REHEARSAL 1 - 15/03/2024

We started off this rehearsal by going through the creative idea for the piece whilst warming up, and a few of my structural ideas. This gave the dancers a bit of an idea of what we're working towards, but I didn't want to overwhelm them with information so this session was focused on self-perception. The tasks in this session were designed to explore how the dancers think of themselves and then how they think about each other; this explored ideas surrounding elements of the self that only an individual can perceive about themselves, and then elements that only other people can see about them. 

I started out by having them write down five words each about how they perceive their own movement quality as a dancer. I then set them a solo task of creating a cyclical phrase with a movement representing each quality, offering the thought of it being somewhat gestural and easily repeatable.  

Tilly Self-Perception:

Emily Self-Perception:

I then asked them each to share their movement, repeating for 4 cycles as the other watched and wrote down the qualities that they noticed, which I also joined in on.

Tilly observations about Emily:              My observations about Emily:

      - soft

      - twisting

      - weighted

      - wrapping

      - contracting

This was interesting as there was an overlapping of softness and gentleness, as well as flow among all three of our observations/perceptions. My observation of her movement was very much coming from a choreographic standpoint, observing what qualities I wanted to draw out of each of their phrases and emphasise. I saw a lot of wrapping and contracting that I want to later play with in portraying a struggle between sides of the self. I also found it intriguing that Emily had at first written light & heavy, then just wrote light, so I definitely want to play with the placement of weight and how that could create contrast. Both dancers brought up a gentle quality, which is something I wouldn't have thought to mention, but is clearly very evident in retrospect, and could very much project themes of contrasting selves, as well as tentativeness in exploring the self. 

Emily's observations about Tilly:            My observations about Tilly:

       - angular

       - waves

       - spiral

       - sinking

       - linear

What I found the most intriguing about Tilly was that she didn't note down how angular she moves, there were points about the sharpness and the lines she creates, but what I immediately noticed about the way she moves is the different ways in which her limbs and lines relate to one another and the shapes they create. Something Emily reflected back to me is how different they both move when tasked to dance in relation to their identity, but that there are also a few qualities that tie them together like a tether. The structural idea behind this piece is their relationship and dynamic with each other as one unit and how different dimensions of the self can have a tension and conflict that subsequently allow them to separate. So I very much want to take time to focus on what connects them as humans, represented through this session's task as their movement quality, and what parts of their movement are more evident in each dancer; I want to play with the idea of franticness and panic in trying to catch up to one another and retain that connection.

I then had them teach each other their phrases as briefly as possible before I started filming this process, wanting to document this stage of one dancer knowing the movement better than the other. It was interesting to see the other dancer bring their individual qualities to the phrase; Tilly performed Emily's phrase more angularly, and Emily performed Tilly's more gently.

Video of them teaching each other the phrases:

Video of them repeating phrases:

We then spent some time together going through each phrase and drawing out the qualities that I want to emphasise in showing the difference in their movement identity. For Emily's, I wanted to focus on the weight held in the movement and and a sinking, contracted feeling. Though her phrase at the moment is a lot slower and drawn out than Tilly's I will want to work on having it keep increasing in speed until one of them can't do it anymore, I might also play with the idea of Tilly taking over the speed of Emily's phrase, throwing her off balance and pushing her to her limit? With Tilly's phrase, I wanted to indulge in the snake-like movements within it and place emphasis on the sharp angles and stops.

Video of Emily's phrase after development: (2 cycles)

Video of Tilly's Phrase after development: (2 Cycles)

Going forward with these rehearsals I want to start each session with an improvised contact moment to get the dancers in the mindset of being one unit together. I didn't do this for this session, however, as I wanted to specifically work the solo task without them watching each other or moving together so their observations could be as in-the-moment as possible. We had a bit of time at the end of this rehearsal though, so we did a short contact exercise, giving them an idea of what consistent rehearsals will contain, and giving me a bit of an idea of how they themselves approach contact as of right now.

Video of Short Contact Improv: