On Contact

Body parts and friends in the arts

Rehearsal with Chloe Aligianni and Co.

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you.

As I gently massaged the shoulders of a 6ft man in a vest top whom I had merely smiled at in class by way of greeting I thought a) I should probably do this for my boyfriend more often and b) dance is a strange but wonderful profession in which you rub up your potential colleagues rather than email them. In this world of contactless payment cards, internet dating and online shopping, physical contact is becoming increasingly scarce in daily life yet as a dancer it is an important part of my practice.

In Renaud Wiser’s technique class that morning the act of massaging one another was used as a warm up, to get our bodies ready for the challenging movement material, getting to feel free and easy (as Julie Andrews might sing). Physical interaction finds its way into dance in many other forms from contact improvisation to choreographed duet and group work and provides a great sense of community within a class, rehearsal or performance together with infinite choreographic possibilities. In rehearsals for a new work, by friend and MA choreography colleague Chloe Aligianni, we have been creating resistance and release duets that become physical confrontations between two bodies. The process has seen me repeatedly head-butted in the stomach, climbed on, my foot used as a headrest and my pelvis as a tripod. I have pushed, pulled, jumped over and fallen on my partners and yet we still like each other and in fact have developed friendships through this exercise. Even in open professional classes in which you may never have met the person you touch you can create short-lived relationships as you physically negotiate with one another in order to fulfil the task. It has to be said that this experience can vary greatly depending on the task and the other dancer involved as I found in Charlie Morissey’s contact improvisation workshop. As I seamlessly gave and received weight with one partner I found myself struggling to keep up with another or feeling mutually unsure of what to do with someone else. But however successful or otherwise the partnership turns out to be, you go through a shared experience and navigate the task and each other simultaneously.

Bodies in urban spaces by Willi Dorner

 

But these physical exchanges are but secondary to the importance of making social contact within the dance industry. The acquaintances you make in any given setting; be it a contact improvisation class, an audition or even a social event unrelated to your field where you might just bump into someone who knows someone else in the business, are the key to finding work. As I have so often and so unnecessarily been told ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’. I am well aware of this annoyingly accurate fact but a simple awareness of such will not gain you entry into the perilous professional dance network. You must be constantly active, seeking out new ways to meet and become associates of potential collaborators and employers, signing up to endless mailing lists to stand a chance of staying up to date with the latest networking events and building numerous online profiles on various virtual platforms to feel part of this work-hungry artistic community. You cannot simply turn up to an audition knowing nothing about the choreographer – you must have at least taken their company class a few times or maybe even been an apprentice dancer for them already. I don’t see myself as much of a brown-noser and so although I attend many current choreographers’ classes I find it difficult to introduce myself and blatantly compliment their work at the end of class in order to stick in their mind.

Do not despair - I am not completely associate-less. The greatest advantage my MA in Choreography has granted me is not what I learnt on the course but the determined and talented colleagues I had the opportunity to work alongside and become friends with along the way. I am now dancing for two of my fellow MA Choreography graduates and am performing my own work in an event curated by a third. (Details of performance events in next post).

Despite these rewarding collaborations I am still looking for more projects. As I stood in the extraordinarily long queue for the Hofesh Shechter apprentice audition (a great example of an audition in which you probably didn’t stand a chance if you hadn’t at least been to some of his workshops) I got chatting to a fellow auditionee who happened to currently be performing in the touring production of Wicked – I was in awe already! She had also worked in opera’s at the ROH and as I mentioned that I had auditioned for an opera she offered me the email address of the ROH casting director. Despite not being able to make my eventual time-slot at the audition I felt it hadn’t been a completely wasted queuing experience as I had met an inspirational person and gotten a new avenue to explore. Now I just have to work on getting to know what to say (another Julie Andrews lyric) when casually dropping this casting director an email, as she suggested.

 

Snapshots and Lindy Hop

A day in the life of an aspiring dancer

My auditioning techniques haven’t been getting me too far lately so I’ve decided to take steps in a different direction that I’ve been thinking of for a while – the direction of commercial dance i.e getting an agent. And before I can do this I need a new dance portfolio – and more skills for my C.V.

Thursday 20^th March, the day of my portfolio photo shoot, turned out to be one of those surreal days in which you go to new areas, try new activities and meet so many interesting people along the way that you feel like a completely different person. It started with a rush-hour underground trip to Victoria for a 9.15am hairdresser appointment – a surreal event in itself for me as I loathe both early mornings and haircuts. I arrived twenty minutes early in nervous anticipation, chatting to the manager for a while before my stylist arrived. My stylist, although lovely, got rather annoyed at my insisting to see her blow-dry curling efforts before she had finished. I just wanted to be sure I liked it before she painstakingly curled my whole abundant head of hair. Thankfully, she was not only lovely but very skilled and I walked out of the shop quietly confident that my hair looked better than it ever had before.

