dance - ÉDUARD LOCK

AMELIA – la la la human steps [ on dvd ]


~ torah torah torah
~ attack attack attack
~ the thrill of speed
~ erotique
~ the body is a turbine
~ moving camera – swimming perspectives
~ film me film me film me
~ I am filming you, the camera replies
~ tight taut female bodies
~ straining to erupt from their musculature
~ the female as killing leg
~ behind in front in front behind
~ partnering that has only 2 sides
~ shadow support
~ hold hold hold
~ flick release
~ woman is the front of man
~ she faces him or is his face
~ a body face
~ his erotique body face made of her
~ put a woman in a man and a man in a woman and you get a smiling man and a serious woman
~ in every other respect their suited selves are the same
~ skin swapping
~ sharp edged
~ support given support taken
~ object object object
~ staged lives
~ dramatique erotique
~ puncture puncture puncture
~ grasping grabbing razored spinning
~ desolate con(front)ations
~ touched distance kept at arms’ reach
~ insatiable demand
~ pointe-shoe’d women powering over bent-knee’d men
~ there is work to do in this state-of-the-art arena
~ the human parts don’t fit
~ they super-charge it fractally
~ converging walls and 2 supports
~ the arms of man and the legs of woman
~ all meeting at revolving hips
~ manipulated on a spin point
~ strobe dancing
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postcript

~ if the woman’s hips are the spinning earth, if earth is read as the womb and nourisher of life, then this dance still makes masculine hands control its spin, i.e. God hands – but the hands are obsessed with their task and the men’s eyes never divert their focus from their intense concentration on the hips at hand – are they trying to get at something they can never know? - the secret of life’s source inside a womb not in their own bodies? – this interpretation of woman’s hips as spinning earth is viable given the setting – a concave world made of sloping walls – a bowl – the hollow of the pelvic bowl with a female dancer at the centre being spun from the hips – and, as per historical feminist literature showing that wo-man has no identity of her own, this dance has eroticised woman (naked legs and see-through tops) or elsewhere she is further fetishised in a man’s suit – woman made in the image of man’s choosing with no-where else in that sterile world of polished wood to be anything else – the only way out is up – but only the floating (and trespassing) Spirit-eye of the camera, like some invasive mechanical viewing implement being manipulated by a curator/collector of species, comes and goes from there to examine what’s been trapped and caught for its curiosity and fascination – a swimming zoom-presence that penetrates and rotates its own viewing in the way the choreography rotates the dancers, and their bodies and hips, or goes up high as the eye from above (the eye in the sky), or peers very closely into the woman’s eye but sees nothing except compliance – a woman’s eye, like the hips, unlike itself – a woman’s eye, a collected thing, that cannot pry in the way the prying camera eye, self permits – the object of fascination can only be handled this way and that, turned round, inspected, its quality appraised – serialised and categorised by the connoisseur – human liqueur for the cabinet – a matured product – expensive – there is no soil in this world, it doesn’t belong – and the men-servant-dancers can only do the eye-in-the-sky’s bidding, be its hands – making sure to duck under the woman’s blade-like arms and overly adamant gestures – or try to access her through competitive imitation that forms no bonds - parodic cross-signalling posed and turbo-charged as a mystique with a plaintive air

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dance - JULYEN HAMILTON

improvisation [ on dvd ]


