It's been awhile! But not due to lack of projects. I have a lot to catch you up on actually so you'll be hearing from me a bit more coming up to make up for the silence.
The video above is a rehearsal for an upcoming show with the company Ela Fala who I started dancing with back in November. Here's a little background on the process that led to what you are seeing.
First we started off just working with a single movement. Standing face to face with a partner we would both sit backwards at the same time and take turns catching the other by the neck or shoulder. We experimented with this for quite awhile just getting the feeling of it, the timing, finding the best place to hold on and working to fulling give our weight to our partner. From there we evolved the phrase by adding intention - for example, one partner would lightly push the other which would cause them to fall back instead of us both falling back intentionally and in unison. Or we would experiment with not knowing who was going to fall or catch, so the first person who started falling back was the one who was caught and the other person would have to quickly respond to make sure they didn't fall. Next we started to experiment with how to escape from the weight sharing position once we arrived. If you were being held by the neck perhaps you would duck under the persons hand and try to get away. Or maybe you would reach to them to help pull yourself back to standing. If you watch closely you will see these variations.
The other thing to know about what you're watching is that it is three different phrases created by three different couples that are strung together here to create a longer phrase. About every 30 seconds you will see us reset (come back to facing one another) to start the new phrase. While originally each phrase had a dramatically different feel - the first was flowy and gentle while the second was aggressive and jarring - once we strung them together the director played music for us to dance to, so it blended the tone of each to a more unified feeling.
A pretty common statistic is that it take an hour of rehearsal to come up with one minute of choreography. Of course we could just come up with any old movement faster than that, but if you really want to explore an idea, it take a lot of time and experimentation. In this instance we are exploring how we are each influenced by others and the stories they carry around with them.
Stay tuned for more updates on other projects. Lots coming your way this month!