The PDC dancers put in a strong performance, the best I’d seen so far, and Matt set up a feedback system where the audience had to say something that didn’t work before they could comment on something that did. I decided to allow Matt to facilitate the discussion and keep myself inconspicuous as choreographer so as the students felt at ease to be as critical as they wanted.

Overall the audience all felt the characters were individually clear and that interactions were particularly engaging. Although the ‘story’ was ambiguous/unclear, it was obvious to the audience that the characters were in competition with each other or involved in power struggles. The context of the piece was not apparent from the material, but when the theme of the work was shared with the audience, with the details of what the music and costume would add: a sense of time/period and the silent films of Chaplin, they said the material made much more sense. As an artist who strives for all elements of a production: movement, sound, costume, light, etc., to be integral to the work, this made me content that the piece would work as a whole.

The two main areas for improvement that arose from the feedback included tightening up and tweaking of the unison sections, particularly timing and dynamics, and for the performers to push their character development further so that more personality is shown on stage.

The audience also shared advice, including drama exercises, that could aide the dancers in achieving a deeper connection and portrayal of their characters in the piece. Exercises included performing the piece as the most exaggerated version of their characters they could be, having conversations as their characters to find out the most banal details about them, e.g. what is your favourite colour?, where did you grow up? etc. and improvising with different character scenarios to explore how their characters react to different situations.

The remaining rehearsal time was spent improvising with both the on and off screen characters, having character conversations and running the piece with different performance emphases, such as individual emotional journeys, character relationships and dynamics.

By the end of weekend 2 the dancers noted that being aware of their character relationships formed more context in the piece and that the exercises had helped them to find genuine reactions in the material. The dancers still need to find ways of maintaining energy and focus when transitioning between their on and off screen characters, as well as work on spacing, dynamics, timing and specific movement details when performing unison phrases. However, I feel the company has taken a big step in their understanding and performance of the work that will continue to progress once costume and music are layered upon the piece.

To begin Trevor explained that drawing like for like was all about the ego, and that the real challenge of drawing should be to ‘show the hidden, to show what you can’t see’. For example, for the human figure this could mean the movement or expression of the pose. In regard to my own work I want performers to be able to show me what is hidden within their characters, whether it be histories, emotions, intent, desire, etc. I don’t just want to see a balance or specific movement, I want to see how that movement relates to the character, or vice versa. To portray this the performer needs to have a sense of why the character is doing that move and what they feel when doing it.

Trevor also demanded that the students refrain from ‘just drawing the object’, but to ‘draw the object in relation to other objects’. By relating to the things around us we gain a sense of the self. For example, by drawing the table that the figure sits on you can create a sense of proportion, the softness of the flesh against the hard surface of the table, etc.

Relationships are integral when you have 6 performers/characters in a piece, and how they relate to each other when on stage is of the utmost importance. Even during a solo the performer can build relationships to space, time, the sound-score, traces left behind by other performers, etc.

Another useful and transferable piece of advice Trevor gave was to ‘break the closed form and play with its components’. An outline is unlikely to give a sense of volume, density or contours to the body. My PDC dancers need to follow this advice and break through the surface of their characters and allow the inner workings (thoughts, feelings, insecurities, desires, etc.) to trickle out and affect the intent, dynamics and quality of the movement and help the formation of character relationships.

I believe these connections, when put into context, will help the dancers to strengthen the embodiment of their characters and build a shared understanding of how they are all intertwined into the work.

Day 7 began with a repertoire workshop on Thou Shalt led by Sylvia. For me it was important, after already sharing the process of how the piece was made through the dancers’ own material, that Sylvia lead this session so that the dancers could experience the work from a performer perspective. The dancers picked up the material with ease and were able to move between set and improvised material under Sylvia’s direction. Sylvia was also able to share her experience of working with character and how much time and effort needs to be given to truly embodying a character and their journey.

During the intensive week it had become clear to me that the dancers needed to feel confident with the material, not be distracted by the fear of forgetting steps and having a full sense of the piece before entering into the complex task of formulating and embodying their (on and off screen) characters journeys. Therefore, my 2 main outcomes for day 7 were to make choreographic changes, including the removal of any unnecessary or problematic movement, and to allow Nadia and Sylvia to give feedback on the work-in-progress. Day 8 would be given to character development.

