Jerwood Bank 2007

The Jerwood Bank Project 2007 ran between Wed 1 August and Tues 11 September 2007. Led by Sarah Warsop and Doborah Saxon, six professional dancers (Hilary Stainsby, Jennifer-Lynn Crawford, Jia-Yu Chang, Roberta Pitre, Rohanna Halls and Susanna Recchia) were given a unique opportunity to experience the creative and working methods of Siobhan Davies Dance. Watch the project as it developed by stepping through the archive, navigate by date or dancer, or view the image, audio and video documentation. 
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The Jerwood Bank Project was originally created through Siobhan Davies’ interest in the creative development of ‘mid-career’ dance artists looking to shift their practice to a new level. Watch a short introduction to the Jerwood Bank Project from Siobhan Davies.
Duration: 2 minutes.

Quartet 1, Siobhan Davies Dance, 2007
(Tammy Arjona, Laurent Cavanna, Theo Clinkard, Sasha Roubicek)

Quartet 2, Siobhan Davies Dance, 2007
(Henry Montes, Pari Naderi, Deborah Saxon, Sarah Warsop)

So the blogging can be put off no longer and I am determined to at least write something before this first weekend is over. It is a daunting task and while we all seem ready and willing to be open and vulnerable in the studio, it is an entirely different matter in the permanent and scarily literal world of words. Sometimes I think that this is one of the reasons why we choose dance as our expressive medium, because it can be abstract and open to interpretation, mysterious and transient.  Writings hang around forever, dammit.
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As it was our last class with Gill, I thought I’d mention some highlights.  Generally they’ve been really useful to help provide a source and tool box of ideas for the afternoon’s activities.  One particular highlight for me was the class on legs. It was wonderful to realise how much possibilty there is, and how I usually think of the legs as being what enables the body and arms to move.  I had some really nice, surprising moments of finding pathways in and out of the floor without any effort, finding myself somewhere I hadn’t expected to be.  I like her expression of something being a gift.  The lesson on legs was a gift. 
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The following is what I wrote last night but failed to log on to the bank07 site.

Today felt like i had entered into the process. I had fun exploring the material and getting into the next level when we started condensing,editing and clarifying the thoughts and the movement events. But when we showed our material to a partner, either my thought became blurred or my movement lost the essence of the original idea. It’s like the context and the movement event wouldn’t connect. For what I can see, I had mainly relied on the physical impulses or actions to form thoughts,images or pathways of the breathe and I wonder whether I should try the other way around. Well, I’ll do that tomorrow.
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we are just starting to work with the second song… it is a play between the uniqueness of a given STRUCTURE and an immense nember of POSSIBILITIES

on the 100lire song I was struggling to finish the task getting the rythm “right” getting each movement “right” … and then I was stuck!
I am interestd in this moments: I am stuck my creativity seems to be reduced to zero and my body feels rigid not open to movement
then something, a word, an image (often an external element) helps me shift my attention – and frustration – and here we are: a flowing state of open and not judgmental state in which anything can emerge!
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“Then it occured to me to ask what it is that man does when he dances, not only as artist but as man. He expresses that which cannot be put into words; he gives voice to the ineffable, intangible meaning and condition of being alive; he puts himself in touch with forces beyond the purely pesonal and mundane; he swims in a river of movement that refreshes his spirit.”
From Reflections on Metamorphosis by M. Starks Whitehouse

Duration: 4 minutes
Harriet Walter on finding meaning, rhythm and emotion in Shakespeare’s words.

Harriet Walter, Actress
After training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, she gained early experience with the Joint Stock touring theatre company, Paine’s Plough touring, and the Duke’s Playhouse, Lancaster. She has worked many times throughout her career with the Royal Shakespeare Company, in productions including Nicholas Nickleby (1980), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1981), All’s Well That Ends Well (1981), The Castle (1985), Three Sisters (1988), The Duchess of Malfi (1989), Macbeth (1999), and Much Ado about Nothing (2002).
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Duration: 18 minutes
Audio clip from the conversation with actress Harriet Walter, exploring simple intentions behind motion. 

Duration: 2 minutes
Harriet Walter on the interweaving of expression, rhythm and the intention of language.