Dance4 Research Artist - Sara Giddens

Thursday 19 May 2011

Blog 7 - May 2011


And so I re-turn to a primary source of Andre Lepecki’s, to anthropologist and writer C Nadia Seremetakis 1994 tome The Senses Still ; through which she offers up a way of weaving the more personal, auto-biographical (auto-ethnographic) alongside the more obviously academic. Her writing demonstrates that only through knowing both is the unique connection in-between the two felt and made. I see a way that different kinds of writings, experiences can be woven through. Her very detailed (she describes in minute detail) and very sensory personal memories of everyday (but extra-ordinary/notable) experiences of e.g. tasting are employed as examples/exemplars, at once playful and poignant as she explores the relationship between language and meaning and the senses – and how that can all change within geographical regional boundaries where the meaning of shared words does not necessarily translate from one country to another, even one region to another (or I might say one context to another). I have had to order the book through the British Library.

“I treat this book with reverence, it feels so old. I wonder whether it will be as revealing as I want it to be. What secrets will it (be)hold? I have a very tactile relationship to it – I smooth over, dust off the hessian bound cover. It’s fraying at the edges (bleeding/pouring out). A regal purple. With the authors name and title on the spine almost invisible – worn away. Printed in 1994 – not that long ago. Taken out 22 times since 1997. It’s tattered and virtually nameless, title-less. It reminds me of past times, it makes me feel nostalgic. A child choosing a book off her grandmother’s shelf. I open it up the paper is worn too, thicker then the other books pages I have on my desk. Someone has marked it with a pencil – that irritates me – a great deal – I do not need to be drawn to the passages they found most interesting or useful (indicated by ticks and square brackets in the contents sections and under-linings, stars and repeats of words-not even comments repeats!)

I turn to the introduction: named the prologue (the theatricality of that word pleases me) written by C. Nadia Seremetakis – I’m skirting around the edges somehow, not daring to begin, I wonder why the C? I remember my last tutorial and the reminder to critique the writers that I have so enjoyed (exonerated), I remind myself that Andre Lepecki and Susan Melrose are not dance-makers, this sits uneasily, it feels too superior, I am replacing one hierarchical system with another.

I read on, Seremetakis’ book is full of felt sensations.

Blog 6 - April 2011



Polly Frame in Dream-Work by Bodies in Flight: nottdance 2009









I am reflecting upon my conversation with Simon (Ellis). Again from this self-reflexive place I currently inhabit I return to my particular uniqueness as a maker-spectator. I remember arriving to witness Simon’s work Leaving at the station, straight off a train, suitcase in tow and fresh from gazing out of the window at the passing landscapes, littered with portraits, and reflecting upon how becoming still was so well used in last nights opera. Of course they know how to employ stillness! Alighting with the sound of the wheels of my suitcase puncturing the stillness, the quietness of the performance, the performers held in embraces on the bridge. The last time I dwelt in this station was in the making of Dream-Work (our audio-performance walk) for nottdance 2009. My dance spilling out onto the streets, beyond its usual boundaries.

Looking back Dream Work was a site for placing stillness within the everyday and moving alongside the everyday (though never the same as…….the ordinary becomes extra-ordinary). Catching the everyday and attending to it. I loved making Dream Work in Nottingham, it was like being home. Being with Simon, dwelling in that site made me feel nostalgic. I luxuriate in the Greek translation. “I ache for……” (Seremetakis: 4).


C Nadia Seremetakis (ed) 1994 The Senses Still: Perception and memory as material culture in modernity. Boulder; Oxford : Westview Press

there’s a little thing going on: Sara Giddens in conversation with Simon Ellis

there’s a little thing going on ………………

Talking with Simon – 13th March 2011

Photographer: Simon Ellis


1st interview
Simon “I hope this is OK …..we don’t have too long but I can see you again after the next set.”

Sara “That’s fine. I intend to respond to the work rather than review it, to just dwell in and around the piece. Vida and Claire thought it would be good for us to meet up and have a dialogue around this piece as my research is focusing on stillness.”

Sara “So how many times have you made this work?”
Simon “We did it last year with a group of dancers actually. 8 dancers at St Pancreas in London and Claire saw it there. It was a commission by the Place and St Pancreas. Then I forgot about it really, and then Claire said would you like to do a version for Nott dance. It makes perfect sense, historically, in terms of what nott dance has been about. Things that are right on the edge or have fallen off the edge in terms of dance practices. This one was a little bit different, because most of these performers have little dance experience. So being in the rehearsal room was very different. I was curious what it would be like. When you’re involved in the embrace a lot goes on. Very basically it’s quite a long time, not that long, but you do start to get a bit sore and it’s also its very emotional. Embracing someone even if you don’t know them…..”

Sara “Or maybe particularly if you don’t know them?”

Simon “Maybe particularly if you don’t know them. In hindsight of course……I find that….well just how significant that act is to humans. We’re not supposed to be statues or anything like that. It’s not about trying to get money from….like buskers. But the guys here that aren’t trained they tend towards that. The idea of moving, doing movement that is not drawing attention is quite hard. Then if I think about my dance training….to scale back is quite difficult.”

