Integration of research into practice - the source of choreographic material
Dear Dancer,
As we continue to move and create together, it was interesting to observe how you chose to utilise your research in a creative way, in order to devise choreographic material through me, your practice.
To begin with, the flow in which you created the duet within your project came from your idea 'a duet with nature', that you have described in one of your poems. Your autoethnographic approach to the project disoplayed in your sense of connecting to nature, drove you to the use of contact work within your choreography, and the personification of nature in one of the dancers performing. The direct focus of the dancers to one another, the support and drive they give each other in the movements represents this idea of a person's connection to their environment, as one of the dancers takes on the role of nature, putting the environment and the dancer in harmony. Rather than the environment being one element and the person moving in it another, you chose to portray the idea of blurring the lines between the two in this way in this section. As part of your practice based findings, the incorporation of Qi Gong in your practice is also visible in the duet, same as in other sections, bringing back the through-line of your research; in order to be in touch with your environment, you first need to be in touch with yourself. The use of movements like 'swimming dragon' and 'clearing the waters', alongside a breathing pattern set to the motions, the dancers also get a chance to take a moment to check in with themselves and reconnect to each other, same as being in flux with the specific space you are in each time.
Your use of canon came from your research and observation of fractals. This idea of 'a pattern of chaos' that keeps unfolding drove your exploration of that element in your choreography. The sense that something could be a pattern, that you used to think of as a formal thing, but still chaotic, sparked your interest and you wondered how you could build that flux in the studio, like you had witnessed it in the elements of your natural surroundings.
One of the group sections has improvisation, as you felt that was highly relevant to me, having done all of your reading and exploring. You came to realise that when you are completely in flux to each ever evolving moment you live and breathe in, the movements need to be driven by instinct. The improvisation starts out quite frantic, taken from the idea of constant distraction of attention you witnessed and researched, when one is surrounded by constant stimulus, that then slows down into a steady, rhythmic walk, portraying your feeling of settlement and ease that you have experienced when for example going for your regular swims in the ocean.
Through layering me, your practice, throughout this project, you have managed to explore diverse ways of how to bring the benefits of spending time in nature and the vitality of that into the studio. This is relevant since your time with me will most likely exist, for the most part, inside this boxy space, and therefore it is important to be able to bring these ideas along and remove the walls, even though it is only mentally, in order to utilise the benefits and creative output embedded in the spaces living outside the studio windows.
Yours truly,
Practice
The following links are to rehearsal footage from the studio at Listdansskóli Íslands. Both belong to the duet section of the film which I refer to as 'Wild Goose'.
Dancers in the videos are Íris Ásmundardóttir, Hrefna Kristrún Jónasdóttir, Andrea María Ólafsdóttir and Benedikt Gylfason
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