Festival Project Journal

I went into the tech rehearsal with these notes to tell Nick, Courtney and Deane, which we went through and put in place with a combination of music and visible cues. This went quite well and we were able to execute what I had envisioned with the tech on the rig.  I got some positive feedback from my tech team that all of the cues were understandable and digestible with very clear markers in either the music or in the choreography as the physical cues were consistent in happening and very obvious for them. The only cue that we had to go over was at the end of Tilly speeding up when she stopped, but I just had to show them that she does a double turn instead of a single, which Tilly will always consistently do, and after that it was fine. We started then by doing a full run with the tech, which  Luc í a  (and Aggie :) ) watched, which went really well for me, I felt like the tech brought the themes of the piece together and enhanced the build of tension throughout the piec...

This rehearsal was right before our tech just to try everything out in the bigger space and work on some notes. I had them start out by doing a full run of the piece as best as they could without me telling them what comes next. This went really well and them remembering the order/structure allowed me to then go into more detail on clarifying notes such as: Tilly taking more time with the bit at the end, going through the exact motions of Emily guiding Tilly through her solo, specific music cues to hit at the end of sections, and emotional output. We also had some people from the building come in to watch a bit of the run which was good preparation for going into the performance later in terms of nerves in performing it to an audience and expecting distractions. Video of Full Run: I then wrote down all of the tech cues for Nick and Courtney while they changed into costumes and worked through any notes. We then did a run of the last two songs just for memory and to make sure they could ...

This rehearsal was a bit tricky as it was the last one until the day of the performance and I needed more studio space. We ended up working through some things in the hallway before half an hour in Studio 3 and then half an hour in Studio 6. Despite the small spaces and the location changes, we made the most out of it and worked as productively as possible, trying out costumes as well. When we were in the hallway we read through the notes from  Luc í a  and I talked through my narrative thoughts with them to clarify storytelling. I wanted to spend this rehearsal combing through the piece song-by-song, clarifying details and implementing Luc í a's feedback from last week. One of her pieces of feedback was to take more time in establishing their relationship at the start of the first song before it changes to the second. This was tricky as the choreography I had set fit perfectly to the end of the first song. So, I asked Sophie if it was okay to go over the 12-minute maximum of...

For this rehearsal, my plan was to choreograph the ending speeding up section into the dragging/weighted section and plot out all our choreography to the music. I didn't necessarily need the dance to be fully cleaned or for the dancers to have memorised the order, but I wanted to get a grasp on it for myself. We started off by recapping from the end of the first song to make sure the movement worked when doing it full-out and then added on to reach the end of the second song. They ended Tilly's Train of Thought duet crossed-legged and back-to-back, so I asked them to push over onto their knees and repeat their kneeling solos there. Then I asked Emily to get up and start doing her solo, with Tilly noticing and then doing her replication of Emily's material.  Video of End of Second Song: This definitely needs some cleaning and clarification on timings, but the timing of it and the movement content are definitely right for this section. There is this idea of awareness as they...

before this session I redid my timeline so I went into the rehearsal with the plant to test what I had plotted out the music in the space. We were in studio 4 so I could get a good idea of where I wanted them to be at the start of each section, so we mainly focussed on the travels between sections. Timeline before Rehearsal: Due to Emily's injury, I didn't focus much on the qualities of breath that need to be added to the piece, and just went ahead with testing the structuring of the first two song as to avoid as much contact improv and back-involving movement as possible. I videoed a test of the first song; I asked Tilly to do as much as possible but Emily to mark. It ended up taking less time than the song and with me pausing them before each section was meant to start, but with the full movement I think it's going to fit perfectly to the music. I was more concerned it would take more time than the music so it's a good outcome to have to slow some parts down. From rew...

  Rehearsal 7 Plan: back to back breathing warm up Create Start: Repetition exercise from starting position Recap everything we have Lucia coming in to watch My main goal for this rehearsal was to get a start to the piece so I can start structuring all of the choreography that we have made after that. So we started by doing our regular warm up, and I noted down a few movements that they did that I can refer back to if I'm looking for transitional choreography. Video of Improv Warm Up: Ideas from Improv: E twist lunge from standing, T twist backwards over back, E lower to floor from knees, forearms push, pushing leg out higher like pendulum until standing before they go into the starting section they’re creating, feeding arms up and down, head rolls, then go into movement I then set them off on a task to create the start. I had them start in one of the leaning positions we created last rehearsal and move from there, and every time they get stuck/don't know what to do, they had ...