Sara”Yes, sometimes when I have worked with dancers, working on the untraining of the bodies, the everyday-ness, has been more challenging than working with performers who are physically competent and aware and knowing but haven’t got those traditional techniques.”

Simon “Yeah, that’s right. Very complex. Those kinds of people would be ideal. Not that I think with this there needs to be a particular kind of person. For me there is something very pleasurable about the idea that it doesn’t need a certain kind of person. Indeed that was one of our ideas because they were all dancers last time they just tend to be a little more uniform, so it’s really lovely that its different ages ….I think that suits the ideas in the work much better.”

Sara”So how do you get them to ’become’ still then?”

Simon “Two weeks ago we had a two hour rehearsal…..with a group of about 5 from the city council and I spent the entire time getting them to a point where they would just be comfortable hugging someone they didn’t know. Then what happened, not surprisingly was that 3 of them, there were all these redundancies being made, so 3 of them have interviews on Monday (tomorrow) so they said we can’t do it. So none of this group were at that rehearsal. So we met yesterday ……laughs….that’s fine, so I really had no time so I said to them well we’re just going to do that. In a way it’s probably better….so what we did was we did a little task in pairs where we would say the things that were on our mind at the moment and at the end of it we had to try and do an awkward hug, what would an awkward hug feel like? There were lots of parodies…….everyone met everyone. It takes quite a long time maybe a whole hour.

I said this work involves two things embracing and waving………………it’s pretty casual and then we set up the exercise and it was interesting because basically we’re interested in each other, humans are interested in each other, how quickly it was for them to get to a point where they were engaging in this prolonged embrace, some of them knew each other but a lot didn’t and that engagement is deeply pleasurable for me. Then there’s the practical things; like how do you get your feet right so that it’s not awkward. So we made a couple of rules, like lets have our feet either side of each other one on the outside one on the inside, little things that people who are not working in body practices are not used to figuring out for themselves. …..so then they’d shift to the next person and have a conversation about the hug they just had so there’s a sense that if I have a conversation with someone who I didn’t just hug I might be able to say different things and it might inform how I hug this next person. Then it was 2 minutes, 3 minutes, then I tricked them into 4 minutes, then 5.”

Sara “Are you interested in those conversations the performers have, those dialogues?”

Simon “No …… yes. Well, I was trying to give them as much space as possible but because I was also involved I became aware……we’d check in together as a group. If there’s anything that they think is important or if there is anything that they’re not sure about then those conversations reveal a lot about what people are remembering.”

Sara “Where’s the inspiration from? Can you track that?”

Simon “That’s a very unusual experience. I was at the Place in 2009 and I was doing some research in the studio. Chris from The Place stopped me and said we’re applying for some money to do something at St Pancreas next year, are you interested in doing something? At first I thought of a technological thing, embedding screens into the floor but then I said I wasn’t interested in that as I do that a lot I wanted to do something that was right at the other end of the scale. I was thinking about this place, this zone, which I’ve experienced a lot in train stations and airports. Bob and Lee talk about it as a ‘no place.’ The zooming in on a place that is public and open. The significance of that. “

Sara “What’s really interesting as well is how active people are within that space.”

Simon “Yeah. We spent much longer at St Pancreas, so we spent a lot of time just watching. Also St Pancreas is such a different space to this. People notice immediately here whereas in St Pancreas…..wow….. (looks at watch) I need to go.”

Sara “Go.”


2nd interview
Train times tannoy in the background.
Interview cuts in to ……..
Sara “I had to have a practice I could do at 45 I love the way the kind of yoga I do is framed.”
Simon and I talking about yoga – yin yoga
Sara “Just letting go – gravity. It’s to do with fascia you just have to let go in order to be still to meditate.”

Sara “Can we talk about audience?
“My experience is that I had a narrative journey of it, in the sense that I was moving through a number of sections.”
Simon “Yes”
“How significant is it that D4 are giving out a card that says this is a piece in nott dance, connected to a festival? That frames it in a particular way doesn’t it?”

Simon “Yeah. It’s not my ideal situation it’s fair to say. But also I think there’s always those constraints, in understanding the realities of the situation. My idea was if people really show curiosity you might go, here’s a card, so you know, a year ago when we first started talking about it we had postcards……..I wanted the idea that even if its only 4 people in 6 hours I’m not really concerned with the number of people; if they want to know more they can take a card and go and look it upon the website and see a little bit more information…….. But how to manage that (the giving out or availability of that material). It’s been very tight. It’s not a complaint but…..
Even using the word performance is problematic.

1. Yin Yoga contains the ancient, and some say original, form of asana practice. The sages who pioneered the path of yoga used asanas to strengthen the body, so that they could sit for long periods in contemplative meditation. If you have ever sat for a long time with legs crossed, you know the hips and lower back need to be strong and open. The sensations you felt were deep in the connective tissues and the joints. These are the deep yin tissues of the body, relative to the more superficial yang tissues of muscles and skin. Yin Yoga opens up these deep, dense, rarely touched areas. www.yinyoga.com

Yin yoga is relaxing and therapeutic. Yin Yoga uses long holds of supported postures to release fascia. Fasica is the connective tissue that holds us together surrounding muscles and muscle cells, attaching muscles to bones (ligaments) and bones to bones (tendons).

