Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker!!

I am going to see Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker next week at the Birmingham Hippodrome and I cannot wait! I really enjoy watching his work because he takes traditional stories out of their original context and makes something completely unique. 

Review to follow :D

Inventory Review

Inventory
Choreographed and performed by Gabriele Reuter
Thursday 19th January 2012

 

I didn’t really know what to expect from the piece before going to watch it. I went in with an open mind to see what I would understand from the performance and to see if I could gain inspiration from it. The piece uses both movement and text which I haven’t seen before. I was interested to see her take and interpretation of how this could be done.

As the piece started, she asked us for some audience participation. We were asked to stand up, shake ourselves off and then relax into our seats. I have never seen a piece where the audience are asked to participate however; I think this was a good idea because it helped the audience to bond with the performer and become a part of the piece. It felt like we were building a bond or trust with Gabriele Reuter herself.

“This piece is a personal journey across a completely empty stage.”

This quote from the programme really helps me to understand where she was going with the piece and what she was exploring throughout it. She created boxes of space for her individual thoughts. For example, there was space for her political views and space for vague ideas that didn’t really have a particular subject area. She spoke about them in such detail and moved freely between each space. She filled the empty room with imaginary boxes and shapes using her body and gestures. I found it really easy to visualise and imagine where one space ended and when the next one started.

There was so much detail and information to take in and I would like to see it again in order to full engage in everything that happened. I loved how simple the movement was but how complex the text could make it. It really did make me focus on the piece and concentrate from start to end.

Overall, I really enjoyed watching the piece, even though it required intense focus throughout. It made me realise how you don’t need props or scenery in order to represent different spaces or shapes on a stage. It made me learn that text can be used with movements at the same time. It made me question myself and relate it to things I have learnt in my own practise.

Egg Dances

Notes on Egg Dances

Choreographed by Rosemary Lee

Video making by Peter Anderson

·         Originally performed in 1988 with 13 dancers, aging from 9 to 70+.

·         It was titled Egg Dance for VHS but renamed Egg Dances for DVD to save confusion.

·         Set in an ancient tithe barn.

·         Dancers wearing pale coloured costumes.

·         Camera angles are constantly changing.

·         Example of cross- generational work, site specific dance and a production developed for camera.

·         Music and the eggs are introduced after the duet when the cast come in.

·         Intermittent music.

·         Classical music, mainly string instruments.

·         Birds singing, church bells ringing and animals in the background.

·         Starts with three children playing, it then develops into a duet with two adults. After this, the whole cast come together.

·         The cast are depending on each other- lifting.

·         Old helping the young and the young helping the old.

·         Walking with the feet but being carried by another.

·         Coming out of the barn into the sun.

·         Jumping into someone’s arms out of the barn door.

·         Working in duets simultaneously.

·         Man and a boy = Father and child

·         All the cast follow the young boy.

·         Lots of spinning and turning.

·         Dancing becomes faster paced.

·         Travelling across through the barn and out the doors.

·         Child playing with a single egg.

·         Nesting houses in the walls and dancers using the ladders.

·         Adults carrying the children on their shoulders.

·         Moving the egg baskets and placing the eggs around the floor.

·         Adults walking carefully through the eggs with their eyes closed.

Rosemary Lee in conversation with Valerie Bringinshaw.

·         Spiritual rituals

·         New springs from old winters

·         Passing of dark and the coming of light, like night into day, life to death.

·         Used intense music to get the balance right between the dance and the music.

·         Lee’s intension was to have a mixed age cast because they all have different experiences to bring to the piece.

·         What connects us as humans, regardless of age.

·         Each dancer has their own individuality.

·         Lifting was really important to Rosemary Lee because it represented helping, catching and sharing.

·         Helping those who are vulnerable.

·         Following and listening image in the duets. One dancer dances and the other one follows and listens to the other. Almost like a guardian angel watching over their shoulder.

·         Fragility and strength.

·         Cathedral like barn, big inside, historic and has character.

When I'm Playing...

