July 25 - July 29th, 2005
10am - 12pm
Dance for me, as a
spectator or a performer is most alive when it combines the
specificity and structure of a personal choreographic voice with the
visible individuality of the performers - not by disregarding the
choreography but by somehow working just inside the parameters.
For this week of teaching Mark will provide ideas for exploring
movement vocabularies where the frame is precise but the space within
it, vast. For the purposes of the workshop the material generated
will take the form of de/re-fining improvised solo tasks (although the
results could be usefully applied to many choreographic processes).
The complexity, virtuosity or simplicity of the response will depend
on the dancer's interpretation plus some teacher/group feedback.
Mark has worked with, among others - Rosas, where phrase material was,
at that time, devised by the dancers, guided and (mercilessly) edited
by Anne-Teresa De Keersmaeker. ZOO, where Thomas Hauert provides
immaculate tasks that the performers collectively develop, choosing
the appropriateness of an individual or group response. And Deborah
Hay, where impossible questions are asked and the attempt‚ to answer
them is the final work. In their search for vocabulary these artists
have at least a connecting thread, that of the individual performer's
contribution within a precisely understood frame and that's what
interests me.
