uni-days

May 12, 2018Catherine Chliaras No Comments

Final thoughts on “Re:patterning”

For my final entry on this blog, I am making a comment on my final work “Re:patterning”.

On Monday 7^th May at 11.00 am, fifteen people entered the theatre to watch six dancers moving and pushing themselves on the floor. The work lasted 32 minutes.

It started with a video of the dancers pushing a wall in an industrial space. This video was playing along the whole time.

The video was not edited or filmed by a technician. The sound was abstract and it wasn’t pleasant to the ear. Next time, I should have an expert taking care of a/the video.

Then, dancers were pushing each other from side to side using the stage space.

Then, they started to dance a piece that was once characterised as “simple Graham”. I don’t know Graham technique so well as to choreograph based on it, but I consider this as a compliment, since my dance sequence had intentionally elements of structured legs and arms and simple jumps.

The dancers were scattered in space and moving on their own rhythm on my dance sequence, which I found really interesting every time. I always tried to find when some of them would do a movement simultaneously and that intrigued me every time even during the performance. When they finished, they approached the edge of the stage to recite their lines simultaneously towards the audience on their own time and then go back to continue their dance.

My module tutor advised me to study Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker’s choreographies to find ideas of “patterns”. They really inspired me, because they were simple movements but, also, with significant changes that made the pieces interesting. This is what I wanted to achieve and, to my eye, I did.

Falling down, the dancers tried to find their pairs and, while reciting the text “Body pressure”, they were pushing each other and moving on stage. After many repetitions, they left the stage running.

The piece finished with a dancer reciting the lyrics of a famous song stating that each individual is unique. With that, I wanted to contribute to the circle of reciting texts, that Marina Abramovic started, with adding another text in my re-performance. Maybe, the next re-re-performer will start from that text and do something more or something else.

The dancers started again to push each other, until they disappeared along with the video.

The dancers were wearing black clothes with red lipstick, in order to show that they are similar, but different in the ways they chose to wear them (one was wearing dress, the other tights etc). I decided I wanted black because of the atmosphere I wanted to create and because of the antithesis with the video wall.
I wanted to give a message in this choreography, but I tried to remove the narrative and leave it really simple for the audience. My message was indeed that everyone is unique. We have our own times and timings, we push to have a space on the stage (of life) and we dance on our own rhythm. This is a conclusion from my own experience and from that I wanted to create something like “Re:patterning”.
From the basic criteria for the piece, the audience could find:
Endurance, when dancers were pushing and talking for a long period of time
Rituals, with the silence when changing positions
Repetition, when pushing and pushing and pushing // repeating the dance sequence // repeating the text

Unfortunately, I never had a dress rehearsal with the technicians, because of the slow process they had to follow to set the stage and the lights. Next time, I will arrange a gap of more than three hours to make sure that everything is on time and the stage is ready.

“Re:patterning” was a piece that I have never tried to create before, with repetition, rituals, without music, with talking, with video on the wall.
This was my first time and I will definitely remember what to take care of next time.

April 21, 2018Catherine Chliaras No Comments

Saturday, 21st April

It was the fourth sunny day in a row here in Lincoln, and today we had our rehearsal before we go out to enjoy the sun.

The dancers brought some clothes suggestion to be worn as costumes during the performance and we decided that next time, that we are going to rehearse at the theatre, they’ll be wearing them, so that we can have a full image and feeling of themselves.

Next time, I will also time it, so that I see if it is 45 minutes, less or more.

Let’s focus on today’s rehearsal, though.

In case you have been reading the “Re:patterning” blog post, you will understand where the dance choreography goes. It is 1 minute and 10 seconds, but they will repeat it several times. They were learning it fast, like sponges. I think they handled it pretty well. From now on, we are going to be doing the dance coreography together with the rest piece and they will get more accustomed to it.

The dance choreography is somewhat based on the “Body Pressure” text and it contains, I would say, “weird” movements for my dance style. By “weird” I mean, weird legs with easy jumps and then hips movements and hands to shoulders. It is a dance I wanted to make “peculiar” and, thankfully, the dancers felt the same. I didn’t just want to create a ballet or contemporary or even musical and hip-hop that I teach. I wanted it to be unique and to siginfy the “Re:patterning”.

Here you can see a video of the today’s rehearsal:

April 19, 2018Catherine Chliaras No Comments

Thursday, 19 April

Good news: A good rehearsal today, as we finished the whole piece.

Bad news: Two dancers wanted to quit, because they didn’t have time for their studies and the rehearsals.

___

We started with the dancers sitting down back-to-back trying to push away the “cage” they imagined they were in. They were pushing and pushing imaginative walls until they were scattered in the room.

They were allowed to go only on one direction: they one they could face while they were seated.

In the meantime, the video we recorded is going to be playing loudly behind them.

Scattered where they are, a dance comes and they start dancing (next rehearsal, Saturday 21/4).

And then they fall.

They reach their partners and form a mass after 9 repetitions of the text “Body pressure”. I must make a comment here: the partner work was better than the previous time. Today they felt more comfortable with each other, they were more creative in how and where to push and they were very conscious of the space they used, so it was easy for them to create a “body of bodies” with a flow and no interruptions. Consequently, they got exhausted faster and I could hear that in their breaths, but they didn’t stop.

With that flow and care, they started raising each other up, before they empty the space.

