Headlines from Damaris’ notes for the first 6 weeks.
Week 1
Naming some arising mythologies: The wave sound (MW).
Proud Mary (KK), the laughing goose on it’s back (all),
The questions beneath the question (BD)
The culture gets to know each other - sees each other - finds out who we are.
How to re-call images, revisit elements. Repetition. Retrieval of gestures and movements can create rest.
Language/text. Direct address to audience grabs the eye. Text is both a vibration and also words we hear. When performed in a solo we all hear and also don’t exactly hear it. We are talking to each other. Sometimes it’s indirect, almost subversive, and sometimes it’s direct. Two different practices with different outcomes of how the ensemble is influenced.
Working with refining herding/flocking. The image of swarm. What’s the difference? What supports a unity that is not unison? What is one-mind-on-the-spot?
The role of a coach.
Week 2
Ongoing conversation about language/talking in quadrant solos. How does hearing a text affect the other solos? A monologue, then echos in the other quadrants.
Very quickly it doesn’t feel like solos any more. Feel permeable and influenced. Is still more personal than if in a group improv.
What is the difference between a value and an aesthetic?
What is the line between relaxation and rigor?
Image from summer ’dance.art.lab’: solo quads, then invited entrances and exits. The solo maintained the lead and the one entering did so with allegiance to the soloist.
Long discussion about how to perceive both solo space and the space as a whole. Not denying the presence and influence of the others. However, continuing to re-establish your solo/individuated space. Not giving in to desire to merge....a kind of ‘desolate’ quality of boycotting that impulse to maintain integrity. How to maintain communication of the 4 quadrants and also allow for unplanned connections? Some place in-between too tight a definition and too loose. Train in our sensitivity to allow the form to evolve/morph. What makes the culture stay alive/awake? Stay local in the quad and trust the global?
Where is the place/event/gesture we as an organism are craving?
What is the laughter? A vibrational release, a yield, choiceless, you are no longer independent - you can’t help yourself. You yield to it because it’s what we do. Important to acknowledge that not everyone has this experience. How yield? Perhaps smile, share more small form, don’t fake it, but softly yield.
` The ensemble is becoming it’s own leader.
HOMEWORK: Study flocks, herds, swarms.
Week 3
The solo Quadrants are separate worlds. Distinct yet part of a larger whole. When synchronicity happens trust it. Don’t strategize it. No ‘subconscious gossip’ principle (from CTR guidelines). Let influence across quadrants surprise you.
Be clear about saying ‘beginning/end’. Sometimes ‘middle’ call happens, sometimes not. These calls are generous to each other and to the watchers. Allows others to see intentions clearly.
Breaking rules. What is it? An adaption? A new form appearing? What space is asking for right now? An urge/impulse? A new piece of language that wants to enter the culture? What is our way of harmonizing with the new?
A ripple effect as the new action enters and permeates the old ways.
Precision in quadrant form: enter from sides. Let each quadrant be a world that develops without forceful trespassing. Gentle entering. Respectful.
If the intention is to raise the level of attention for us and for the viewers what supports that?
We are coming together to create a culture that shares our creative voice with others. There is the time it takes inside our process and also there is the time it takes to understand/receive by the viewers. The tension here....
Coaching solos. A bridge to directing. What is the fallout from this exercise? How does it inform us?
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