Marin. Xavier le Roy. Yes.)
K: At least the performers were completely committed and spent the whole time really trying to make it work. Bless them.
S: Bless these guys at the Edinburgh Fringe. Really.
K: A last word: to be brave and perform a piece of work of your own, to take it on stage where work is mostly harshly criticised and have guts to be feisty and proud about it - I RESPECT THAT! More than I ever do.
Sunday, 6 September 2015
Archive box
I only realised when I came home that I'd worn the perfect t-shirt for the arts fest "Archive Box" event this evening!
Archives and archival have been quite in fashion in certain circles in contemporary dance - I'm thinking of Xavier le Roy's Retrospective, Jerome Bel's Veronique Doisneau, Siobhan Davies' Table of Contents, reconstruction of Judson Church pieces.... it's a terrifically rich subject because archiving dance is really paradoxical and complicated. Videos and labanotation scores only capture the physical/spatial/visual aspect of performance and partially at that. Those can't come close to representing the experience of the live work, the temperature in the room, the emotional content and background to the piece, needless to say the process of creation.
What becomes particularly tricky in dance archival as opposed to many other live performance forms is when the archive is used as a tool for re-creation and replication. There is no gold standard for notation, no score sheets or script book. The priority in replication rarely specified - we know it's not the sound (as in music) or the text (as in theatre) - in my experience as a dancer with old-fashioned repertory, there's a kind of unrealistic expectation that everything must be re-created. That's the steps, the timing, the dynamics (quality/energy), the spacing, the theatricality, the facial expression, the costume, the makeup, the lighting, the set... as far as humanly possible.
Video is often regarded as a secondary source, or just a starting point. The generally recognised best source is the dancer and their body: when a major work of (Western contemporary dance) is restaged, the choreographer or an anointed assistant is preferably flown in to give corrections and clarifications to the movement, convey key points about intention and aesthetic, make decisions on casting and staging. Learning a repertory work in Bharatanatyam or Odissi (as I have experienced it anyway) can only be done via a teacher or a guru.
In my experience of conventional conservatory-style training (I mean western here but I'm guessing this is true for many other dance cultures), faithfulness to the source is a priority for reconstruction or re-staging of repertory, but also a sacred tenet of dance training and in working with choreographers who transmit material by demonstration. My collaborators in other disciplines are often surprised to find out that one of the main components that I was graded on in dance technique training was "Replication". One of the most offensive things that a dancer in conservatory-style training can do in front of a choreographer or a teacher is "change" (in my case, forget) the choreography. I am in great awe of dancers who meet these standards as perfect repertory machines.
On the flip side of the conventional coin, when you're a choreographer, or when as a dancer you put your choreographer hat on, you inherit license and obligation to be original/individual/in control/wilful/responsible/unpredictable and to have your own ego and demand that things should be a certain way because that's your vision.
Some companies still operate that way, but thank goodness for times a changin'. For post-modern dance. For improv. But I think the baggage still hangs around. I think of the story of how Yvonne Rainer went from saying Trio A was a piece that anyone could dance... till she saw a Trio A she didn't recognise. She now requires that it be learned, from her or one of a handful of certified "transmitters" who will coach you in the very fine details. Certainly not from the 1978 video, as even she made mistakes in that one.
For the arts festival Archive Box project, artists who presented their own works at the festival's Dance Marathon (unfortunate reference, see They Shoot Horses, Don't They) were also requested to either make an "archive box" of one of their dance works, or to be a "user" of a box made by another artist. Intriguing, because of the impossibilities, especially when the originator-user pairs were mostly from different countries, different dance traditions and had never met. The boxes took the forms of actual cardboard boxes of production-linked material, stage designs, props, and in other cases a website, a letter in a glass bottle. Tonight three pieces were presented, between wine and cheese breaks. There was some great stuff! I'm not reviewing here, but as far as I could tell from watching the official programme shows by the same artists, there were no "copies". The boxes presented this evening turned into stimuli for a new work, new interpretations, new ideas and sometimes new working processes as well.
The showings were followed by a discussion, which festival director Ong Keng Sen urged in the direction of considering the significance of the archive, questions about ownership, loyalty to the transmission, transmission across different cultural contexts, and possibilities for copy-left in dance. He provided a very interesting tidbit about the legal arrangements that had been made for this Archive Box project, specifying the intellectual property rights for each box and each new interpretation. He ended it off by paraphrasing a lesson from law school that a contract itself does not have a significance; it is the relationship between two persons that has a significance. (I am also paraphrasing very loosely here. Please correct me if you were there.)
Incidentally, I spent a week exploring the transmission of dance material as "gifts" (open to re-interpretation) as opposed to "copies", at a choreolab facilitated earlier this month by Danny Kok for the Esplanade dan:s festival. We had some great discussions about the impossibility of a perfect copy, the specificity of the author or transmitter in setting the priority for certain aspects of the copy, the leakages and transformations through receivers/transmitters with different physical facility, different personality, and varied intellectual and artistic interests.
For a while I fiddled around in my head with the artificial dichotomy of "making copies/reconstructions" vs "making interpretations". But originals, copies, interpretations, collaborations... so much potential in each and in between!
In the end I noticed that the post-showing discussion this evening ended up like many post-show dialogues that I have been in. Rather than a wider discussion on issues of archival, copy-left and ownership, there was a great desire for the audience (and in this case the artists themselves as well) to simply uncover the creative process and the personalities of the author(s). Human relationships remained the pull of gravity.
Archives and archival have been quite in fashion in certain circles in contemporary dance - I'm thinking of Xavier le Roy's Retrospective, Jerome Bel's Veronique Doisneau, Siobhan Davies' Table of Contents, reconstruction of Judson Church pieces.... it's a terrifically rich subject because archiving dance is really paradoxical and complicated. Videos and labanotation scores only capture the physical/spatial/visual aspect of performance and partially at that. Those can't come close to representing the experience of the live work, the temperature in the room, the emotional content and background to the piece, needless to say the process of creation.
What becomes particularly tricky in dance archival as opposed to many other live performance forms is when the archive is used as a tool for re-creation and replication. There is no gold standard for notation, no score sheets or script book. The priority in replication rarely specified - we know it's not the sound (as in music) or the text (as in theatre) - in my experience as a dancer with old-fashioned repertory, there's a kind of unrealistic expectation that everything must be re-created. That's the steps, the timing, the dynamics (quality/energy), the spacing, the theatricality, the facial expression, the costume, the makeup, the lighting, the set... as far as humanly possible.
Video is often regarded as a secondary source, or just a starting point. The generally recognised best source is the dancer and their body: when a major work of (Western contemporary dance) is restaged, the choreographer or an anointed assistant is preferably flown in to give corrections and clarifications to the movement, convey key points about intention and aesthetic, make decisions on casting and staging. Learning a repertory work in Bharatanatyam or Odissi (as I have experienced it anyway) can only be done via a teacher or a guru.
