Hello and thanks for visiting my Blog today !
As a reminder , My Project Objectives were:
1. 4 Days of R&D ( Research and Development ), to explore working with a videographer and 3 dancer/mover/actors.
2. Create a documentary style film of the process.
3. Create a short film, where the main device to tell a story is movement, physicality and choreography.
4. Explore the relationship between the camera and the movement.
I am focussing on Objective 1.
IN THIS CHAPTER YOU WILL FIND:
REHEARSAL VIDEOS IN STUDIO | TEST FOOTAGE FROM FILM LOCATION |
IMAGES FROM DAY 1 REHEARSAL | CREATIVE DEVISING PROCESS DAY 1 |
CREATIVE PLANNING PRACTICALITIES LIST
1. Meeting Videographer for Creative planning. Topic: How you both normally work, how can you work together, share creative ideas, Make a plan of action together for next steps.
2. Create a mood board ; Collect Images to Pinterest, share with crew.
3. Create a playlist on Spotify. Share with Videographer.
4. Revisit old research material and collect ideas that I want to bring back into the rehearsals
5. Create creative tasks for Rehearsal Day 1 and 2. ( see video and images )
6. Mind Map/Brain storming ( See image 1 and 2 below )
MIND MAP PROCESS ; LET IT BE MESSY.
MEMORY... YOUR MEMORY, HER MEMORY, MINE. IDENTITY, BODY AS ARCHIVE, YOUR SHADOW BECOMES MINE. ARE WE THE WOMEN FROM THE PAST LIVED, OF OUR MOTHER LINE. BECOMING OUR MOTHERS. IDENTITIES BLUR. WHOSE STORIES DO I CARRY ? HOW DO I CARRY THEM , HOW CAN I GIVE THEM A VOICE ?
2. Home alone notes. Allowing myself to write anything that in this moments connects with me and is interesting but keeping the heart of the idea echo.
CREATIVE TASKS IN REHEARSALS / DAY 1
Appreciation note: I am working with wonderful movers aged 43 + , and excited to have mature women moving in the space with me. It feels fantastic ! There is just a different kind of vibe and understanding and experience happening. Just wanted to note it here, as it was a really positive thing for me.
1 Free movement Improvisation / Somatic Approach, dancing from the inside out.
* Respond to your own body. Let the music move you. Do not react to anyone else in the space. You can walk, run, hop , crawl, leap, disco dance, do a contemporary dance wiggle, whatever feels good.
More direction added later on :
Responding to each others movements by copying each others movements. Trying to be moving in unison, copy each other as well as you can.
See if you can keep changing who is leading without words being said.
Try to stay in similar rhythm to the other. Move accross the space. Play with proximity. Find moments of eye contact.
Change focus from rhythmic into testing your movement qualities. Qualities are good to explore and understanding the differences between them.
Make sure you keep movement quality last a while to give your partner a chance to react to your qualities with an opposite quality. ( what ever you feel the opposite is for you, no right or wrong. )
It is a great way tuning into your own body but also then slowly start to work with others.
Check out Movement Qualities to play with. Very commonly used in the dance world. Useful anywhere if you are into movement work with Actors as well as Dancers.
Dynamic Movement Quality | Examples |
Swinging | Sway , Pendulum |
Collapsed | Release, Relaxed, Falling |
Sustained | Continuous, Smooth, Even, Slow |
Percussive | Sharp, Choppy,Sudden |
Suspended | Stillness, Balaning at the end of movement, High point |
Vibratory | Shake, Wiggle |
2. SOLO Timelines
*TASK : Create a physical timeline that travels across the room whilst the morphing into ones mother, grandmother or another down the mother line.
Notes: This means first spending time improvising, embodying these people, finding how they move. Takes time. There was a kind of short hand because the performers are working with physicality of a person who is close to them, a close relative. So these in a way already come from more internal place from within the performers. It was also important that these did not became caricatures but authentic embodiments. It was a delicate balancing act to notice when this was happening and sifting the material into the desired direction.
*After a while we had enough material that the performers could start to string the physical character moments together.
Notes: Emotional connection to these movements where immediately evident here. It wasn't just a random physical task, and in a way required more emotional input. I wanted to release Lydia and Gail from this as the mood was also getting really serious and heavy. I asked them to now forget how they found the movements (to which they were emotionally connected to ) and to coldly go through the sequence as a practically as possible and no emotion ( I'm horrible), make the moves as polished as possible and fast.
Rehearsal Footage DAY 1 :
Lydia and Gail have only just learned sections of each others timeline solos after barely finishing their own SOLOs and remembering them...Part of rehearsal is to make something. Anything. Make your nothing into a thing. Allow it NOT to be ready or polished or make any make sense, yet. I just watch, observe and then continue.
DAY 1 / Gail and Lydia , rehearsing the unison timelines .
DAY 1 / Phone footage in rehearsals. Unison timeline and me playing with the movement of camera in relation to them.
3. Combine SOLOS into a DUET
TASK : Simple instructions was to try to find points of contact within the solo.
Finding moments where the hands were swinging above ones head, now we could change perspective and place the swinging hands on the the other person back. And move on. The material still has to sift from in on line forward.
No sense, right? I know, I don't care yet. I just want to see how I can craft this into one cohesive piece that looked like it had always been a duet.
Notes: This duet created a dilemma for me. I had lost my idea and questions was WHY do I need this duet. But I went for it anyway. I often follow my intuition. I live with my heart. For good or worse, that is it that.
I eventually had a lovely duet but so many characters within it, as all the movements came from their *solo timelines, morphing one one person into another etc. So now, basically it made no sense whatsoever, or at least it was revealing a new story or an idea on the horizon. I was more than confused but I liked the duet.
So I let the duet exist even though it confused me. I Let it simmer…
Discoveries from duets exploration , I am started to think about : |
The idea that timelines blend Our identity and habits start to blend into the other Our understanding of ourself starts to blend We become the women of our past We become our mothers and grandmothers memories We are the archive The Body is an archive |
2. Editing The Duet Movement
The duet started to evolve into its own thing, separate from the timelines.
What helped was adding more contact between the performers, and this really sifted the material.
Allowing it the solo material to change and not trying to keep it restricted by its earlier form was helpful. I started to edit movement, just like you would editing a piece of footage; choosing which bits you are keeping in and what has to go. I also had to add new movements in, to make sense of the new version or to help with the flow, so this was our "reshoot" material, the bits added later ; missing pieces of the puzzle.
3. We tried to add some ideas of how the two might feel whilst going through this duet, we added some joy into it.
( The journeys started to become all very serious and heavy so I decided to try to go the opposite way ) The performed tried to smile all way through , having the best time doing these moves. Last thing we end of the day.
DAY 1 / Phone footage IN REHEARSAL:
Finding Joy and trying to talk at the same time and describe their character. Or themselves. Both were challenging and we laught a lot.
SNEAK PEAK into Location filming from DAY 2. What you see is the Duet material, which we started DAY 1 and here it is on Location on DAY 2. ! NOTE: This are just test footage, background noise, us on the other side, talking throught, a proper test shot. NOT THE final shot mind you. |
Testing footage/ rehearsal | Lydia Baksh And Gail Sixsmith , Videographer : Tom Scurr
Thank you for reading on your creative adventures on Day one, your support means a lot.
See you next week for more !
Have a lovely day and keep dancing.
Kindly,
Krista X
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