  Rehearsal 6 Plan: Regular warm-up Finish interweaving duets Start the leaning section, create 8 more leans and choreograph from there Try out choreographed bits in the bigger space, Lights + photos of leaning bits To start with this rehearsal, we finished the duets we made last week from the train of thought materials. We added a bit onto the end of both and I'm really happy and reassured that the contact/duet material will get their relationship across to the audience. I employed a few choreographic devices in making the material feel like a symbiotic relationship; unison to show that they are in sync/sharing a mind, contact to show their reliance on each other and how they need the other to operate efficiently/effectively, canon to have a rippling effect between them, differing levels and modifying each other's movements to show duality, and keeping their differing dynamics evident in the work. There are moments in each duet where the movement styles blend together to show ...

Before this rehearsal, I struggled quite a bit in deciding where to go next. I did a lot of improvisations with the dancers in the previous rehearsal but without any set ways of creating material from that, so I knew I needed to go into this rehearsal with a more structured plan. I ended up going to watch one of the shows at Dance City called Surge and Sub:Version, which both gave me time to just sit and think about how I wanted to structure this rehearsal and gave me movement ideas surrounding quality, especially in regards to Tilly and being very linear. Rehearsal 5 Plan: • Conversation: Rehearsal Schedule, How are we feeling, Festival Updates • Warm-Up: Contact Improv, Starting back to back, breathing + pulse • Develop back rolls section, add start + end leaving on shoulder on knees, possibly can then move into a leaning sequence • Go back to movement quality writings, each create a new phrase about a train of thought, whatever is going through their head and follow it no matter h...

For this rehearsal, we were in studio 5, which is quite a small space, so I spent the time we had offering a lot of prompts for the dancers to improvise to. I'm starting to feel quite nervous about getting the piece done in time as I haven't been able to work on it much over my break due to work and illness, so I thought I'd start the first rehearsal of the term off with being very experimental and improvisational to hopefully spark some ideas for me. One perk of being in this studio, though, is its window into the social space at Dance City. With one of the key themes of this work being the contrast of internal and external perception, I wanted the dancers to get used to the idea of being perceived outside of a traditional theatre space, as you can see in a lot of the videos from this rehearsal that people around the building will have a look in. This is interesting for the dancers as it allows the process to be observed in the same way that the performance is, but also fo...

This ended up being a very short rehearsal as both year groups ended up having  1-1s during the rehearsal time we had booked out, so I spent the time with Emily on her solo parts we made in rehearsal 1. We developed the phrase, drawing out the contractions and softness and adding an extra turn to add weightlessness. I then asked her to keep repeating the phrase, starting to speed up but still moving with her breath to maintain contractions, almost like her heart rate is increasing and breathing is becoming more panicked, subsequently making the movement more frantic; this is something I want to play with in the emotional climax of the work, but I'm not sure which dancer or who's material I want to use yet. I'm leaning towards both cyclical phrases being repeated at consistent and erratic speeds/tempos, but only one of them working themselves to exhaustion, probably Tilly in terms of the sharp and linear nature of her movement style. Video of Emily's Phrase after further...

With my second rehearsal, I wanted to start exploring contact in more depth as it will be an integral factor in the relationship between the dancers and their psychological journey throughout the piece. I want to get the dancers used to working in tandem and relating to each other. Within movement quality I want to explore the factor of sharing weight and pressure and what it means for the dancers to move as one unit, and subsequently, what happens when that unit is split. This rehearsal served as a time to experiment with some floorwork and contact improvisation for myself to get a choreographic visual as to what the specific two dancers' relationship manifests itself as through movement. We started the session with improvisation, the dancers starting back-to-back and myself prompting them to move as one, listening to each other's needs and inviting movement derivative from the breath. There was a prompting of melting, communication, indulgence in intentions, letting movements...

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 mov...