In my experience of conventional conservatory-style training (I mean western here but I'm guessing this is true for many other dance cultures), faithfulness to the source is a priority for reconstruction or re-staging of repertory, but also a sacred tenet of dance training and in working with choreographers who transmit material by demonstration. My collaborators in other disciplines are often surprised to find out that one of the main components that I was graded on in dance technique training was "Replication". One of the most offensive things that a dancer in conservatory-style training can do in front of a choreographer or a teacher is "change" (in my case, forget) the choreography. I am in great awe of dancers who meet these standards as perfect repertory machines.
On the flip side of the conventional coin, when you're a choreographer, or when as a dancer you put your choreographer hat on, you inherit license and obligation to be original/individual/in control/wilful/responsible/unpredictable and to have your own ego and demand that things should be a certain way because that's your vision.
Some companies still operate that way, but thank goodness for times a changin'. For post-modern dance. For improv. But I think the baggage still hangs around. I think of the story of how Yvonne Rainer went from saying Trio A was a piece that anyone could dance... till she saw a Trio A she didn't recognise. She now requires that it be learned, from her or one of a handful of certified "transmitters" who will coach you in the very fine details. Certainly not from the 1978 video, as even she made mistakes in that one.
For the arts festival Archive Box project, artists who presented their own works at the festival's Dance Marathon (unfortunate reference, see They Shoot Horses, Don't They) were also requested to either make an "archive box" of one of their dance works, or to be a "user" of a box made by another artist. Intriguing, because of the impossibilities, especially when the originator-user pairs were mostly from different countries, different dance traditions and had never met. The boxes took the forms of actual cardboard boxes of production-linked material, stage designs, props, and in other cases a website, a letter in a glass bottle. Tonight three pieces were presented, between wine and cheese breaks. There was some great stuff! I'm not reviewing here, but as far as I could tell from watching the official programme shows by the same artists, there were no "copies". The boxes presented this evening turned into stimuli for a new work, new interpretations, new ideas and sometimes new working processes as well.
The showings were followed by a discussion, which festival director Ong Keng Sen urged in the direction of considering the significance of the archive, questions about ownership, loyalty to the transmission, transmission across different cultural contexts, and possibilities for copy-left in dance. He provided a very interesting tidbit about the legal arrangements that had been made for this Archive Box project, specifying the intellectual property rights for each box and each new interpretation. He ended it off by paraphrasing a lesson from law school that a contract itself does not have a significance; it is the relationship between two persons that has a significance. (I am also paraphrasing very loosely here. Please correct me if you were there.)
Incidentally, I spent a week exploring the transmission of dance material as "gifts" (open to re-interpretation) as opposed to "copies", at a choreolab facilitated earlier this month by Danny Kok for the Esplanade dan:s festival. We had some great discussions about the impossibility of a perfect copy, the specificity of the author or transmitter in setting the priority for certain aspects of the copy, the leakages and transformations through receivers/transmitters with different physical facility, different personality, and varied intellectual and artistic interests.
For a while I fiddled around in my head with the artificial dichotomy of "making copies/reconstructions" vs "making interpretations". But originals, copies, interpretations, collaborations... so much potential in each and in between!
In the end I noticed that the post-showing discussion this evening ended up like many post-show dialogues that I have been in. Rather than a wider discussion on issues of archival, copy-left and ownership, there was a great desire for the audience (and in this case the artists themselves as well) to simply uncover the creative process and the personalities of the author(s). Human relationships remained the pull of gravity.
Friday, 4 September 2015
SIFA Shock
I was really excited to learn that my trip back home this September coincided neatly with the arts fest (sorry, SIFA, I really prefer the old name and it doesn't confuse with an Indian classical arts association).
I think the programme this year is delicious - varied, with interesting and challenging choices. I was really excited about the use of the Tanjong Pagar railway station for dance programming (Maybe art could make a contribution to stalling the erasure and commercialisation of whatever Singapore has been), and the out-of theatre experiences like "It won't be too long" and the open homes series. I love that the dance programming focuses on Asian artists and includes both pretty movement and "interdisciplinary" and conceptual work. I've seen some great shows in the last two weeks, that tickled my senses and made me think, including Wall Dancing, Traitriot, and A Grand March. (missed Goh Lay Kuan because I wasn't back yet.)
Okay, tickets are a little expensive, but this is usually my investment for the year. The arts fest has been instrumental in helping me grow as an artist since I was a teenager. Maybe for that reason, I also carry some pretty high expectations not only of the curation but the presentation and the role of this event as a sort of public good.
Then I got a shock on 28 August.
I was at Tanjong Pagar for A Grand March by Zan Yamashita, and Some Experiments in a Decade and a Half by Natsuko Tezuka. With the unexpected bonus of some pre show dance films thrown in.
Even before the show, I'd been warned that the station was uncomfortable - too hot and limited seating. I figured, no sweat, I'm a dancer from the tropics. I made sure I dressed light and hardy (or as my mum in law would say, 'kum lar zar').
Yamashita's piece was staged on the railway track, strewn with debris. A powerful setting that suited the work visually and conceptually. We were encouraged to sit right in front of the set. Sitting on the tracks or damp grass was marginally uncomfortable, and many people chose to perch on the platform edges instead, even if that meant not hearing his text completely. Being still young-enough and spry-enough, I wiggled around on the steel track through the 40min piece and decided it had been worth it.
The shock was in the next piece, a lecture-demonstration by Natsuko Tezuka. Set up against one wall of the ticket hall, she danced, standing and lying, referred to and wrote on a wall projection, and spoke and responded to questions relayed through an echoey mic system. The audience was encouraged to pick up plastic chairs and arrange them freely in the space, which ended up in a sort of semi-circular lecture hall format around her of about five or six rows.
My partner was fidgeting too. I told myself that I would decide on whether or not to stay, if two out of four of these criteria were fulfilled to make the time bearable:
1. If I was able to see the performer.
2. If I was able to see the projections.
3. If I could make out the dialogue.
4. If I could breathe.
1. Five minutes into the show, I realised that I could hardly see the performer's body, even though I had managed to pull up my chair in the fourth row, just next to the stage manager (who necessarily has a clear view). So I stood up and watched, and with some wandering around I managed to see a bit more. A bit of an endurance act to keep up for 75 minutes.
2. White text-on-black slides were projected to a ground-level screen, maybe 3x2m, made from a sort of reflective paper like the back of a printed poster. It clearly had to be ground level because Tezuka wrote on the screen surface with a whiteboard marker at several points in the show. The audience on plastic chairs from row 3 onwards would have been able to see only about half of the screen at a time. Visibility was better when I stood up, but quite a lot of the projected text wasn't big enough to read clearly. There were reflections on the surface from the lighting. When Tezuka started to add diagrams and text to the screen, the reflections made the visuals simply illegible.
3. Tezuka spoke mainly into a mic, but was not easy to understand. Part of this had to do with an adorably heavy accent. But I believe more to do with the fact that the sound engineering was downright awful. It seemed that neither the acoustics of the room or the sound system had been adapted or tested.
4. Air. Or lack thereof.
Got heat? How about stuffiness. I suspect that the combined discomfort was the main factor driving folks away. I think I spotted some box-fans at the entrance to the space, but I'm quite sure I didn't feel any during the performance!
Score: 0.5/4.
At the 40min mark we bailed, and I started drafting this post in my head.