I travelled positively to my next stop of the day – which happened to be the final stop on the district line – Ealing Broadway – in other words, blooming far away! I navigated my way through the tree-lined rows of million-pound houses to find my photographer’s studio-come-apartment. I expected Titus to be either overly camp or overly American, owing to his name alone, but he was neither. A genuinely friendly guy, he guided me through the process of taking a good headshot – smiling with the eyes and leaving the rest to his highly technical camera and lighting. I commandeered his sofa as my temporary wardrobe as I had brought an array of outfits with which to create a portfolio that showed versatility, as I had been told was the aim. Titus had warned me that any movement shots may take hours to get right but the few I had planned seemed to work pretty well first time and after a couple of attempts with different camera angles I was very happy with them – maybe I’m just not much of a perfectionist. However, the two hours I had booked seemed to whizz by and so when Titus offered me an extra hour, for a fraction of what I paid for the first two, in order to finish the list of looks I had planned, I couldn’t resist. I’m very glad I didn’t as the final set of images taken outside have now become my favourites and were the most fun to shoot. Walking down the middle of the street in a floaty dress and giant sunhat with a photographer in front of me, I had a momentary sense of idealized stardom.

On a photographic high, I rushed back to Greenwich, as much as one can rush on an extended tube journey, for a two hour rehearsal that should have brought me back down to reality as I had these rehearsals twice a week. Instead my colleagues showered me with compliments on my unusually made up appearance and we danced for the first time with a projection of sunrise that we made earlier that month.

So with my hold-all of outfits still in tow I met a friend from work, took a train to another unfamiliar destination and went in search of one more new experience to round the day off nicely. I wanted to gain some new skills to my dance repertoire, to aid my chances of getting work in the commercial world, and to simply try something new. I had recently applied to a casting looking for Lindy Hop dancers, despite my closest encounter with the dance form being watching professionals perform it on Strictly, but this had encouraged me to seek out a class to give it a whirl. My friend agreed to come with me, an actress with experience in Jive dancing, I thought she’d be the perfect dance partner. We reached the Royston club feeling rather glad of each other’s company as there was no sign of a class and only a couple of men playing darts in one corner of an expansive stale-smoke-smelling bar. I asked at the bar and we were informed that the class was upstairs but it didn’t start for an hour – a classic case of a) allowing far too much time for the journey to unknown destination and b) believing what you read on a neglected website. The ballroom upstairs was much more airy and reminded me of my old town festival hall with white drapes covering the ceiling and a small stage at one end. The teacher was lovely, although I found his teaching style rather slow but apparently it was week one of a 10 week beginner programme so perhaps that was to be expected. Throughout the class we rotated partners, having been separated into men and women at the beginning, a surprising amount of old men meant that the men outnumbered the women, another rarity in my experience of any dance event. Some were had more rhythm than others but were all hilarious to watch as my friend negotiated the steps with them.

 At the end of the class the disco lights were turned on and swing music played, at which point the men came up and asked the ladies to dance – it was like stepping back in time to an era of male chivalry. I learnt a lot from a more experienced member of the group as he improvised with me although the alien concept of letting the man lead was rather difficult to stick to, especially when some over-enthusiastic partners felt the need to spin me quite forcefully no matter what part of the step pattern I was on. It was definitely a lot of fun dancing to such jolly music and I can imagine with the right partner I would love it – it’s a shame my friend and I never got to dance together due to our common gender.

So from celebrity lifestyle to old-fashioned values, today I’d got a sneak peek into lives from the past and hopefully my future in the world of show business.

 

Auditioning - an art form

My take on dance auditions

The audition – an opportunity, a test, just a free class (well hopefully free). No matter how you view an audition there is still an inevitable sense of nerves as you enter a room full of other hopeful candidates and face a set of judges that will decide which of these will graduate from hopeful to successful.

In the past 3 months I have built up the courage to attend six auditions (there have been others I haven’t felt able to), and with another big audition coming up on Saturday for the infamous Hofesh Shechter company, I felt it would be a good time to analyse my progress in the professional practice of ‘auditioning’.

Like any other art form it takes practice to become a master – but yet every time you practice auditioning you are also performing the work of art. There is no trial run, no dress rehearsal, no mock attempt. And finding opportunities in which to practice your technique can be extremely difficult as so many auditions call for an application process that decreases your chances of even being invited to show what you can do. This is why the majority of auditions I have frequented have been ‘open’ – anyone can turn up, but with this comes some of the worst possible aspects of audition practice. Long hours of queuing in all weathers – listening to your competitors chatter about their agents and their work at Harrods or similar, large sweaty rooms filled to bursting with sequin-and-fishnet-clad women all attempting to stretch in a Tetris configuration and the overwhelming sense that you are as invisible as the minimal air around you are all symptomatic of the open-to-the-world audition.

From my experience of these situations and watching other people around me I have come up with the following techniques for the art form that is auditioning:

·         Wear something you feel comfortable in, that shows your figure and you are able to move in – trust me, worrying about your ever-increasing wedgy or your nipples being on show severely decreases your ability to dance

·         Be prepared for everything – take your C.V and headshot - even if you’ve already sent it by email, take all your different dance shoes – just because you’re going to a ballet audition doesn’t mean they might not want you to show them your tap, take lots of food – I know you think you’ll be out in the first round but if you get through the whole day you’ll be starving by the end. And if you can sing – take sheet music just in case!