~ solo figure dialoguing the space gracefully and articulately
~ stillnesses punctuate erupting expansions of physicality-activity
~ much looking up and crossing an upstage diagonal area with his back to the live audience (and camera – which is positioned high up at the back of the seating)
~ slapping and grabbing gestures and motifs in the start as though he is internally recounting some kind of story or pursuing an inner train of thought
~ playful physical melodies circulating his freedom, that rest back into reaching extensions of arms, body, and legs and then into gazing up into space above his head
~ he has a distance focus that gets dissected and slashes his body in opposing directions
~ he begins talking and this produces laughter and amusement – his dialogue is entertaining – does the talking take over from the earlier movement interest?
~ he revels in the freedom that the space, his body, and the attention affords
~ when he stops talking the movement quietens the laughter – he is casually virtuousic (extended travelling handstands, diving cartwheels, hovering jetés, mercurial and intricate changes of direction, unexpected level shifts, feline technical assuredness), but uses a lot of idiosyncratic gestures and eccentricities that are sobering rather than laughter-provoking
~ the 2nd bout of talking reflects on personal correspondence with and to a third person, it throws up the 4th wall and excludes the audience – he then dissolves this tactic and engages with the audience once more, this time talking about the doing of 2 things at the same time – which is what he is doing by talking and dancing simultaneously
~ if he couldn’t melodise his body so intricately the point of his value would be lost
~ it is audience-directed as a reverie of uncontained performance slippages and insertions into self – he is swimming in the deeper freedoms and ramblings of the psyche – talking forever with his body
~ his physical talk is as natural as speech, peopled and shaped by an imagination partially externalised by his behavioural and spoken entertainments and mannerisms
~ he has filled an empty space with invisible things inside and of himself that he brings in and then reveals – he reveals an abundance of physical history and dexterity and a narrative that is running and unfolding internally and occasionally articulated in speech, emotion, and characterisation
~ he is a travelling shape-shifter with a sizeable bag of tricks surrounded by his highly controlled and feigned virtuousic madness
~ he circle stamps the space in a pacing heavy walk (earlier it was with loping stallion jetés), spirals to the front then retreats to the back with his back to the audience, turns downstage and walks energetically as though he is going to exit through them, stops very close and does some enigmatic parting gesture with his hands, he then surveys them close-up, and then speaks confessionally and explanatorily – he produces more laughter in respect to decisions made backstage about the order of the show and what he is going to call his piece – he retreats upstage diagonally to the edge of the space in the direction of the stage exit, turns, and sings diagonally into the space – he then walks into the direction of his song, gradually dancing with his singing and occupying the centre area of the stage - at the end of his song-dance he bows and exits
~ there are subtle lighting shifts throughout the piece that open the space, close it and make him more intimate, or spill up under him when he is downstage to make him eerie
~ what does the space allow?
~ a lit opening in a darkness in which to look down and focus attention on the trapped but willing (mutually desired) occupancy of a physical minstrel who in both hurried and unhurried improvisations, journeys and weaves his body and the space in the psychic landscape of a momented and shared self-absorption
~ the space allows him to circulate and to buffet himself across its dimension – the darkness cushions and velvets his containment like a padded cell
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dance - MERCE CUNNINGHAM

TORSE: LEFT SCREEN [ on dvd ]


~ sounds of dancers feet squeaking on tarquette or thumping in the landings from jumps
~ geometrical movements and spatial formations
~ split video screen
~ clumsy unison work
~ structure features groups ranging from 10 down through to 2, with isolated solo work
~ split screen is a viewing decision – binocular
~ regimented movement with held and posed waiting interludes – regimentation is a theme
~ preoccupied with tendus – the tendu is the central driving movement force
~ vertical ‘balleticality’ – a narrow movement vocabulary tightly bound up in mummy wrappings that keep the arms stuck out at the sides all the time – this is the coppelia doll as a wooden anatomical artists modelling toy (stripped of her frilly clothing) – marionettes on the open stage clunking around as per the stringed manipulations
~ the formality keeps the space spatialised (intimacy is sporadic, fleeting, and also formal) – spatialised space is where space between is consciously maintained
~ the spacing and regimentation is an obedience to structural demands
~ height competitions between the more and less flexible
~ as the space connects and divides the space-between so too do the small rectangular video screens sitting alongside one another (like two square eyes) within the larger screen (the skull)
~ the darkness that borders the lit dancing space is mirrored by the dark screen on which the two smaller screens sit
~ the dance is a classroom with lots of technical dance exercises being practiced – or the classroom has migrated to the stage
~ the right screen turned blue and was empty of image and dance momentarily – sky? – and then the previous dancing screen resumed
~ dancers enter and exit from the bordering darkness
~ these are fine articulate dancers who a have a casualness in the feet which makes them seem noticeably sloppy in the numerous ballet moves and extensions
~ more waiting in posed classical tendu positions with arms in 3rd
~ the dance of the almost-ballet that has been around so long now that it has its own completeness and can’t be said to be an almost-anything anymore except itself
~ grid patterning
~ the sounds of jumps inserted again – this is conscious because the sparse electronic score died down in order for the feet thumps to be amplified unaccompanied
~ patterns on patterns on patterns
~ the patternated body
~ forcing/labouring the big jump – the ground is woven in floor travelling sequences (mostly box step variations) and pushed off for jumping
~ punctuations of little partnering and lifting moments – the sporadic and structurally isolated nature of these make them like a motif that emphasises the off-the-ground and relentless airborne nature of the dance
~ everything is off the ground and up – retirés, relevés, demi-pointes, arabesques, sautés, beats, cabrioles, assemblés, battement, extended and lifted port-de-bras – this is a mad hot-footing on hot coals
~ there is so much anti-ground it becomes a battle and the dancers lose – eternal body flights of the flightless
~ flight is the desire and after a time and with relentless perseverance, the illusion gets believed – the argument for the possibility of unassisted human flight is won
~ facings are mostly camera (i.e. front) oriented – the camera never leaves its fixed location centre front, it only zooms in and out to dissect or enlarge particular groupings or individuals – but the body and choreography also utilise circular pathways and multiple facings that orient the front of the body in other directions
~ gaps and spaces are harnessed
~ repetition is a dominant factor – it is as if the dance is going over and over itself like a photocopier producing endlessly varied versions of a piece of material in an attempt to… what?
~ it’s like a tickertape or court transcript that goes on and on trying to… and now it just flickers out inconclusively, but not till it has reintroduced a movement that takes the dancers down to one knee for the second time – the first was at the beginning
~ the overall impression is of a community of uni-skinned dancer/androgynes busily and concentratedly carrying personal semi-largish basket-bundles of space in front of them as they travel around, across, through, in, and out of the performance area (which is hot on the feet) (– it’s also like an egg and spoon race) – perhaps the space-baskets have their clothes in them and they’re on the way to the river
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dance - SHOBANA JEYASINGH

animating architecture: FOLIAGE CHORUS [ on dvd ]