Was it limited resources that had forced such poor conditions for performance at the Tanjong Pagar railway station? In 10 years I've never experienced such disadvantageous conditions for an artistic work or for an audience at the Singapore Arts Festival. I might imagine something like this at the dance festival I've worked with in Laos and where sponsors and conditions change by the hour... but this at the Singapore Arts Festival?!
Poor ventilation, poor stage/seating concept and set up, poor acoustics,nd poor floor... On that evening the movement material wasn't very high impact, but the tiled floor is clearly punishing or even dangerous for any highly physical choreography. As an unfortunate contrast, I recall one of the earliest events held at the station after it was closed - a large scale Hermes pseudo-art installation show. The extensive structure built in the ticket hall was air conditioned and comfortable even in the day. Clearly it's possible to adapt that venue suitably with a sufficient budget.
Festival director Ong Keng Sen was there on 28 August, presenting bouquets to the artists. I wondered how he was able to account to them for these conditions - he didn't even choose to stage his own show (Border Crossers) at Tanjong Pagar. Did the festival get this venue for a song but not have the budget to adapt it? If so why did they choose to proceed? Was this mess one of the points of tension that rocked the SIFA team? I hope there's a reasonable explanation for what happened, but right now I can't imagine what it might be. That said, the other events that I attended at 72-13 and the SOTA studio were comfortable and seemed to have adequate technical conditions for the works. How did this slippage happen at Tanjong Pagar?
If it was a question of resource-shock..the evening wasn't done with me yet. On the way out I took some time in the considerably cooler station foyer answering a festival survey (apparently conducted this year by an external consultancy instead of the usual festival volunteers.) I paraphrase this question:
If there was a possibility that SIFA could not continue because of insufficient funding, would you be prepared to pay $100 for a ticket?
Me: $100?!!!! No. I'm an artist!
Would you pay $50 for a ticket?
Me: Probably not either!
So how much would you pay?
Me: I would apply to perform or to volunteer in the festival if that's what it took to see some shows.
(Lady says as she writes, "Not willing to pay more for tickets"
I think the programme this year is delicious - varied, with interesting and challenging choices. I was really excited about the use of the Tanjong Pagar railway station for dance programming (Maybe art could make a contribution to stalling the erasure and commercialisation of whatever Singapore has been), and the out-of theatre experiences like "It won't be too long" and the open homes series. I love that the dance programming focuses on Asian artists and includes both pretty movement and "interdisciplinary" and conceptual work. I've seen some great shows in the last two weeks, that tickled my senses and made me think, including Wall Dancing, Traitriot, and A Grand March. (missed Goh Lay Kuan because I wasn't back yet.)
Okay, tickets are a little expensive, but this is usually my investment for the year. The arts fest has been instrumental in helping me grow as an artist since I was a teenager. Maybe for that reason, I also carry some pretty high expectations not only of the curation but the presentation and the role of this event as a sort of public good.
Then I got a shock on 28 August.
I was at Tanjong Pagar for A Grand March by Zan Yamashita, and Some Experiments in a Decade and a Half by Natsuko Tezuka. With the unexpected bonus of some pre show dance films thrown in.
Even before the show, I'd been warned that the station was uncomfortable - too hot and limited seating. I figured, no sweat, I'm a dancer from the tropics. I made sure I dressed light and hardy (or as my mum in law would say, 'kum lar zar').
Yamashita's piece was staged on the railway track, strewn with debris. A powerful setting that suited the work visually and conceptually. We were encouraged to sit right in front of the set. Sitting on the tracks or damp grass was marginally uncomfortable, and many people chose to perch on the platform edges instead, even if that meant not hearing his text completely. Being still young-enough and spry-enough, I wiggled around on the steel track through the 40min piece and decided it had been worth it.
The shock was in the next piece, a lecture-demonstration by Natsuko Tezuka. Set up against one wall of the ticket hall, she danced, standing and lying, referred to and wrote on a wall projection, and spoke and responded to questions relayed through an echoey mic system. The audience was encouraged to pick up plastic chairs and arrange them freely in the space, which ended up in a sort of semi-circular lecture hall format around her of about five or six rows.
The view from the first row. Now sit down and put a lot of heads in your way.
I thought this was a very interesting work, with a unique vocabulary and investigation. But audience members began to stream out from about 15min into the 75min performance. After 40 minutes I began to question whether I would do the same - and this is something I very very rarely do.
My partner was fidgeting too. I told myself that I would decide on whether or not to stay, if two out of four of these criteria were fulfilled to make the time bearable:
1. If I was able to see the performer.
2. If I was able to see the projections.
3. If I could make out the dialogue.
4. If I could breathe.
1. Five minutes into the show, I realised that I could hardly see the performer's body, even though I had managed to pull up my chair in the fourth row, just next to the stage manager (who necessarily has a clear view). So I stood up and watched, and with some wandering around I managed to see a bit more. A bit of an endurance act to keep up for 75 minutes.
2. White text-on-black slides were projected to a ground-level screen, maybe 3x2m, made from a sort of reflective paper like the back of a printed poster. It clearly had to be ground level because Tezuka wrote on the screen surface with a whiteboard marker at several points in the show. The audience on plastic chairs from row 3 onwards would have been able to see only about half of the screen at a time. Visibility was better when I stood up, but quite a lot of the projected text wasn't big enough to read clearly. There were reflections on the surface from the lighting. When Tezuka started to add diagrams and text to the screen, the reflections made the visuals simply illegible.
3. Tezuka spoke mainly into a mic, but was not easy to understand. Part of this had to do with an adorably heavy accent. But I believe more to do with the fact that the sound engineering was downright awful. It seemed that neither the acoustics of the room or the sound system had been adapted or tested.
4. Air. Or lack thereof.
Got heat? How about stuffiness. I suspect that the combined discomfort was the main factor driving folks away. I think I spotted some box-fans at the entrance to the space, but I'm quite sure I didn't feel any during the performance!
Score: 0.5/4.
At the 40min mark we bailed, and I started drafting this post in my head.
Was it limited resources that had forced such poor conditions for performance at the Tanjong Pagar railway station? In 10 years I've never experienced such disadvantageous conditions for an artistic work or for an audience at the Singapore Arts Festival. I might imagine something like this at the dance festival I've worked with in Laos and where sponsors and conditions change by the hour... but this at the Singapore Arts Festival?!
Poor ventilation, poor stage/seating concept and set up, poor acoustics,nd poor floor... On that evening the movement material wasn't very high impact, but the tiled floor is clearly punishing or even dangerous for any highly physical choreography. As an unfortunate contrast, I recall one of the earliest events held at the station after it was closed - a large scale Hermes pseudo-art installation show. The extensive structure built in the ticket hall was air conditioned and comfortable even in the day. Clearly it's possible to adapt that venue suitably with a sufficient budget.
