Antipode, process part one
Starting the creation of a new production is always full of anticipation, lots of possibilities, new territories, unexpected issues... both a scary and fantastic invitation of an open canvas just like a painter who is sitting in front his white surface before he puts his first brush of paint on it. Anyhow, its the beginning of an exciting journey.
We have now worked for two weeks and made lots of material. Material that just came up in the moment, nothing predetermined or prepared in advance, all from improvising and letting it happen. We have a great group of four male dancers and one double bass player who comes in the studio once a week. His music is powerfull and already made so that's something to hold on to. He will play live during the show so we have to take his presence into account.
At the moment I am trying to hold of the idea of the piece as long as I can. I have a clear vision in my head of how the piece might eventually look but I don't want to hold on to it just yet. I want to play and to create. I am using very lose tools that can go in all sort of directions and this seems to bring up great material. What I really appreciate about this group of dancers is their commitment and sense of throwing them into something we don't know the outcome of yet. Yes, we are talking about extreme contrasts, about a shared physicality and about a journey, but 11 weeks is a good amount of time to get our teeth into something so at this moment we are just playing, getting inspired by the moment and by each other.
The first two weeks I have given quite a bit of material because I wanted the dancers to get used to my movement quality and style. This week we start to introduce their personal way of moving and introduce them as performers and movers. I asked them to create a list of words with extreme contrasts and also with a word that connects the contrasts. Now I have given each of the dancers five extreme combinations and we are working on some material, physicalisation of the words, not through theatre but by invesigating the potential of movement, posture, dynamics... Its important to give the dancers plenty of time to investigate their potential, at the same time I keep interupting them with new and more information as I watch the process. I am hoping to achieve solo's that present surprising contrasts, a personal rich movement quality and material that has clarity and a real sense of purpose. x