~ artificial elements – sea / birds / insects / nature
~ otherworldly – projections of branches
~ transposing nature onto/into geometric hard-edged architecture – in which it wouldn’t grow
~ projecting something onto surfaces and occupying its space in ways that compensate for its exteriorly cold functionality and aesthetically death-like surface visage
~ giving it artistic translucency and life to provide/replace what it’s not
~ the journey of the digitised subconscious featuring futuristic skull-caped androgynes
~ organicising and biologising inanimate environments that are now the ‘natural’ in which we live
~ romanticising steel – fish bodies swimming in translucent blue-lit balconies – all fakery with digital bubbles and weed – space and ocean – sub- and ‘over-’ conscious – caught midlevel between 2 heights – super-ego and unconscious – outer and inner spaces
~ dancers connected in linear relationship with fronts dominantly facing audience
~ travelling sequence as a group keep tight proximity, establishing connection and sameness
~ common twining snaky movement mimicking tendrils of vegetative growth
~ extending out along space exploratively, then opening and spreading across space, inhabiting its nooks and crannies, with the aid of projection, which matches the growth and expansion (proliferation) of the expanding dance tree
~ emphasis on slithering and climbing onto, into, and against the spaces boundaries and ledges
~ a breaking of the 4-unit at the point of arrival in the centre of the balcony, individuals work in unison facing the audience with equidistant space between them – establishing themselves now as independent offshoots from the earlier rhizome – fledgling trees that grow, assisted by the projection, into thick enveloping vegetation
~ the process of arrival and growth is then reversed at the end to signal exit and the decline or retracting process of death, decay, decline, or the seasonal withdrawal and disappearance of vegetative growth
~ humans imitating vegetation in an architectural space made purposely barren and screen-like in order to artificially control the life it allows in – the backdrop (building) may be well-meaning in its desire to make its organic mobile occupants more prominent and visible – but the danger to me is that its neutrality has a kind of quarantining effect – by removing anything from its design that might distract, it sanitises whatever occupies it and challenges/imposes the cult of the modernist white canvas as the dominant universalising medium for art – this is also the order and soft tyranny of the pristine – it is like the radiation chamber in which the dangerous messiness that art sometimes is, is placed to be made safe (one of the unfortunate aspects of bureaucratisation which in every other regards is a benefit maximiser)
~ the 2nd section used 2 big round columns, a wall, and open space - this section was energetic and had a different theme from the balcony section – the dancers embraced their bodies around the pillars at the start (vegetation growing up them – perhaps this is the linking idea to the balcony) and then used them as supports to launch from, lean against, flow around, erase and rebirth themselves – a place for coming and going and echoing, through much use of matching pair work and synchronised 4 work, the repetitive regularity of the columns
~ this section with the assertive columns and the bigger than necessary open space, which was cropped down to a smaller size by a red rectangular light that defined and established the performing area, produced more dynamic, fast-paced movement, accented, occasionally air-borne, energetic – in contrast to the narrow balcony in which the movement was cautious and slow-paced - greater physical abandon and risk in the open space, and greater care and deliberation in the more confined space
~ as with Akram Khan, the dancers moved in synchronised unison that was not as tight as the choreography looked like it might have wished it to be – they were more confident in solo work, but in the unison work it was apparent that 2 were secure with the timing and phrasing (and form) and the other 2 were following them and not producing the same clarity or exactness of movement design
~ dwarfed by the pillars, the dance was lopsided, and lived under the overhang that the pillars supported, like little animals coming in and out of their holes, but a bit timid of full exposure and freedom – as though, like animals on leads, the pillars were not going to let them get too far away
~ in the end it looked like an excuse to decorate a bit of building with some available dance art, which is fine if it is a love and thanks transaction towards an environment effectively and responsively (responsibly) devoted to reciprocate as a replenishing, servicing, housing, and vitalising resource for artistic activity, well-being, and growth
~ so – there are 2 sections in this work and 2 environmental metaphors:– the first: the building has lots of open space, cut out spaces, and glass – so the metaphor created by the dance is about fish and fish tanks – referring to the fact that people in the building are connected most of the time to 2-way vision – they can see out and the out can see in
- the second: the dancers hug the 2 big pillars and live in, out, and around them and the sheltered space they hold up – the nurturing and sheltering provided by the pillars, the cold mothering pillars, represent or symbolise the support that the building has been designed to provide the arts and young fledgling artists who, like infants growing, need protection and sustenance to help them mature and venture out into the wide spaces of the world (towards the sea of faces of the audience, the representatives in the symbolic drama of the horizons of the world) to become pillar-like elsewhere (in the partnering sections in the open space, the dancers repeated movements on each others’ bodies that they did at the start against the pillars)
~ the architect in his interview says the rounded shapes of the pillars create more flow and that as people are organic, they make a ‘foil’ for the geometry of the building, he said that if the building was more organic, then people would be camouflaged
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dance - ALVIN AILEY DANCE COMPANY

SADLERS WELLS

060907

FIREBIRD – Maurice Béjart

THE GOLDEN SECTION – Twyla Tharp

REVELATIONS – Alvin Ailey

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~ Maurice Béjart – circular floor patterns enclosing dancers, or linear tight group facing audience in centre of stage – circles and centre – I can’t see past the ballet! – can’t even apply my theories – lot of stiff forced lines – a very small and repetitive vocabulary of movement - what does this indicate? – emphasis on a static physical geometry of extended lines – symmetrical patterns – how do I view these? Static snapshots – movement as transition, not as subject matter – unless a held position is seen as a kind of movement – what is going on in this kind of dance? It is obviously stylised – very stylised – bodies detouring into experiential places that most bodies don’t do – but what is that sharing, sociokinetically? Symmetry is an emphasis on balance and order – security and stability – it is overt – a projected overt-ness trying to enclose bodies in communities of care – the care associated with being in a group or being enclosed and protected by a group – or trapped by it – or the group sticking together out of vulnerability and fear - the forced extended shapes become threatening, like weapons – pointed weapons, projectiles – accusatory, sharp, directional – self protecting as well as dangerous to others – like the needles on the porcupine – the solo dancer depicts/enacts the hero/martyr narrative, echoed as a double-dose of grace by the second spirit figure emerging upstage out of the dark of the heavens – his entrance towards the audience orients him as a benefactor that has come out of the infinitesimal recesses of the disappearing perspectival vanishing point, and so his passage and offering is directed into the world (as his pathway extends across the proscenium to embrace every seat in the auditorium) – saviour myths rankle me, they are obviously deep-rooted, but in this form lack a sense of personal – even though the dancers are clad mostly by skin, which gives them the vulnerability of exposed-ness – it still looks formulaic, the clichéd modern tribal in a world that has nothing similar to which to connect it to – tradition encrusting truth

