I’ve been thrown into rehearsals for another work of mine that opens next weekend, so completely different from “watermark” – counts & music, arabesques & jete’s – for the dancers still a sense of freedom & choice, yet within very strict guide lines …

I wanted to write & say thank you to you all on Monday morning when I arrived back home … but unpacking & carefully placing new teacups & table clothes got in the way …

There is much I want to say & respond to … & I will, but later …
(Madam’s passionate words – during which I was afraid to leave, although my departure time was getting closer & closer … thoughts about “emotion” & “abstraction” … Western choreographers have feelings too, don’t they? … do they?? … they just show it in different ways … )

The most inspiring thing for me, as well as seeing choreographers works, was meeting people & sharing their thoughts … learning new things, hearing different stories …

I was deeply touched by many things, words & gestures & will treasure them forever …
& the thing that touches me most is knowing that I have given something to somebody … one small departing gift from a dancer let me know that I had made an impression … I think we all have & the legacy of DANSCROSS is that we have all opened doors …

As I left the BDA campus (running) I had tears in my eyes – of sadness & of the deepest joy ..

my love to you all
john

You make me to think about the relationship between choreographers and dancers in the process of making dance, do choreographers want to know how dancers understand their instructions or real meaning what they ask them to do? They looks like two parallel lines without intersecting, untill the end, dancers realise that there already have a line to link them up, their thinking are redundant.

This reminded me of the conversation we had about ‘urban’ audiences in London being possibly less able to ‘enjoy/appreciate’ the rural obsession I always wanted to bring into my work! Seems to be a similar experience in what you are saying with your Chinese colleague.

Also reminds me of the work I did on perception – that we will always try very hard to ‘make sense’ of what we see in dance or art – despite the visual image (or movement) being obscure or unfamiliar. With no aural guidance, we seem to subconsciously revert back to finding links with something we already know in our past/culture/experience. I made a possible link with our ancestors always needing to quickly make sense of what they saw – in that it could present danger.

I’m enjoying the blog. Thank you. Hilary

Its been with great interest and enjoyment I have read your daily blogs about Kerry’s process. This ethnographic approach to understanding the creative process is endlessly fascinating and I am delighted Kerry has someone so attuned to the making process from a choreographic point of view to write about her process so eloquently.

I think that watching other choreographers work teaches you so much about your own process, your own habits, it makes you question your own inter-personal skills, your own ability to mediate, communicate and engender a group productivity that is essential to a shared (distributed) process. I have recently been lucky enough to do this during my choreographic labs at the Royal Opera House — mentoring other choreographers evolve their own work — with me watching, noticing, learning.

That said, I did read an inaccuracy in your description of my working practice that I would love to clarify if I may. I have NEVER, in almost 20 years of dance making left a studio/rehearsal, let alone left because I perceived that the dancers were not delivering the ‘required’ energy, attention for the work. This is a RANDOM myth. Of course, all choreographers want dancers to come – every day in the appropriate “state of preparedness” for the work – more often than not they absolutely do. Some days, life gets in the way. For me too. But I would never lose my ever precious rehearsal time because of someone else’s ‘mood’. Its my job to inspire a change, work with it, or as a last resort replace the dancer. Certainly, I would not leave my own rehearsal as a method of protest.

It reminds me of a notice I came across recently at a school in the East of England. ~This laminated list of rules posted on the dance studio door set out 10 pre-requisites for entering the lesson and participating. Alongside the usual: remove your trainers, no drinks etc etc there were two very extreme instructions — you will be creative at all times and you will at all times give 100% commitment. A big ask for any human being………………..

Thanks again, looking forward to the next posts and love from Melbourne
Wayne

An upgrade! I dream about those.

This place of (jet)lag I understand very well… it seems to cultivate a wonderfully memorable ‘alternate’. Occasionally it reminds me of being deep within an improvisation. I am on the outside looking in at myself, beside myself whilst being deeply embodied.

It’s also great to read your notes on Kerry’s rehearsal … detailed, clear. I feel a brief understanding of being in that space with those dancers. Reading/seeing their doubts, their training, their confusion, their understanding. Perhaps the video is not necessary?

Am in the studio with Colin Poole at the moment: http://colin-simon.tumblr.com

You’ll see we’ve brought Matthew Goulish into the space as well (but not Proust).

Best

Simon

jxxx

I like to find a way to merge these aspects into a works conceptual framework … that the building (the process even before one sets foot into a rehearsal studio) reflects the outcomes … the directions & choices one makes are informed by the parameters of the situation.

Robert Wilson once told me: “John, there is a freedom within boundaries …” Well, actually he didn’t really say it to me, i read it in a book somewhere. But I hear his voice the moment I begin a work.

Imagine standing in a huge vast space & being told to move. What do you do? Where do you start? Given one instruction – move slowly for example … & one can begin to dance …

“Oh just talk about anything” & one is often left speechless …

My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self of the chains that shackle the spirit.

Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music
Russian composer in US (1882 – 1971)

Where r u? haha