Festival director Ong Keng Sen was there on 28 August, presenting bouquets to the artists. I wondered how he was able to account to them for these conditions - he didn't even choose to stage his own show (Border Crossers) at Tanjong Pagar. Did the festival get this venue for a song but not have the budget to adapt it? If so why did they choose to proceed? Was this mess one of the points of tension that rocked the SIFA team? I hope there's a reasonable explanation for what happened, but right now I can't imagine what it might be. That said, the other events that I attended at 72-13 and the SOTA studio were comfortable and seemed to have adequate technical conditions for the works. How did this slippage happen at Tanjong Pagar?
If it was a question of resource-shock..the evening wasn't done with me yet. On the way out I took some time in the considerably cooler station foyer answering a festival survey (apparently conducted this year by an external consultancy instead of the usual festival volunteers.) I paraphrase this question:
If there was a possibility that SIFA could not continue because of insufficient funding, would you be prepared to pay $100 for a ticket?
Me: $100?!!!! No. I'm an artist!
Would you pay $50 for a ticket?
Me: Probably not either!
So how much would you pay?
Me: I would apply to perform or to volunteer in the festival if that's what it took to see some shows.
(Lady says as she writes, "Not willing to pay more for tickets"
What is going on, folks? In 2014 the arts festival was reincarnated as a commissioned event run by a private enterprise (The Arts House Ltd). If I let my runaway imagination out on the expressway - Is the arts festival teetering on bankruptcy? Is it about to be privatised into a commercial luxury event?
I'm going for my next performance at Tanjong Pagar tonight. Oh boy.
I'm going for my next performance at Tanjong Pagar tonight. Oh boy.
Sunday, 2 August 2015
Sylvie
Tonight I saw Sylvie Guillem's "Life in Progress" at the London Coliseum - added dates as part of her "farewell" tour. The programme included pieces made for her by her longtime collaborators Akram Khan, Russell Maliphant and Mats Ek, with a guest appearance of a duo from Bill Forsythe.
This isn't a review. It just triggered a memory 13 years ago when I first set eyes on Sylvie on the stage of the Opera Garnier in Paris. I had picked up a student ticket in the gods, not really even knowing what I was going to see. She was dancing in Manon, returning as a guest to the Paris Opera. She set the stage on fire. That performance changed my life. It was one of the defining moments in my understanding of performance, and bringing something personal and challenging to every performance.
Over the years I watched her at every opportunity I could get, on stage, on DVD and on youtube. One of her statements from her DVD Evidentia has stayed with me: (this is a very rough paraphrase as I understood it then) that if you take a risk on stage as a performer, push yourself to the point where you almost fear what you do, then you will take the audience with you entirely. They will feel that risk and go with you.
But as I watched her over time I often felt quite sad that I found that few of her performances gave me the thrill I first felt when I saw her. Her collaboration pieces of the past few years quite underwhelmed me. As did some of the programme tonight. Yes, 6 o'clock legs, fine and fierce control. But I didn't see her quite as much. Except for Bye by Mats Ek.
More than about Sylvie, tonight told me a lot about me, and how I've changed as a dancer in 15 years. How my tastes and my aspirations, my idea of my "work" has gone from technical performance, pushing myself all out in performing presence, to creating and bumbling and fearing, to playing and now driving myself on to investigate questions of society, questions of the body's capacities, and questions of abstract composition and the relevance of art and performance.
This isn't a review. It just triggered a memory 13 years ago when I first set eyes on Sylvie on the stage of the Opera Garnier in Paris. I had picked up a student ticket in the gods, not really even knowing what I was going to see. She was dancing in Manon, returning as a guest to the Paris Opera. She set the stage on fire. That performance changed my life. It was one of the defining moments in my understanding of performance, and bringing something personal and challenging to every performance.
Over the years I watched her at every opportunity I could get, on stage, on DVD and on youtube. One of her statements from her DVD Evidentia has stayed with me: (this is a very rough paraphrase as I understood it then) that if you take a risk on stage as a performer, push yourself to the point where you almost fear what you do, then you will take the audience with you entirely. They will feel that risk and go with you.
But as I watched her over time I often felt quite sad that I found that few of her performances gave me the thrill I first felt when I saw her. Her collaboration pieces of the past few years quite underwhelmed me. As did some of the programme tonight. Yes, 6 o'clock legs, fine and fierce control. But I didn't see her quite as much. Except for Bye by Mats Ek.
More than about Sylvie, tonight told me a lot about me, and how I've changed as a dancer in 15 years. How my tastes and my aspirations, my idea of my "work" has gone from technical performance, pushing myself all out in performing presence, to creating and bumbling and fearing, to playing and now driving myself on to investigate questions of society, questions of the body's capacities, and questions of abstract composition and the relevance of art and performance.
Lately
Lately I marked the end of my postgrad diploma in London - for those of us who don't speak that strange vocabulary, that means 2/3 of the way towards the MA at LCDS.
Most recently, last week I began studio research for my next project. I also heard the good news that an artist I respect very much, Sara Wookey, has agreed to be my MA supervisor.
It's been a really full year. Since my last update at the end of 2014, I have written papers on Contact Improvisation - a cooperative form of dancing contrasted with its roots in the martial art of Aikido, and separately speculating on Contact settings as a laboratory for new forms of social organisation. I participated in the creation of a new work by Paolo Mangiola, who questioned contemporary dance as a form for the future. I reflected on my choreographic process through a jelly-making lecture demonstration. I turned my last few years' hobby of sliding down staircases into a dance film, with the support of a wonderful group of collaborators mostly from the London Contact Improv community.
And throughout the month of June I worked with a wonderful group of dancers to produce "The Sunshine Empire", an interactive performance selling the secrets of happiness.
Now it's my summer of Contact Improv in Europe, and reflection and rest in between.
In a way it seems that this time in London is allowing me to finally come into my own - spending time with other choreographers and like-minded collaborators has helped me find confidence in my practice: my exploration and research, my aesthetic, and my working style. (For now!)
I'll be home in Singapore soon, looking forward to attending a workshop with Danny K at the Esplanade. And! Fingers crossed, I hope I will get to vote.
Most recently, last week I began studio research for my next project. I also heard the good news that an artist I respect very much, Sara Wookey, has agreed to be my MA supervisor.
It's been a really full year. Since my last update at the end of 2014, I have written papers on Contact Improvisation - a cooperative form of dancing contrasted with its roots in the martial art of Aikido, and separately speculating on Contact settings as a laboratory for new forms of social organisation. I participated in the creation of a new work by Paolo Mangiola, who questioned contemporary dance as a form for the future. I reflected on my choreographic process through a jelly-making lecture demonstration. I turned my last few years' hobby of sliding down staircases into a dance film, with the support of a wonderful group of collaborators mostly from the London Contact Improv community.
And throughout the month of June I worked with a wonderful group of dancers to produce "The Sunshine Empire", an interactive performance selling the secrets of happiness.
Now it's my summer of Contact Improv in Europe, and reflection and rest in between.
In a way it seems that this time in London is allowing me to finally come into my own - spending time with other choreographers and like-minded collaborators has helped me find confidence in my practice: my exploration and research, my aesthetic, and my working style. (For now!)
I'll be home in Singapore soon, looking forward to attending a workshop with Danny K at the Esplanade. And! Fingers crossed, I hope I will get to vote.