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~ Twyla Tharp raises a different range of questions – the movement vocabulary was less restricted, with attempts to free up and animate hips and shoulders by incorporating popular dance-jazz-funk moves – in contrast to the rigid spatial emphasis on formal lines, circles, symmetry, and perspectivalism in Béjart, Tharp is deliberately destroying the boundaries and messing up the pathways as much as possible – a mayhem of activity masquerading as communal celebration and joy – so what of it sociokinetically? This is an avoidance of the circularity of the tribal ritual and a depiction of the business of the city street – celebration of life in the overcrowded congestion of the metropolis – narrow passageways, near misses, not enough time to engage with others other than emphatically and with impact – in attempting clarity amidst rush, what is created is a borderline whose edges are continually dissolving into messiness and blur – this is a freneticism faking its own joy because the pace destroys clarity, depth, satisfaction, and completion – life on the run – running is an exuberance, an energy, an abundance, a vitality – but it is also an escape, a departure, a getting away – a lack of commitment to the moment – no staying power – like the dance – flashes of attempted visual impact, like the gloss of advertising – contemporary advertising in the capitalist metropolis is about sex, impact, and shine – the costumes were skimpy shiny gold – reference, like Béjart, but this time with lots of lifting and partnering as the central activity, to mythologising human life as communal and vital – but the smiles are the smiles of professionals (the professional politician, the professional salesperson, the professional celebrity, the professional performer) and were echoed on my face as a grimace

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~ Alvin Ailey freed up the space in a more nuanced and crafted way than the other two, albeit conventionally – the movement fitted the dancers more securely, perhaps the material has been performed more often – what did I see in terms of my sociokinetic agenda? The same emphasis on creating a body world peopled by the architecture of movement – as with Béjart, the group featured as a community, but the tribal was given an overt Christian subjectivity, colonised – sensuality was present in this as a current and a flow, represented tangibly in the river section/symbolism, that streamlined sexuality with spiritual grace, a device that sublimates it – and craftily incorporates it into the camp of the opposition – use of diagonal, sultry swaying steps, lack of fear of pause and slowness, stillness’s that weren’t forced – deliberate use of time, but a time that suggests unhurried travelling, but still purposeful – it’s a pulling back that is about moving forward in a coordinated way and making do – climaxes strangely with men and women in church in synchronised uniformity of attire and attitude – individuality that pits the sexes against each other but centralises and elevates the women as the guardians and moralisers overseeing the swaggering men circling beneath them – a climax of regimentation in the grid-o-sphere – boxed by the urban trap – a community populated by the innumerable nuclei of two – being faithful to partner and lord – the transition from river to temple – natural to urbane

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dance - AKRAM KHAN

RUSH [ on video ]

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~ made up of a lot of sudden changes of speed – eruptions and bursts of movement

~ intricate movement structures – strongly punctuated with stillness

~ maintains a consistency of vocabulary – flourishing spiral hands and arms – mostly vertical in posture and standing

~ structurally triangular and diagonal

~ music keeps a tension, and sudden lighting changes and interjections keep the momentum pacey

~ sociokinetic – linear, no contact, but sameness of being (all dressed and move the same) – 2 men / 1 woman – but this bears no relevance to the theme – androgynous neutrality of movement and energy inclined towards the energetic and ejaculatory

~ strong clarity and linear definition of movement – when dancers slightly out of sync in unison moments, it doesn’t make it problematic

~ geometrical with organic twists and curves that resolve back to the linear or erect