I gave them instructions on how to come back to the stage again in the end and what to re-perform.

I must, also, keep in mind, that the dancers are 1st-years and the following week is their assessment week and that means that they are going to be tired. I have organised what I want to do in the next rehearsals and hopefully everything will go without any more problems.

March 13, 2018Catherine Chliaras No Comments

Tuesday, 13 March

The rehearsal:

Today we worked on one of the segments of the choreography where we have a partner work.

The dancers in pairs where pushing each other while reciting the text.

The best thing of all was that after a while they started feeling exhausted. (Yes!) I could see dancers being pushed down, around, on the side, from the back, from the front. I could hear voices from below, from far away, from higher, struggling, deciding, shouting, whispering.

Amazing view!

I am excited because this was the first time that I saw my dancers pushing hard and getting exhausted. What I want them to understand is the “ritual endurance” of the work. I want them to understand that it is okay that their voice is trembling after being pushed and pushing and talking. For a first time, this was exciting. I think we are getting there.

Our next rehearsal will be after Easter and I can’t wait!

The lesson:

It was based on endurance.

Our tutor introduced a task-based private performance for me and my classmate. A very infuriating and enduring one, but also playful and “fun”, as Jamie said.

Before the lesson, I was watching our tutor grabbing bags around, pencils there, “Catherine, help me cut these papers”, then a lipstick, then two oranges and a bag of raisins and “Catherine, do you want to turn on the stage lights?”. And that made me more curious than ever.

With that, we began.

We started sitting on chairs at one corner. In front of us a tweezer, some pencils and the papers I had cut. With the non-dominant hand (!) we grabbed the tweezer (!) with which we grabbed a pencil and papers (!) to write about our experience on endurance pieces. Moving on, with the tweezer, we had to lay down legos on papers that would work as stepping stones. Yes. We stepped on papers with legos (Ouch!). Jamie was fast laying his legos down, but I wanted to have less pain and I had to choose the flatter legos. But this was very time-wasting. After some infuriating minutes, I joined him at the other corner, from where we should return to the middle again to comb each other’s hair and share a lipstick. And then go back again to the other corner, to another table, where the oranges, the raisins and cocktail picks were waiting for us. “Take a cocktail pick, stab a raisin to one end and stab the cocktail pick on the orange on its other end”. Easy? No. With the tweezer. With the non-dominant hand. Jamie was perfect! He did everything really fast and I was struggling. When we finally finished, we had to eat each stabbed raisin (wait for it) , without hands, without teeth, only with the mouth (!) And (!) not chew them, but to just swallow them! I tried to melt them in my mouth as caramels and finished first (yeahy! But no) . I had to help Jamie as well… I thought it would never end.

For our finale we had to go back writing, which means taking the oranges between our two bodies (hands!) with the cocktail picks and step on the legos and arrive at our first seats. There we wrote about our “now” thoughts about endurance, after this experience.

This is a piece of work I would never go and watch or perform or even create. After this experience, I feel that dance choreography is very different from performance art and, well, it needs special talent or not at all to create an interesting performance art work. The repetition can definitely be an element of dance choreography (see Pina Bausch, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and more). As Lara Shalson* says: “Repetition is one of the uncomfortable things about theatre”. And she continues by framing it to the “performance of death or pain”. Endurance is another thing. “Practices of endurance are repeatedly key to understanding the relationship between theatre and performance art: endurance is either the limit that distinguishes the two forms or the principal point at which they overlap”. Apparently, no “dance” or “choreography” word was used in this text.

What we did could be a performance of endurance (and I dare say it was). Simultaneously, it was something between theatre and performance art. In practice, I agree with Lara Shalson. The limit at which they overlap cannot be easily distinguished.

Well, this was interesting, though, right?

But that stomach-ache…

*Shalson, L. (2012) On the Endurance of Theatre in Live Art. Contemporary Theatre Review, 22(1) 106-119.

March 1, 2018Catherine Chliaras No Comments

Tuesday, 20 February

Rehearsal

In a cold weather, six of my dancers and I, walked past the campus and found a big black industrial wall, ready to accommodate dancers’ “Body pressure”.

Facing and not the camera, the dancers were pushing in their way the wall while reciting the words of the text.

But why?

Marina Abramovic’s “Body pressure” included a glass wall and her body, when behind her there played a recording of her reciting the text.

I wanted to make something similar, but not the same. I wanted a one-sided wall, so that the audience would have to only take in what they see without approaching, going round or focus on the wall. I, also, wanted to give color to my video, so the dancers are wearing colors instead of one-color outfits. However, they all wear red lipstick; a reason for that will be later revealed. Lastly, they are reciting the text without recording but live. It is difficult to see who is reciting which line and that makes it more distant and difficult to connect the bodies to the voice. If we think more about it, this is what Marina Abramovic did: she removed her voice when she was performing, while adding it on her; not with her or in her or out of her.

The video that will be edited, will be projected during the first part of the final choreography in-progress I will make on “Body pressure”.

Find out more about the choreography and my ideas, that I base on Marina Abramovic’s performance and documentation on “Body pressure”,
the readings, the discussions with my tutor and classmate and my ideas by clicking here.

Lesson on performance

How can performance be every action that is being watched by an audience?

My in-the-box mind cannot even think about it.

Please follow this link to read my ideas on this.