The Sunshine Empire
On probably really the last, last of 15 performances of Sunshine Empire today:
I'm so grateful for you wonderful collaborators. I have watched the delight, puzzlement, surprise and challenge that you brought to our audiences these last two months. While we made part fiction, it was also really personal and genuine and powerful in that way. Often I find myself standing back while I ring the timings, and just truly enjoying all of you perform. The more I see, the better it gets. I'm really glad and proud of what we've made together.
Also, thank you for all the venues, and the old and new friends who have supported us, making time to come to our shows, and supporting us with feedback along the way. You know who you are!
sunshinempire.com
I'm so grateful for you wonderful collaborators. I have watched the delight, puzzlement, surprise and challenge that you brought to our audiences these last two months. While we made part fiction, it was also really personal and genuine and powerful in that way. Often I find myself standing back while I ring the timings, and just truly enjoying all of you perform. The more I see, the better it gets. I'm really glad and proud of what we've made together.
Also, thank you for all the venues, and the old and new friends who have supported us, making time to come to our shows, and supporting us with feedback along the way. You know who you are!
sunshinempire.com
Monday, 25 May 2015
"How can you be right here, if you're trying to be over there?"
- in Contact Improv class with Robert Anderson
Affective marketing
So I'm having these ambivalent feelings about how some of the loveliest shorts, photography or a stop motion like this get made on advertising budgets. Not that we needed confirmation of the affective power of artistic/aesthetic creation. And I guess it's not so much a matter of integrity, but just a matter of reality that some great stuff gets funded because it's used as a prop for money-making or for state propaganda. (Then I also get confused because on the other hand I believe in art for activism, for causes related to human rights, ecology, freedom and so on. Not that most of that really gets funded.)
That said I did enjoy this stop motion very much. And the marketing side doesn't make a difference to me personally because I'll never have the dough to be a credit suisse customer - and I doubt they'll take a chance on investing in art for art's sake since it has 0 potential for returns.
That said I did enjoy this stop motion very much. And the marketing side doesn't make a difference to me personally because I'll never have the dough to be a credit suisse customer - and I doubt they'll take a chance on investing in art for art's sake since it has 0 potential for returns.
Eleven Questions
My classmate Joanna Kalm asked me for a list of questions that I'm considering in my creative practice at this moment. I gave her a blank look. But we talked about it again today and it turned out to be a great exercise. I came up with this!
1. How can I allow What is going to happen next, to happen next?
2. What the heck is wrong with these people/institutions/politics etc?
3. How can people survive society? Capitalism?
4. Why do I do all this to myself?
5. How does art exist?
6. How does peace exist?
7. Do we know what "dancing" is?
8. How can I make this about you instead of about me?
9. Will my mother hate this?
10. How can I make everything my choreography teachers would have failed?
11. Can I have a cookie yet?
1. How can I allow What is going to happen next, to happen next?
2. What the heck is wrong with these people/institutions/politics etc?
3. How can people survive society? Capitalism?
4. Why do I do all this to myself?
5. How does art exist?
6. How does peace exist?
7. Do we know what "dancing" is?
8. How can I make this about you instead of about me?
9. Will my mother hate this?
10. How can I make everything my choreography teachers would have failed?
11. Can I have a cookie yet?
Friday, 8 May 2015
10 things I should have been told in my early years of Ashtanga
Reposting something another practitioner shared with my teacher Denise!
10 things I should have been told in my early years of Ashtanga.
1. Ashtanga Yoga is a lifetime commitment.
2. Pain (paining) is your spouse for better or for worse.
3. If you practice warming-up (stretching) you'll get better in warming-up not the practice itself. So just practice straight then the practice itself in the long run would be like a warm-up.
4. But some would say, "Warm-up/stretching is to avoid injury." Injuries OCCUR whether you do warm-up or not. That leads me to the next one.
5. If there's one thing that needs warm-up/stretching. It's the mind.
6. Ego + Yoga Asana = Injury
7. Humility (mandatory). Don't step on your mat without it.
8. Acceptance is the only new asana you need.
9. Being judgmental is a reflection of your frustration towards your practice and/or life itself.
10. Mindbending is more important than backbending.
10 things I should have been told in my early years of Ashtanga.
1. Ashtanga Yoga is a lifetime commitment.
2. Pain (paining) is your spouse for better or for worse.
3. If you practice warming-up (stretching) you'll get better in warming-up not the practice itself. So just practice straight then the practice itself in the long run would be like a warm-up.
4. But some would say, "Warm-up/stretching is to avoid injury." Injuries OCCUR whether you do warm-up or not. That leads me to the next one.
5. If there's one thing that needs warm-up/stretching. It's the mind.
6. Ego + Yoga Asana = Injury
7. Humility (mandatory). Don't step on your mat without it.
8. Acceptance is the only new asana you need.
9. Being judgmental is a reflection of your frustration towards your practice and/or life itself.
10. Mindbending is more important than backbending.
Sunday, 12 April 2015
My year in art 2014 - I
It’s usually one of my favourite postings at the end of every year to look back over my “best of”. I sit and dig through my growing stash of programmes and festival brochures to remember what I loved best.
The 2014 event list has been sitting in my journal since January, but it’s taken me some time to understand why this posting was so hard for me to get going – and also why it became so important for me to still write it even though 2014 is so far gone. My year in art in 2014 was essentially a “worst of”. I had a horrible year. I did a lot of cool things (list below), but overall it was a painful time that made me doubt myself, my work and my life choices.
I began the year in severe burnout from 2013. I had somehow survived several crisis-fraught creations and volunteer projects in between heavy duty creation and touring with other productions and festival administration. When 2014 arrived, my sensible annual resolution was to permit myself not to make any new work for at least six months. I thought about the future, my family and my artistic work.
I decided it was time to take the leap and go and do a Masters in choreography, or I'd never take the time to jumpstart the concentration and reflection that I felt I needed.
I decided it was time to take the leap and go and do a Masters in choreography, or I'd never take the time to jumpstart the concentration and reflection that I felt I needed.
However this ambition did not generate the head space and confidence that I’d hoped it would. The seemingly mundane act of writing and rewriting applications should not have been so difficult or different from the grant-extraction machine that I had become over the past three years. Instead it plunged me into a puddle of anxiety over researching the most suitable choices among unfamiliar. Struggling over the question of the wisdom of separating myself from my partner for over a year (in some cases, two years or more), and how I should organise the finances to achieve this. I reviewed a previously rejected programme application that I had submitted on a whim. I wrestled with iMovie late into the night. I plugged some savings and hours into Goethe Institut courses. I sat in the uncomfortable expectation of sceptical eyes looking over my work and my aspirations.
I did make it to the first round of several applications and auditions. I went scrounging around affluent relatives for frequent flyer miles, and made an unthinkable series of trips (dates were non-negotiably spread out). I declined another audition when they wrote with a weeks’ notice to get to Seoul. I angsted myself into exhaustion and slipped up on several deadlines for applications and scholarship.
Then the rejections started coming in.
Then the rejections started coming in.
Finally I was left with just one acceptance letter. A wonderful school in London, but with an impossible school fee and living costs, and no hope of a scholarship. I did not know what to do.