~ designed within the space – it sits presentationally for viewing – it swims within the frame of its edges – other than when they enter at the start from out of frame (off stage)

~ moments of swaying suspension (the piece is about hang gliding)

~ flourishes and stillness’s

~ sinking, twisting, hand curving gestures, round upper body and head, animal postures elongated occasionally along ground with isolated actions of the joints a la Forsyth, long straight arms – spinning motif like a propeller – tilting forward motifs – emphasis on held lines and planes – horizontal, sloping, angled

~ at the start the dancers assemble and look at the performing space from audience’s edge, and then abruptly finish here at the end of the 1st section – reminding the audience of the start

~ piece finishes asymmetrically and inconclusively near downstage corner by the audience looking diagonally off stage over their heads – anti-dramatic contrast to dramatic closure of 1st section

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dance - YAEL FLEXER

300807

INFORMAL SHOWING OF NEW WORK BY CHOREOGRAPHER YAEL FLEXER, FEATURING 2 DANCERS, IN THE THEATRE AT CHICHESTER UNIVERSITY

~ strong physical geography

~ rich movement melodies on the bodies

~ tight piece

~ structurally well put together

~ cross focus between audience and space – its volume and presence

~ weaving pathways

~ networking that knits the full span and depth of its surface

~ self-avoiding that attacks the space in get-out-of-the-way expansions that spiral down to moments of walking round each other, or grabbing hips to pull the other person behind

~ the themes are space, its emptiness made into a subject and its independent volume and presence marked by the dancers standing at the edges looking in - also, when it is empty, its is lit brightly in its own separate colour wash

~ the space is a player/performer in the work

~ the space is stage, viewing place, to be viewed, and to present

~ hence the small cube of light at the start followed by the same small cube with the dancer in it, which then expands to fill (become) the whole space - as does the dancers’ movement

~ this theme is restated again as the conclusion to the work when the small cube reappears after the dancers have left

~ intelligent choreography with a simple task/agenda of spatial investigation/deconstruction in respect to its persona and function as a viewing/performance space for dance

~ the geographical location is added to by the moving geographies/architectures of the dancing bodies who provide further volumes, masses, arches, and pathways that are moveable, malleable, and transient

~ the dancers share the same technical vocabulary as each other with occasional idiosyncratic insertions (which always come as welcome tidbits and as embellishments/quirks/discoveries) (- the flapping elbows and outstretched arms over the head with flayed/splayed fingers are examples in this piece) – unlike the bulk of the movement material which is more familiar and generic, and widely available and used as the current/preferred aesthetic style in contemporary dance – it’s a recognisable pool of movement that is fed from the technical training dancers get (what comes first? Does the aesthetic originate in choreographic practice and then migrate to technique class so that dancers can keep abreast of choreographers' needs? Or is it more simultaneous? Or do new nuances and stylistic emphases originate in advanced technical investigations and training?)

~ the quality to the dynamic and mass of the movement is in keeping with the current vocab – edged, geometric, cutting, sudden, circular, abrupt – a relaxed attack that spirals asymmetrically and erratically – with durational elements that taper of their own accord as the internal energy and momentum expends itself naturally (internally expending energy releases) – meaning the dancers have to force-start the dance (re-start their own commencing) each time – this creates a pattern of bursting jump starts dotting and punctuating (serrating) a timeline

~ this is dance that establishes virtuosity as its natural condition and ground-base on which to relax as a casual occupant – the theme becomes a ‘this-is-for-me’ space – the ‘me’ being a dancer first and in this piece, also an androgyne, which goes with the formalist aesthetic (i.e. movement in space first) – these are the raw essentials, instruments, tools, ingredients of the practice – a stripping that reveals the backgrounding of other factors made inessential by this focus (gender is one) (specific non-theatre spaces or ‘other’ spaces, other than those similar to this one, is two)

~ modern art and the hugging of the white canvas closely to its chest, which it wants to show unspoilt by too much picture but just enough to create another kind of fullness in which the canvas features as much as the paint – inanimate and animate co-animating

~ this piece showed great complexity and competency of crafting and artistry but is low on originality, the exclusion of which makes the concept of originality less significant to the artist’s purposes here

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