The social kinesphere

I was at Zhou Liang’s rehearsal today, and saw exactly what Rebecca Loukes calls the “cat’s cradle”: a long length of elastic that the dancers weave and interweave into changing patterns that correspond exactly to the spatial relations between them. The geometric patterns in space, anchored to particular reaches and orientations of the body, reminded me…

Going with the flow

On Monday evening I went to Riccardo Buscarini’s rehearsal. It was rather magical, actually. Riccardo has five male dancers, two from the UK, two from Taiwan, one from Beijing. The interpreter, Soraya, is not a dancer but clearly has some experience of dance, and she can’t stop herself…

Shifting perspective. Literally

In an earlier post (“On being out out of place“) I made a point about a dancer placed at the front and in the centre, linking up the strength of that position choreographically with her strength as a performer. Well, having just seen this piece in the theatre, I think the likely explanation is that she is shorter than the others —…