Receiving feedback from others is paramount to my work. It helps me to look at the work with fresh eyes and stops me from getting too engrossed in the development of specific sections of material that may not be conducive with the whole. For example, one of the sections in the work-in-progress was a duet built from very simple movements and attention to the gaze, in which a strong connection between the dancers slowly emerged. I had become quite fascinated by the duet and was intrigued as to where the material could lead. However, when viewed by Nadia and Sylvia within the context of the whole piece, both pointed out that the section was too slow in pace in relation to the previous sections and therefore lost their interest as an audience. Needless to say the duet had to be cut regardless of my own enthralment.

Potential was noted by my ‘outside eyes’ on some material yet to be fully explored, and after an initial attempt in development, and a good night’s sleep, I was able to contextualise the material and set clear tasks on day 8 for the dancers to explore the movement as their on-screen characters. The dancers thrived on these tasks, creating energetic, dynamic and comedic duets. I was able to edit these moments into a new section, which replaced the former duet and picked up the pace/energy of the work.

Another issue that had been nagging me throughout the intensive was the difficulty one of the dancer’s appeared to be having portraying her chosen character (Virginia Cherrill). Although the dancer was clearly interested in the on and off screen life of her chosen character, she was unable to find a strong enough personal connection. However, when observing the dancer exploring floor material with a sense of  the Tramp character, she allowed her cheeky, playful side to emerge. At that moment I knew she was a Mabel! And after a discussion on day 8, ending in a joint decision to switch characters, the dancer began forming a much deeper connection to the material and her performance of the work increased ten fold.

The purpose of Day 8 was to aide the dancers in strengthening their connection to the work by creating their character journeys in the piece. Through individual discussions I questioned the dancers on what their characters are feeling at significant points in the piece and why, as well as probing them on where they felt moments of connection with other characters might reside. Time was then given for the dancers to work through the piece with their new journeys in mind.

The instigation of the dancers’ character journeys have already made a big difference on the energy, focus and performance of the piece, newly titled On Screen / Off Screen. We now have a solid base for engagement to keep deepening over January, whilst the addition of costume and music/sound will bring layers of historical and gender references, atmosphere and heightened emotive states to the work.

Over the 6 days the amount of material generated has been immense and impressive. And although there became a clear pattern of energy dropping off from around 4pm by all, the days were always fruitful. I did miss having more time to reflect on the day’s work, but it did click my brain into efficient and productive modes of thinking.

Another significant difference of the commission to my usual choreographic experience is that I am invited to work with a company of dancers, instead of inviting dancers to work with me. There are no real negatives to this situation. Playgrounds Dance Company is a rep company and all dancers are aware that they might not be selected for each piece performed, and the dancers are always hard working and eager to please. However, what does take time is sharing processes and finding a vocabulary to communicate with. And now entering the stage of weekend rehearsals with the company, I feel the dancers are starting to become much more open and able to ask me questions about the work.

The whole commission has also entailed another new poignant experience for me through the blogging by Matt (company artistic director). To have someone analyse your process as you are creating and directing a work is a strange thing. It makes me eager to know what he has seen, understood and interpreted, yet equally it makes me nervous and unsure as to whether I am being articulate. Overall this sensation has evolved into a genuine curiosity into Matt’s analytical thinking (and break-down) of what for me is an intuitive, sometimes unpredictable, creative process. He’s blog has definitely given me a new sense of my choreographic practice and underlined my previous conviction that the process will never be fully the same for each work I make.

I have a handful of phrases, sections, duets and solos that have potential to keep growing or contain moments that capture something I find poignant. Today I have selected and logged key parts, crafted material together, asked for more development in specific phrases, edited out redundant movements and directed the dynamics and timings of the more solid phrases created.

With 6 characters, a short creation time frame and suggested length of piece (30mins max) I am keeping an awareness of the balance between abstraction and narrative throughout the construction of the piece. A question that keeps arising for me is do I need to start with the human/everyday? Beginning with a ‘real’ human scene in Thou Shalt allowed a great deal of abstraction and development of the material of the work to occur without the dancers (and the audience) losing a sense of the characters and narrative. Therefore, I plan to test out human and gestural movement in the opening scene of the work to see if it can enhance a strengthening of narrative and character development, especially when the narrative is particularly non-linear and abstract.