My self confidence was plunging and leaking negativity into my creative work. I was convinced that I didn't want to dance anymore. My creative well was dry and hollow. I worked alongside brilliant people and felt nothing but my own insufficiency. By my own judgement, I delivered the worst performances of my life that summer. I was an improviser who couldn’t improvise. I radioed my therapist and my shrink.
Then my loving family stepped in to the rescue! My relatives offered me funds where I hadn’t been able to get a scholarship. It was unqualified support and love. I accepted the place in London but I felt like a fraud. I compared myself unfavourably against other Singapore alumni of the same programme. I struggled with guilt that I was abandoning and hurting my partner. I woke up in the middle of the night terrified of what a mess I was heading into. I calculated the height from my window to the ground – something I hadn’t done in years. I wondered if I was ploughing ahead with plans to leave only because I had now accepted the money.
I scrounged for ways to be gentler to myself, to remember that it would pass. Took fragile steps towards packing my bag and queuing through airports.
Finally I arrived in the blinding sunshine in a new place. Breathing was surprisingly easy. I gave myself permission to start again.
I scrounged for ways to be gentler to myself, to remember that it would pass. Took fragile steps towards packing my bag and queuing through airports.
Finally I arrived in the blinding sunshine in a new place. Breathing was surprisingly easy. I gave myself permission to start again.
My year in art 2014 - II
The actual list...
- Catch the Wave contact improv festival in Koh Chang, Thailand, April.
- Exploring CI with some wonderfully curious diploma students at LASALLE College of the Arts Singapore in April.
- Hosting Angelika Doniy in Singapore, April
- SEA Choreolab at Rimbun Dahan, Malaysia, May
- Dancing on the MRT with Kai Eng
- Finally getting the groove of festival organisation at Contact Festival Kuala Lumpur 2014, June
- Participating in Retrospective by Xavier Le Roy at Theatreworks Singapore, 25 Sep-2 Aug 2014
- The worst Focus tour I have ever done. August.
- Assisting the rehearsal process for Gitanjali by The Necessary Stage, Aug-Sep
- Seeing Disabled Theatre by Jerome Bel and Theater HORA at the Singapore Arts Festival, September
- Starting off with the facebook networks for Independent Dance Southeast Asia, Contact Improv Southeast Asia, and Singapore Interdependent Dance
- Getting introduced to London through beautiful weather and the CI Celebrates Chisenhale Dance Space, 13 September
- The Place and the 2014 LCDS Postgrad cohort.
- Seeing To Singapore with Love, Tan Pin Pin at the Southeast Asia Arts Fest London, September
- Seeing the Elixir festival "KnowBody" programme at Sadlers Wells (also my first of many evenings at this theatre): Potato and Memory - Mats Ek and Ana Laguna, The Elders Project - Jonathan Burrows and Mateo Fargion (and a cast of stellar retired dancers), Dominique Mercy in a solo by Pascal Merighi, September
- London Contact Improvisation Jams at Moving East
- Building towards daily ashtanga practice with Hamish Hendry at Ashtanga Yoga London.
- Seeing Idiot-syncrasy, Igor and Moreno, 30 September at The Place
- An intensive workshop on Improvisation into Performance with Jovair Longo and fellow dancers of the LCDS PG programme
- Seeing Pact with Pointlessness, Wendy Houstoun, 8 October at The Place
- Seeing Plateau Effect, Cullberg Ballet, 13-14 November at Sadler's Wells
- Creating music collaboration projects at LCDS 5-6 December 2014: Loop with James Albany Hoyle, Feet of Bread with Sylvia Lim (Review)
- Choreographic course with Sue MacLennan: A 2 hour silent walk through Tavistock and Kings Cross
- CI classes with Robert Anderson, October-December
- Beginning Aikido at the Tetsushinkan Dojo at Moving East
- Attending the Crossing Borders lecture series curated by Frank Bock at Independent Dance, notably Meg Stuart, Steve Valk, Andrea Phillips, Sara Wookey, Helen Poynor, Cally Spooner.
- Seeing Paradise Lost (preview), Lost Dog at The Place, October
- CI workshops with Charlie Morrissey, November
- Singing Christmas carols with 200 people in Broughton Castle, December 2014
- Hearing Benjamin Britten's War Requiem on the WWI Centenary at the Royal Albert Hall, performed by the Royal Choral Society, London Philharmonic and Trinity Boys Choir, Evelina Dobracheva, Stephan Rugamer, Bryn Terfel, Richard Cooke, November
- Seeing John, DV8 at the National Theatre
- Are we here yet? Meg Stuart and Jeroen Peters (now reprinted!)
- Getting my own copy and frequently delving into Jonathan Burrows' The Choreographers' Handbook
- Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters (just as I was moving to London and landing in Bethnal Green)
- Properly sitting down and watching the whole of Blush by Wim Vandeykebus and Strange Fish by DV8
Monday, 6 April 2015
What my body has understood - at the Dharma Shala London
Not to judge people by their yoga mats.
Not to judge people by their poses.
Not to judge myself.
(I'm still working at this last one!)
Not to judge people by their poses.
Not to judge myself.
(I'm still working at this last one!)
Wednesday, 25 March 2015
Sunday, 1 March 2015
When I grow up I'm going to be an improviser
I know, famous last words, I was saying in Retrospective last year "I'm not sure if I'm a dancer anymore, but I do call myself an improviser." This after about six years of struggling with my love for improvisation (and contact improvisation) but an education in which "you're improvising!" was a reprimand and a performance culture where improvisation is often taken as a shorthand for laziness.
When we were working on Retrospective, my dear friend K pointed out that I might be claiming improvisation as an identity because while there are many criterion for technical dancing which I prefer not to be judged by, I could noodle around but not be judged for not improvising!
But the more I see and experience, I am humbled and delighted. I don't know if I merit the label "improviser" - but when I grow up I want to be one! I feel reassured that I won't run out of things to work on for another 20-30 years at least.
Here is my knockout list so far:
When we were working on Retrospective, my dear friend K pointed out that I might be claiming improvisation as an identity because while there are many criterion for technical dancing which I prefer not to be judged by, I could noodle around but not be judged for not improvising!
But the more I see and experience, I am humbled and delighted. I don't know if I merit the label "improviser" - but when I grow up I want to be one! I feel reassured that I won't run out of things to work on for another 20-30 years at least.
Here is my knockout list so far:
- Yvonne Ng - I saw her perform at the Grey Festival in Singapore 2010, during my final year at NAFA. I knew from that moment that I wanted to make improvised solos.
- Rick Nodine and Simonetta Alessandri at the LCI celebrates Chisenhale fundraiser - 3 DAYS after arriving in London, Sep 2014. Knocked my socks off.
- Table of Contents (Siobhan Davies Company) at ICA Selfridges, 2014.
- and tonight... Sten Rudstrom at Trip the Light Fantastic Toe!
Tuesday, 24 February 2015
Writing down your ideas
"Writing down your ideas is an excellent way of capturing the thoughts and images that are whizzing around in your head. And there is nothing like sitting down with a piece of paper in front of you to make those ideas disappear from view. But you must persevere - I find that it is in the struggling to find the words to describe vague images or concepts that they clarify into a tangible idea."
