Dear All,
What a great start to the new semester and to the creative process we are about to immerse ourselves into! I want to thank you all for your immense focus and discipline today. It enabled us to work quickly, efficiently and professionally. Some tiny amounts of distractions can still, further, be done away with. So let's keep working at it.
What we were really happy to note today was how quickly and clearly you were able to translate our tasks into material, with the minimal of questions asked. Ask yourselves what has brought about this change towards a professional mindset. It was also pleasing to see so many constructive ideas from you to ease us through the process. In almost all cases we took your advice on board and went with it. It worked.
A note on the use of music. Music is chosen with care and considered reasons. They are not random choices on our part. The track we used today is by an Icelandic group called Sigur Ross and is called Gobbledygook. The choreographed chaos of the stage movements, reflect the choreographed chaos of the sound that supports it. The effect is a bit like bits of jigsaws that at times come together and then melt away towards discord. That is exactly what a space like Porto would initially inspire. A chaotic environment of charged nerves and calm artificial silences. So, just as we did today, we will rarely put the music aside if it becomes an awkard track to work with initially. Instead we will devise strategies to make it work. Our approach won't be defeatist but constructive-ist. You all did well to cope and be patient. And it worked. So, remember this lesson for future reference.
So questions for this week:
1. What, if any, in your view is different about this method of devising to your previous experiences of the devising process? Discuss with examples.
2. As we continued to repeat the sequences it appeared that the characters' urgencies to communicate through the body was growing visibily. Comment on your connection between the gestures/movements you chose and the emotional commitment behind them.
3. As an aesthetic, what can repetition achieve in a performance, apart from perfecting a routine, which is usually how it is used in conventional movement practice?
Start reading up and using some quotes as you answer these questions, so you can get a trial run for your blog assessments which start soon and which will be introduced in the next session to you all.
Looking forward to your thoughts.
Royona
Bahok, Akram Khan Dance Company
Exploring Liminality
Wednesday 28 January 2009
Sunday 18 January 2009
Jasmin Vardimon Workshop Photos
Dear All,
I have tried to capture the best I can the excitement and vibrancy of the workshop from last Friday. I hope you will all enjoy them. Feel free to comment.
Royona
I have tried to capture the best I can the excitement and vibrancy of the workshop from last Friday. I hope you will all enjoy them. Feel free to comment.
Royona
Saturday 17 January 2009
Experiencing the Jasmin Vardimon Repertoire - Friday 16th January 2009
Dear All,
Apologies for the delay in this week's post. Here it is now anyway.
What a truly exciting and enriching session this was! Paul and I felt how valuable it was to have a professional company's contribution to our palette; so much of the material was a re-evaluation or an extension of much of the material we have explored in our own work and yet so much of it was new and refreshing. Particularly valuable was the insight into the creative process of JVC and the importance of 'layering' within choreography and composition. The work of characterisation will be very significant as we prepare to move into our own exploration of Porto.
What is important for all of us to remember is as a company we must explore and establish our own creative process and while this may borrow from others', it would be wrong to assume that our own process will become a complete emulation of another company's processes. Each company has its own needs, its own priorities and it's own vision and the approach it takes reflects all these unique circumstances.
This week we would like you to answer the following questions:
1. What elements of the workshop made you re-evaluate or extend your own experience/understanding of specific skills/techniques already learnt on the module?
2. Discuss what you took away about the working methodology of JVC towards creating material and comment on how this can be used in the making of Porto.
3. Did you find anything difficult about the workshop? If so, reflect on what it was and why you found it difficult. Can you think of ways to overcome it?
4. Discuss the importance of 'layering' as a creative and choreographic strategy.
Looking forward to your responses.
Royona
Apologies for the delay in this week's post. Here it is now anyway.
What a truly exciting and enriching session this was! Paul and I felt how valuable it was to have a professional company's contribution to our palette; so much of the material was a re-evaluation or an extension of much of the material we have explored in our own work and yet so much of it was new and refreshing. Particularly valuable was the insight into the creative process of JVC and the importance of 'layering' within choreography and composition. The work of characterisation will be very significant as we prepare to move into our own exploration of Porto.
What is important for all of us to remember is as a company we must explore and establish our own creative process and while this may borrow from others', it would be wrong to assume that our own process will become a complete emulation of another company's processes. Each company has its own needs, its own priorities and it's own vision and the approach it takes reflects all these unique circumstances.
This week we would like you to answer the following questions:
1. What elements of the workshop made you re-evaluate or extend your own experience/understanding of specific skills/techniques already learnt on the module?
2. Discuss what you took away about the working methodology of JVC towards creating material and comment on how this can be used in the making of Porto.
3. Did you find anything difficult about the workshop? If so, reflect on what it was and why you found it difficult. Can you think of ways to overcome it?
4. Discuss the importance of 'layering' as a creative and choreographic strategy.
Looking forward to your responses.
Royona
Friday 9 January 2009
"I've been here and, I've been there and, I've been in between" - 9th January 2009
Thank you all for your mature and controlled attitude to this morning’s rather disrupted session.
We now have a starting point, a concept and an idea of how the work may develop within that. The notion of liminality ran through the entire morning’s work. Think about the connections made and the journeys travelled.
Firstly in the Gardzienice workshop. The space between you and your partner, the transference or journey of the energy and the responses to the impulses all had an element of existing in an undefined and inexplicable space. There were starting points and end points but what happened in between was personal, unpredictable and intangible. You were liminal subjects in a liminal space. You are in this work transformed and it is what happens in this transformation that happens in the liminal state.
The visualisation exercise took you from a comfortable but totally imagined space, with you, as a liminal subject, at its very centre to another imagined, less comfortable space. You made a journey through the liminal space from a concrete albeit imaginary space to………well, only you know where, and it is the exploration of such a space we embarked upon today.
Reflect on your experiences of:
1. The Gardzienice warm up. How did it affect you as both the manipulator and the manipulated?
2. How did the visualisation exercise affect you and in what way did it help you to make connections with the introduction of the concept or indeed with past exercises and workshops?
3. Comment on your understanding of the concept and the potential for a way forward for you as an individual.
Thank you,
Paul & Royona
We now have a starting point, a concept and an idea of how the work may develop within that. The notion of liminality ran through the entire morning’s work. Think about the connections made and the journeys travelled.
Firstly in the Gardzienice workshop. The space between you and your partner, the transference or journey of the energy and the responses to the impulses all had an element of existing in an undefined and inexplicable space. There were starting points and end points but what happened in between was personal, unpredictable and intangible. You were liminal subjects in a liminal space. You are in this work transformed and it is what happens in this transformation that happens in the liminal state.
The visualisation exercise took you from a comfortable but totally imagined space, with you, as a liminal subject, at its very centre to another imagined, less comfortable space. You made a journey through the liminal space from a concrete albeit imaginary space to………well, only you know where, and it is the exploration of such a space we embarked upon today.
Reflect on your experiences of:
1. The Gardzienice warm up. How did it affect you as both the manipulator and the manipulated?
2. How did the visualisation exercise affect you and in what way did it help you to make connections with the introduction of the concept or indeed with past exercises and workshops?
3. Comment on your understanding of the concept and the potential for a way forward for you as an individual.
Thank you,
Paul & Royona
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