When I’m playing… I feel, open, free, unstoppable, creative, loose, wide, articulating, smooth, soft, easy to move, fluid, spontaneous, jumping.

http://hometown-pasadena.com/events/a-weekend-for-your-soul/

Weekly Overview

Monday 16th January- Friday 20th January

In our phrase class we learnt a new floor sequence travelling from side to side which I really enjoyed. To begin with, I found it challenging because I couldn’t figure out where my hands need to be in order to hold my weight and balance however, I soon grasped the idea. I was able to move with ease and make each movement blend into the next. I would like to try another phrase like this because it was fun to learn and perform.

I found the Experiential Anatomy lesson a really valuable and interesting one. We explored shifting out weight from foot to foot in all directions. I pushed myself to the limits to see how far I could go before falling. I pushed myself that much that I became disorientated and I began to feel really ill. I needed to stop and gather myself again to be able to carry on. We then moved on to another exercise thinking about filling and emptying the limbs. I found this a really easy concept to understand and interpret. I would describe the sensation like an egg time. The sand is emptying from one end and is filling up the other.

-          The body parts carrying the most weight felt full and the lighter ones felt empty.

-          When lying on the floor, the areas with greater pressure felt full and the areas with less pressure felt empty.

-          It was as surreal feeling.

In Improvisation, we worked with falling and then catching yourself at the last minute. It was really simple to dance but complex to watch. You could hear distinct rhythmic patterns with the feet. It was interesting to see which directions people were going to go and which space they would occupy. I really liked the idea of this for a score and I would like to try this again. It switched a light bulb on in my head!

We continued to work on this task in partners. I almost felt like we could sense what each other were thinking and what the next move was going to be. It felt like a game, chasing, jumping, playful, childish, copying, following, bonding. We were constantly tricking and testing each other.

Our SRT lesson, was with Florence Peak. This was our first SRT lesson and I wondered what I would gain and learn from it. I expected it to be more hands on with partners because we only briefly touched on this. I didn’t expect to learn any choreography which I was surprised by. I really enjoyed learning this because it showed me something I didn’t expect in SRT.

I  have enjoyed the lessons last week and I feel I have gain knowledge which I can used again, learn from and develop.

Images for Thought...

Experiential Anatomy Lesson
In the lesson we moved around thinking about filling and emptying, these were the images that came to mind.

An egg timer...

Filling at one end and emptying at the other

The body parts carrying the most weight felt full

The body parts carrying the least weight felt empty

A Pendulum Swing...

Head to head with a partner

Bouncing off each other's skulls

Need to apply more pressure

Weekly Overview

Monday 9th January- Friday 13th January

I apologise it’s been a while since I last posted anything on here. There was some stuff I was going to put on here before the holiday but I didn’t have a chance to. Anyway…

I always think after a long break its quite easy to fall out of routine and then it becomes very hard to refocus when its time to get back to work. And this time there was no exception! We began going straight back into how we working before Christmas and I couldn’t keep up. I had had the whole of last term to build myself up and then I felt as if I was starting in the deep end again. I needed more time to fully engage in the work we were doing and regain my focus levels. However, I did slowly get back into the swing of things and now after a week I feel I can fully concentrate again.

Coming back also made me realise how lose my body was before the holiday and how stiff I had become during this time. Stretching and lengthening really helped me to feel free again and open spaces inside my body. My spine was particularly tense and needed to relax and stretch out.

This week, we began discussing our duets in Choreographic Workshop. I am really looking forward to starting them soon because we haven’t had a chance to work with someone else in so much detail before. I feel I would like to be partnered with someone who I haven’t done a lot of class work with, but someone I still feel comfortable around. I can’t wait to find out our partners to begin looking at ideas and movement.

For the first time this week, I met up with Karen, a 3^rd year student to work on her FMP piece. The company is called Perspective, and we had our first meeting all together to discuss what she would like in her work and what our thoughts were. Karen would like to use different improvised scores in her piece and then change between them. This change, would be indicated by wither a change on light or music. We listened to Karen read out a score and then moved to it as we listened. I felt myself using movements I hadn’t before and finding new and different ways to move my body. I really surprised myself and I came away from the meeting feeling really positive!

Let’s see what next week brings…