Day 9 of the commission was very insightful and helpful for the performers and myself. Matt arranged for a group of 2nd year Performing Arts students to come and watch On Screen / Off Screen. This was a perfect opportunity to test out the material (without music or costume) and the character embodiments of the dancers.
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.
Silversmith Dance Theatre 