Jerwood Bank 2007

Each portrait is becoming an individual exploration, distinct from all the others.

It’s now the job of each person to try and develop their physical train of thought, and it’s our job to assist in this.

It’s fasinating to watch each portrait become more itself….

We set a few improvisations to deal with certain problems.

eg. In pairs. One person was the point of focus for the other. A stands in the space so B can direct their movement to them. A can choose to stand close or far away. A can also choose to change their position in the space.

This allows B to explore the idea of presentation and being seen, and how this may change their movement material.

In our particular portrait investigation, how do we allow our layers of humaness to support the aspects of character we wish to illuminate .If we have these choices at our fingertips we can allow them to flicker and surface revealing a much richer understanding.

We are now encouraging the dancers not to go back to the long piece of material as it was at the first feedback session.

On Friday we asked them to look more closely at the opposite or contrasting material and see if it could develop.

On Monday we suggested finding 2,3,or even 4 smaller chunks of material of 1 or 2 minutes, with different drives.

Could one be an edited version of the existing material?

Could another be an exploration of just one or two movements?

Could there be a study of any underlying rhythm and speed in the material, eg. Can you physically whisper something very quickly?

The second feedback session on Tuesday 4th was much easier and led to good discussion…..

Today we introduced the idea of using text as a form of code. Similar to the songs, the text can give an external structure to movement, and produces an unexpected drive.

We gave them a piece of Beckett to work with:

‘Enough. Quicker. Quick. See how all in keeping with the chair. Minimally less. No more.’

For this exploration we asked them to use a small amount of their movement material which they had been working on so far. They could apply their own rules to the words, looking at, for example, the punctuation, double letters, syllables, hard or soft sounding words, vowels, and deciding what should happen to the material when these occured in the text.

A text gives more flexibility than a song score: The words can produce the imagery to create the movement; there are infinite ways of making a code; and once the words and movement are put together the quality of the material can change by chosing how say the words in your head.

One or two of the dancers are already using text in their ‘portrait’. We’re hoping that this experiment opens up more avenues of exploration.

Everyone has been working pretty much in isolation for over 2 weeks. It’s hard to show your work in progress for the first time and the first feedback session was inevitably difficult.

Each person had quite alot of material to show but, after putting it under the micoscope, it’s now clear that many of the ideas and the resulting movement needs to be challenged and pushed on to another level.

Today we asked them to look at 2 things which were explored through simple improvisations:

1. Detatch the physical movement from the idea or image it originated from
E.g. If the original thought was ‘pushing a ball under water’, the physical exploration would be pushing with resistence and a possible release.

This then, could lead to a freer movement exploration, less tied down by imagery which may now be too restricting.

We then asked if they could improvise, putting the detatched, physical idea into the lower body to encourage a move away from the upper body being the primary vehicle of expression.

2. Identify the physical traits of the material you have, and find the opposite aspect
No character is one dimentional. You can use an opposite to accent or highlight what you want to be seen….

To help with this we asked them to work in pairs. A watches B. A tells B the main physical traits of the material in 2 words. They then find an opposite or contrast. B then improvises with the new physical thought.

The search for the necessary or distilled fragments of movement rarely come to us quickly. The search is often a meandering or even disjointed path, and often we are clear about what is not right before finding the thing that is particular. It is a constant cycle of building and editing.

After a week of investigating the ’song structure’, we introduced the idea of ‘portrait’. This exploration is to last the whole of the rest of this Bank Project.

Each person is to work alone to find a physical expression of a certain character or personality. The songs can be used as a starting point if that exploration has proved fruitfull.We presented the dancers with books of photographs, paintings, drawings and writing. They were also free to find their own sources of inspiration.

We talked about the idea of presenting the movement to the front. That whether expressing public or private ideas, we allow these ideas to be seen; we let an audience in.

Here are some questions for consideration from Sarah & Deb:

What is a portrait?

What do you choose to reveal?

What do you consider public and private?

Are you allowing both to be seen?

Are you allowing the viewer to build up an understanding of who you are or what you are saying?

Can we trust in the clarity of our fragments of movement, without the need for linear narrative, and their ability to resonate with the viewer?

End of day 7. We have given the difficult task of finding the simplest , or should I say, most spare movements. These ‘moments’ then have to be put through a short musical score so that literally a move relates to a note. The song can then be sung physically…. This is a demanding task on many levels: It forces the body into connections it wouldn’t normally make. It cuts through any attachment you may have had to the original movement and what is was doing or trying to express. It demands that you remember how the movement relates to the score physically, before you can begin to refine your ’song’ in terms of quality. All this just so we can move forward to the main ideas for this year’s Bank, and all in one week.
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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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