-Katrina McPherson, Making Video Dance
Sunday, 22 February 2015
Practice Journal
I had forgotten how much I enjoy solo practice. I moved last week into a new room that finally has a space for me to roll out a mat and do a sun salutation without whacking any furniture. My first few practices here have been wonderful, under a skylight and with no pressure of comparisons. My energy is generally quieter and cooler. My body is calmer and listens better. I do feel like I have my best focus when I am alone - just as when I started going into my practice in earnest in 2012 with my little travel mat while on tour.
___________________________________________________________________
Two days ago this came to me in practice:
Body: Your most treasured achievements will come not from desperation but from steadiness.
Then I sat down today with the delightful little yoga philosophy handbook by my current teacher Hamish Hendry, and this jumped out at me from his selection of his favourite Yoga Sutras - "Sthira sukham asanam" (Steady comfort posture - in postures as well as in being)
And more on being in the moment - after I told my friend J about my recent observation about not living in painful moments of the past, she added on a paraphrase from a Contact Improvisation workshop she had taken with Robert Anderson:
"You can't be *here* if you're trying to be over there!"
Increasingly I am convinced that practice is a way to receive accumulated human wisdom.
(Upanishads in 2000BC, Yoga Sutras in 100AD, up to the contemporary wisdom of our teachers and friends!)
___________________________________________________________________
Two days ago this came to me in practice:
Body: Your most treasured achievements will come not from desperation but from steadiness.
Then I sat down today with the delightful little yoga philosophy handbook by my current teacher Hamish Hendry, and this jumped out at me from his selection of his favourite Yoga Sutras - "Sthira sukham asanam" (Steady comfort posture - in postures as well as in being)
And more on being in the moment - after I told my friend J about my recent observation about not living in painful moments of the past, she added on a paraphrase from a Contact Improvisation workshop she had taken with Robert Anderson:
"You can't be *here* if you're trying to be over there!"
Increasingly I am convinced that practice is a way to receive accumulated human wisdom.
(Upanishads in 2000BC, Yoga Sutras in 100AD, up to the contemporary wisdom of our teachers and friends!)
Thursday, 12 February 2015
What my body has understood - Practice journal
This morning I thought that this could be a good time to document my sporadic practice journal from my Ashtanga practice over the years. I often get the sense that my body is understanding something that my over-stressed brain has not figured out. They are usually blindingly common-sense kind of things.
Today and recently:
Body: Use this practice to be in the present. You are not your distractions or your flashbacks of humiliating moments in your life. You are the present, here, on the mat.
Body: All you need to do today is stand on the ground.
Some old ones:
Body: Don't practice yoga to lose weight.
Me: But that's why I started. Ashtanga is yoga+workout.
Body: If you want to lose weight go for a run. Your practice will give you other things.
Me: Oh.
Body: All you need to do is breathe. All you need to think about is breathing.
Me: This is hard!
Body: Breathing just happens whether you think about it or not. Just let it happen and listen to its rhythm.
Body: Remember ten years ago, one of your yoga teachers said "Soft mind, soft body".
Body: Moving your body will train your mind. (Just like your teacher has said.) This isn't about what series or pose you are doing, whether you achieve the bind. This is about coming back to the same place every day.
Body: I will always be here with you.
Today and recently:
Body: Use this practice to be in the present. You are not your distractions or your flashbacks of humiliating moments in your life. You are the present, here, on the mat.
Body: All you need to do today is stand on the ground.
Some old ones:
Body: Don't practice yoga to lose weight.
Me: But that's why I started. Ashtanga is yoga+workout.
Body: If you want to lose weight go for a run. Your practice will give you other things.
Me: Oh.
Body: All you need to do is breathe. All you need to think about is breathing.
Me: This is hard!
Body: Breathing just happens whether you think about it or not. Just let it happen and listen to its rhythm.
Body: Remember ten years ago, one of your yoga teachers said "Soft mind, soft body".
Body: Moving your body will train your mind. (Just like your teacher has said.) This isn't about what series or pose you are doing, whether you achieve the bind. This is about coming back to the same place every day.
Body: I will always be here with you.
Thursday, 29 January 2015
Platypus
A peek into the choreographic process of my dear friend Joanna Kalm:
a small poem from InterArts sharing today, made with the help of my lovely, sadly temporary, course mates
pretty much sums up what I've been up to these past months
PLATYPUS
A PLATYPUS WAS
SPRINTING VERY SLOWLY
ACROSS THE ICE CREAM CAKE
THAT GRANDMA MADE ME
HE WAS RUINING THE CAKE
I'M SORRY
HE SAID
I WISH I COULD FLY
BUT REALLY
I JUST CANT
WHY U JUST MADE ME CRY
HE ferociously WENT AND HUGGED THE GRANDMA
WITH HIS TINY SLIMY HANDS
KISSED HER WITH HER WEIRD SOMETHING
AND…
THAT’S THE END
Monday, 26 January 2015
"Dance is the problem.
...and dance is the solution to the problem."
There, now I've finally posted a quote from myself. Circa 2011, and still in use.
There, now I've finally posted a quote from myself. Circa 2011, and still in use.
Monday, 19 January 2015
Conversations on choreography and composition
We had a really rich and enjoyable experience with the LCDS-Guildhall collaborations. I recorded this post-collab discussion for our colleagues who couldn't join us that day. They've given permission for me to reproduce it here!
____________________________________________________________________
LCDS-Guildhall Music Collaborations 2014 Post-Collaboration Discussion, 8 December 2014 at The Place
Lauren:
What were some things that you learned or found particularly challenging or interesting
about this project? How did you cope with the short time period?
Sze: I had very different but productive experiences
working with James and Sylvia. With Sylvia we agreed on a great deal of things
but the difficulty was that we didn’t have our musician until very late in the
process. I was choreographing
without knowing what the music would sound like and she was writing without
knowing what it would sound like either.
But she was really present.
Every rehearsal she was there with us, and I realized that she has a
great visual sense as well.
With James it was interesting because we
disagreed so much! We realized
that we have very different approaches and aesthetics. It took us about three meetings to
settle what concept we wanted to work on. But we had many moments where we
realized that it wasn’t working and we had to return to the concepts. The most interesting discussion we had
was when we decided we had to return to understanding each others’ aesthetic
and what we wanted to get out of the piece. In the end we got something very different from what each of
us would otherwise make, and it was very interesting.
James: I used the analogy of raisins and
mustard from Harrison Birtwistle: “Making a piece is like creating a new
recipe. You first go and pick
ingredients. Maybe it’s mustard
and raisins. What matters is the way you put them together, without making the
dish too wishy-washy.”
The nature of our working process was up and down, one week might be great
and the next one dodgy. We hit some brick walls rather than full steam
ahead. Our job was to make it work, not to settle for compromises. We were really interested in trying
each other’s “shoes” on, that is trying out each other’s working process. We
found ways to gel through talking, improvisation and listening to each other to
find a connection.
What didn't work was
when we veered away from collaboration – when we built structures and I had a
written score. We ended up not listening to each other when we had it written
down.
