Tripping on language to make movement – starting point(s).
This was the mind map Stephanie and I ‘started’ with – having
discussed, filtered, connected a lot of material before we even started the
first session with Fran, Maisie, and Bethany.
We were trying to find out how our interests in gesture and
body/text relations, respectively, could merge and play off each other – it was
a process of figuring out how to name/ describe these inherent connections that
we instinctively felt were there.
First session
Caroline Bergvall in her book of poems Fig: Goan Atom 2
plays beautifully with fragmentation, sounds, multilingualism, especially
in her piece 16 Flowers.
Bergvall’s book was one of the first things the dancers became
transfixed by in the examples of poetry I had brought to show them. We did a
few experiments reading this piece of hers [extract]
vagrant rOse paths compressed
hover matin l’aRose in- Mers
a-glimp th ornful umineuse darKorolla
faint Fur st special irrésistible
Lansoft -goRous elovelash petals absorbed
smallred Vibrant lovegash pétales embedded
White throated flatfanned dressLash lovétale
PINkdraw -inGirls lovcrest pétalent Bedded
hover matin l’aRose in- Mers
a-glimp th ornful umineuse darKorolla
faint Fur st special irrésistible
Lansoft -goRous elovelash petals absorbed
smallred Vibrant lovegash pétales embedded
White throated flatfanned dressLash lovétale
PINkdraw -inGirls lovcrest pétalent Bedded
I was fascinated with the different ways each of us interpreted
the ‘rules’ of this piece, and with the effort apparent in the reading of it.
It felt to me like people were performing the task of poetry right in front of
me.
I tried to further the relationship between the body and the
process of comprehension in the listeners by asking the performers to tap a pen
on a surface, making a sound, every time they thought they had heard and
understood a word. (Bear in mind that it is harder to do when you don’t have
the text in front of you.)
This required immense concentration on behalf of the listeners,
and produced unexpectedly divergent results – people’s habits of understanding
were not in sync at all.
The last part of this endeavor was to try and translate the text
into gesture as we were listening – at which point, interestingly, performers
sometimes made the same movements upon hearing a certain sound without having
paid attention to what each other were doing. It looked like they were faking
speaking sign language.
This is the edited recording of the readings and our
reflections.
After this first session, Charlotte gave me her observations
and, the points I found most useful to take on were:
To be more clear when giving instructions – have clear in
your own mind what the structure and plan is, and where there is space for
deviation.
How do I make the relationship between body and text ‘readable’ (haa) to an audience?
In general, what is the audience experience? So communicating framework and context and thinking about relatability.
Since my project is so process-based, my role should be in guiding that process – so I should do more watching and responding to the performers responses – also keeping an eye out on who responds how to the exercises I propose.
Take the luxury to concentrate on one thing and investigate it deeply, rather than trying to do as much as possible in as little time as possible.
How do I make the relationship between body and text ‘readable’ (haa) to an audience?
In general, what is the audience experience? So communicating framework and context and thinking about relatability.
Since my project is so process-based, my role should be in guiding that process – so I should do more watching and responding to the performers responses – also keeping an eye out on who responds how to the exercises I propose.
Take the luxury to concentrate on one thing and investigate it deeply, rather than trying to do as much as possible in as little time as possible.
Especially for the audience related questions, the Young Artists
Feedback Forum will be very useful – and the other points, about guiding a
process, I think I will be still learning about for longer, as I go and
keep making work beyond this project.