·         In freestyle sections be different, but not too different – keep in the style of the routine but throw in some signature moves – but nothing that takes too much time to get into or out of

·         Be confident, but not cocky. You don’t want to annoy anyone.

·         Be attentive but not nerdy – asking lots of questions is again just annoying for everyone around you.

·          Always walk out with your head held high, even if you were the only one they didn’t pick out of your group – at least you tried.

To heaven and back

Apocrifu by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui

Queen Elizabeth Hall, 25^th Jan 2014

 

Larbi’s latest show stopping masterpiece is an intense experience for the viewer that combines the intricate solemn tones of a Corsican male choir, the unique and varying physicalities of himself and his two collaborating performers and a wealth of original choreographic techniques to visualise and interpret the effect of religious and secular scripture on the life of its readers. Stunning snake-like floor work from acrobat Dimitri Jourde, which left me wondering if he actually had any bones in his body, complements the signature stomach-turning flexibility of Larbi himself whilst the balletic solos from Yasuyuki Shuto feel a little out of place.

The stage and its inhabitants are surrounded by books that represent the texts referred to in the title of the piece. Larbi throws down book after book from the pile he cradles to form stepping stones to carry him across the stage in order to offer a text to his fellow performers. The performers throw the books at each other, bash them against their own heads and pass them between their hands in a dizzyingly complicated sequence visually reminiscent of a multi-limbed Hindu goddess. All of these moments in which the books subjugate the body suggest that scriptures and the supress their readers. At one point Larbi tries to explain to the audience some of the discrepancies within such scriptures as the Bible and the Qur’an.

The architecture of the stage space is dominated by a large wooden stairway on the left hand-side, framing the space whilst creating religious connotations to the action that occurs on it. The performance is first established by the image of a performer gradually descending the staircase with a limp upper body, whilst serenaded by the vocalists, representing the foundation of much scripture – a messiah being sent down from Heaven to Earth. Similarly, in the final moments of the piece two performers ascend the staircase quietly and exit into Heaven before Larbi follows to the top of the staircase and then abandons his fellow believers and jumps off, rejecting the idea of life after death.

Despite the visually comedic scenes of a puppet beating up its puppeteers and the incessant passing of books and swords between flailing arms the visual highlight of the piece for me was a rolling duet in which Larbi and Jourde become attached at the neck, their heads always facing the audience, who are never quite sure which belongs to which body, as they wrap themselves around, support and rely on each other. Of course, even without such images, the performance would be a pleasure to encounter thanks to the seven harmonising voices of the choir, whose verbal chants and accompanying humming echo around the hall with unparalleled gravitas.  

A world buffet!

Protein Dance share their ‘Border Tales’

 Tuesday 11th March 2014 at The Place

 

As the world gets smaller and smaller and cultural identities begin to blur within each of us Protein treats us to a sharp take on racial stereotyping in our current society. The performers’ various backgrounds and experiences, assumptions and prejudices hold the recipe for a shrewd, witty, beautiful and thought-provoking feast of a piece that left my senses satiated. It was everything I crave from a live work, with a side of participation in the form of ‘landing cards’ or feedback forms which allowed you to address your own part in the diverse web of cultures woven within the quadrangle of space shared by the performers and their audience.

My appetite for both stunning dancing and crystal-clear concept was fed by an assorted range of movement motifs and spoken text including stories from the performers’ childhoods, theatrical sketches and comic poetry formed of popular song lyrics, news stories and take-away menus, all commenting on cultural difference and the human habit of stereotyping. The prefix ‘I think you think’, a mantra repeated by the performers as they proclaimed their assumptions of the audience’s preconceptions of them based on their ethnicity, such as ‘I think you think I only drink Guinness’ says the Irish dancer, illustrates the cyclical process of conception between self and other.

It is said that you eat with your eyes and the visual presentation of this work certainly does not leave you hungry. A simple river of chalk divided the stage space until it was rubbed away by the performers whilst the central welcome balloon used to depict a party, hosted by the only British performer, became the poignant final image of the work as it was left spinning in spotlight as the performers retreated. Theatrical scenes such as the party provide a narrative that is interwoven with monologues of physicality and thought from each performer whilst abstract group motifs cut through it. For example, a diagonal line of all of the dancers performing different stereotypical movements is born from an ‘international dance class’ scene.

The tear’n’share creative process of this work is evident in the final performance as the musician becomes an integral part of the on-stage performance as do the dancers live performance play a part in the musical score. The addition of supporting dancers, possibly current dance students, bring their own stories to the table and create a picnic of inclusivity and development for the audience to indulge in.

Altogether a fqntastic sharing platter of dance, music and diversity that gives your intellectual teeth something to really bite into.