Working with a collaborator with a
different aesthetic forced me to return the concept much more often, which is
something I don’t always do when writing music. This is something useful I will definitely take away with
me.
Chris: I wrote something different from
what I usually write. What helped me and Connor was that we were very clear on
the intentions of the material and we drew the trajectory of the piece before
making it. That helped me to write something that was different and stick to
it.
I also learned that if
something is already not working in the music, putting it together with the
dance makes the issue even more obvious.
Lauren: Looking back to the workshop week that
started these collaborations, this process was in some ways about knowing what tools and decisions
to work with - about experiencing a wide range of tools or ways of working and
then deciding which ones to select.
Yanaelle: It was great
to be working on the project like this, to see how Guildhall people work.
Chris: One thing that
could have been better was if the musicians could have been more present
earlier in the rehearsal process, to really merge the performance with the
dancers and create a stronger connection between them. The dialogue between
music and dance was an ongoing process, which emerged from the live
performance.
Yanaelle: For us,
working with recordings could be tricky. We worked for some time with a
recording of the first section from Thomas. But when the actual musicans came to play for rehearsal it
was very different and it really threw the dancers off because it wasn’t played
the exact same way.
Lauren:
How was it for the composers working with composition tutors who didn’t see the
dance component of the project? When teachers gave you contrasting comments
what did you do and how did you understand what they meant? For dancers, would
it have been useful to have another tutor for choreography?
Chris: I discussed with my tutor as well as
with Paul but I didn’t feel like one path was “the” right path to follow. My
tutor helped me quite a bit with the chords at the end. He also kept reminding me of the
concept of the piece, to the extent that I realized I couldn’t do anything
else.
James: Because so little of this piece was
written, I spent quite a lot of time with my tutor talking about the concept. We
discussed the idea that when you
hear your own work at a later stage, you start to see new problems in it that
you didn't see when you first made it, this being what Birtwistle calls a
'wound' in a piece. At a later stage still, a wound might heal, that is you no
longer find that aspect of the piece problematic, but a new wound might open up
somewhere else. I think it's quite a common process to go through with your own
work, even while still composing, and I think it definitely happened to us!
Sylvia: My tutor is Paul so he was familiar with what we were doing. I found
this helpful as he could offer his thoughts on the integration between music
and dance during the compositional process. When I went to have a lesson with
another tutor, to whom I showed a video but didn’t really explain the concept
in great depth, he commented more on the musical structure, and isolated the
musical aspect to make sure it was working on its own.
Yanaelle: Because I was busy with the
Crystal Pite project, Thomas went ahead to write the first section of the music
first. That set the tone for how I
worked after that. We worked by
sections. The first one was quite set and I created the movement along with
that. For other sections we
created the music and the movement separately based on the same idea. However there was one section where it
really didn’t work and we had to look at it again.
Lauren:
For the first time in this collaboration project, we had many more musicians
available for more rehearsals than before. How did that influence how you worked?
Chris: We didn’t have so many rehearsals
with the musicians. I had decided that I would finalize the piece after the
second week. Of course in the
third week we had the rehearsal with the dancers and musicians and I realized
that it didn’t work at all and had to go back to rewrite it.
Sze: Our situation with Sylvia was rather
that we didn’t have the musician or even the instrument confirmed till quite
late. But we did benefit from
extra time for bubbling of ideas that the other groups did not have.
Sylvia: I had to work with what was
available. I originally wanted to write for double bass and viol but double
bass was not available. So I ended
up writing for just viol and in the end I think it worked out better that way.
Sze: It would have been a totally different
piece.
Chris: It would have changed the texture of
the piece a lot.
Sylvia: Even with two instruments I would
have used them quite soloistically.
Lauren:
(For Jordan) What was your experience of the process?
Jordan:
As an undergraduate student I thought about how I can pull from the
experiences that I had from working with different choreographers, so that I
could make decisions and direct my dancers.
There is never a perfect performance. The question for me was whether as a
creator, I could let go? Actually a piece or a recording is a document of who
you were at a certain point.
Sze: You also can’t control audience’s
reactions (e.g. laughter) to your work.
Sze:
For dancers it’s usual to work with music but for composers it’s less common to
work with movement. How was the
experience for you?
James: I realized that it takes very little
time for things to shift and evolve in music, wheras in dance two minutes is a
very short time for a shift to happen. I thought about our perception of time
in seeing and hearing. Is it episodic or continuous?
Lauren:
How much did your pieces reflect the “haiku” of the workshop week?
Sze: The idea of other spaces and displaced
noises remained with us from the time I shut Sylvia in the cupboard!
Sylvia: I continued to think about how I
could displace sounds, musically and spatially.
Chris: We made a piece where I had just one
chord where the elements drop out one by one and Connor simply went from
standing to bending down, really slowly.
I think it influenced our concept quite strongly.
Yanaelle: For the haiku, I stood behind
Thomas on one leg, balancing, and he played a circular motion around the edge
of his singing bowl. The quality of both the movement and sound was used in our
final piece.
Music Collaborations
Performances created in
collaboration by students from London Contemporary Dance School and
Postgraduate students from Guildhall School of Music and Drama
5-6 December 2014, Robin
Howard Dance Theatre
1. Loop
Concept/Performance
by James Albany Hoyle, Chan Sze-Wei
2. Muliebris
Choreographer:
Katy Ayling
Composer: Hans
Hoeglund
Dancers: Laura
Ginatempo, Laura Lorenzi, Katrina Madrilejo
Musicians:
Trumpet/Flugelhorn; Chloe Abbott, Viola: Anna Luiza, Percussion: Dori Raphael,
Piano: Yung-Yueh Cheng
3. Aki
Choreographer:
Jordan Ajadi
Composer: Donghoon
Shin
Dancers: Laura
Ginatempo, Luke Crook, Josie Sinnadurai, Sophie Morgan
Musicians: Cello;
Andrew Power, Clarinet; Han Kim, Piano; Sebastian Espinosa, Conductor; James
Albany Hoyle
4. Without
Choreographer:
Connor Williams
Composer: Chris
McCormack
Dancers: Laura
Lorenzi, Katrina Madrilejo, Benjamin Eagles, Mari Ishida
Musicians: Violin;
Lyazzat Abisheva, Violin; Yi-Ning Liao, Violin; Monika Chmielewska, Piano; Ng
Yu Ching Shelley, Percussion; Vonald Chow, Electronics; Chris McCormack
5. Dessus de Souffle
Choreographer:
Yanaelle Thiran
Composer: Thomas
Fournil
Dancers: Luke
Crook, Benjamin Eagles, Joanna Kalm, Mari Ishida, Sophie Morgan, Josie
Sinnadurai
Musicians: Flute;
Toni Berg, Jack Michael Welch, Clarinet; Myles Wakelin-Harkett, Percussion;
Peter Ashwell, Singing Bowl; Mari Ishida
6. Feet of Bread
Choreographer:
Chan Sze-Wei
Composer: Sylvia
Lim
Dancer: Virginia
Scudeletti
Bass Viol: Liam
Byrne
Collaborations Tutors:
Lauren Potter, Paul Newland
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