Today’s session also clarified my initial notion that the sound will need to be an atmospheric sound-scape than a instrumental or rhythmic composition. My break between the end of the intensive and my first weekend return will be spent exploring these potential musical avenues.

Tomorrow (my last day of the week intensive) I aim to widen my sense of the structural and narrative potentials of the material, continue to seek out meaningful moments for the characters and locate areas of the work that the dancers need to work on.

We have made a substantial amount of material and I have already begun to play with and shape it into around ideas. At this stage only some material has been cut altogether.

The main challenge that has arisen for the dancers is how to work from and with characters. The dancers have no previous experience of character driven work, and there is an apparent gap in their understanding of how to embody a character, internally and externally, and how to create material that has derived from such stimuli. The dancers have to be able to generate material from characters (real or fabricated) that communicate (initially) clear signs externally through the movement and give a sense of something internal of the character through the performance: achieved by maintaining a personal connection to the character. Once clarity of the signs/meaning of the movement and its performance have been found, the dancer is then able to play with/abstract the movement and begin to explore the complexities of the signs and meanings within the material.

Some breakthroughs were made today during the creation of on-screen/off-screen leading lady solos. The dancers used silent film footage of  Chaplin’s leads and research into the real life women as stimuli. One of the dancers commented that mimicking the on-screen movement made her realise that she had completely confused the movement quality of her chosen character. Once the on-screen movement and gestures were found in the dancers’ bodies, a coherent understanding of the character was finally achieved and rich material created.

A similar process was used when creating off-screen solos by using human gestures as starting points, and stripping back movement to more simplistic forms when meaning became lost. I also spent time with each dancer discussing the real characters, including personal histories, character traits, emotional states, what had drawn them to the character and how some of the processes shared on the workshop day could facilitate a physical exploration into the character.  And when information on the character’s emotional state during certain events or relationships were unknown I encouraged the dancer to imagine how they would feel in that situation.

All the dancers had a strong willingness to understand and connect with their chosen ‘real’ characters. However, difficulty would ensue when trying to maintain the meaning that had inspired the movement. Attention to the use of facial expressions, posture and gaze helped to overcome these issues.

The next level of development to this work for the dancers will be how to take on the character of Chaplin, whilst already embodying their off screen character.  Matt advised the dancers to try and understand the character of Chaplin to be able to engage in this task. We also discussed that it would be helpful for the dancers to address in more detail how to work with characters and try to build a shared vocabulary on these issues. We also agreed that using terms such as character (for on-screen and Chaplin roles), person (for off-screen roles), characterisation and personalisation would potentially aide their understanding of the processes they are being asked to engage with.

Today several important questions have emerged. Firstly, working with 9 performers is extremely exhilarating, but will this number be appropriate for the piece? For me each character should have equal importance, and therefore it is of great importance that each dancer that remains has a strong enough role in the work.

Secondly, can this piece reach its full potential with found music? Over the past five years I have collaborated with live sound artists and composers, where the music/sound has been created simultaneously with the movement. Today I experimented with different types of found music as accompaniments for some of the material and found it very problematic. In conversation with Matt we both agreed the found music could be limiting on how the work is viewed by an audience.

Matt also shared some perceptive thoughts on the similarities between dance theatre an silent film, including the themes: society and the human condition, and creative processes utilised by both art forms. As expected this commission continues to raise new questions and areas of interest for me.

Lorraine

quodlibet.tumblr.com

This connecting blog will act as a documentation of and a reflection on the commission. Matt will be using the blog to capture an understanding of the processes behind the creation of the work, theoretical/conceptual issues that emerge and where exploring such issues can help the dancers find a richer performance of the work (and other works) created. The blog will also include experiences and reflections from the performers and other company associates.

Rare footage of Chaplin

Charlie & Oona Chaplin

Tomorrow I will use some of these processes to explore the theme of the work with the performers and guide them into finding their own characters and narratives out of the material generated. I am very excited to be starting this collaborative journey with the company and can’t wait to see where the material will lead us.

On a more personal note, my first day working alongside company director Matt Gough has also been extremely insightful. He has engaged me in some very interesting conversations about the way I work, and in particular what I mean when using certain words and phrases. These conversations have already got me asking myself new questions about my practice and areas that could be deepened. And I’m sure these dialogues will continue to do so.

Lorraine