Muscle fibers are red and can only contract. Fascia tissue is white and can only lengthen Fascia takes a long time to warm-up and changes slowly. Once lengthened the changes to fascia are long lasting.

http://www.michellemyhre.com/2010/12/relax-deeply-yin-yoga-sequence.html

Blog 5 - March 2011


I have been wondering how my research really relates to the generic title of this studentship: ‘activating audiences’. Within making, within my practice I think a lot about audiences but how is my focus now any different?

I keep reading and I keep making and I am wondering how these two activities are really going to resonate with one another and how in particular can I write through and out of my choreographic practice in a way that feels most encompassing, most multi-dimensional? How can we find and develop ways that speak of and alongside and out of the body? How can we, as makers and spectators, stand still for long enough to understand more about it?

When I am still, when I am practicing to be still, I return to moving, to moving in the world with a renewed/refreshed engagement with movement. Is this how I now feel as an audience member – seeing work anew?

So with these thoughts swilling around in my head I immerse myself in nott dance (2011) as an audience member or participant (not this time as an artist presenting work). In just one week I spend Wednesday evening with The Guests Company (performing Score with choreography by Yuval Pick), Thursday with Miguel Pereira and friends, Saturday I scoot away to catch my first ever opera (Wagner’s Parsifal staged by the ENO) and return, suitcase in tow, back to Nottingham Station to dwell in and upon Simon Ellis’ Leaving. Then a quick dash back to Lakeside to the ‘finale’ curated by Charles Lineham and a double bill; Dog Kennel Hill Project, The Odd Honesty Code and Silvia Gribaudi’s Wait.
and the realisation dawns that I am feeling and thinking and experiencing the work I am seeing in a different way.

Of course I don’t know now how I would have experienced these works before beginning this research and realize any number of other possibilities could have set me off on a different voyage but just for the moment here is this me.


Blog 4 - February 2011

Let Different Kinds of Bodies Slow You Down - She (ila) Gilbert in Constants by Bodies in Flight (1998).

I have been thinking about how different kinds of performers create spaces for stillness. My thoughts turn to Shela Gilbert, a performer I have worked with in a couple of Bodies in Flight shows. I think about Constants (a show concerned with memory and I feel nostalgic.The palpable presence of Sheila (a performer in her mid seventies) is my own overarching memory of this show: as I close my eyes I can still sense her. The frailty of her body, now more present than ever, a body beginning to fail. I note that I feel an acute awareness of my own body as I watch others.

Constants was named, was framed as a proximity work and the audience were placed on chairs in a spiral within the action. Implicated, as part of it.

She, as she likes to be called, begins and circles around us, casting huge shadows on the walls. She uses the walls and the backs of the audiences’ chairs for support.
The younger woman, Patricia skates in-between obliging us to choose where to look and even whether we will indeed move ourselves - to turn to see. She(ila)’s coming at us, from behind. Anti-clockwise. Against the flow. We catch glimpses. Watching through others, the others in our sight line. Being part of.
How near? How far? Right or left? In what relationship to me, to my body, in what kind of orientation?

And the monochrome of the 6 small video monitors arranged about the space. Hunks of metal amongst this flesh.
She(ila)’s on the move again, inwards.
Patricia moving quickly, jerkily, and fairly constantly.
In Dionysian bursts, explosions of energy – exorcising, expulsing, casting off.
Disobeying the borders.
She(ila) now travels in-between and we can see ourselves in the monitors caught in the action rather than deliberately framed.

Images and sounds captured and archived, ghosting through.
Thoughts of the absent other.
And far too much presence.
And then a cacophony of colour and a crazy babble through the monitors.
And quiet.
She’s reached the dead centre.
All that and then this stillness.

www.bodiesinflight.co.uk

Blog 3 - January 2011

The stillness I am drawn to is brimming over, overflowing with meaning and emptiness and richness and simplicity and complexity; imbued with meanings. It is demanding and demanding of us - as maker-spectators; giving us space-time. An opportunity to be filled by us, different parts and memories of us and ours and that too can be uncomfortable. Not silent, now not quiet, both and…….. I see and feel a great amount of activity being with and within stillness.

I am interested in how this still-ing links to opening up access to different ways of knowing. Can it become another way of exploring and negotiating the necessary inter-relationship in-between both dance-based practice and self and maker and audience-spectator? A time-space that, in most live performance, is shared. Stillness seems to become a vehicle for a kind of meditation, an in-between moment where we as makers-spectators are able to take stock.

I am developing a more self reflexive practice: a kind of dialectical process, which allows experience to inform thinking and thinking to inform experience.

My daily yoga based physical practice ultimately concerns itself with finding space-time to be still in the present (I can liken it to chaos theory always going deeper and deeper into each moment, ever present and an ever ongoing journey). The practice itself opens up different ways of knowing (feeling).
How to be still.
How can this body ever be still?
How can this body be?
Still the mind.

Blog 2 - December 2010

In Exhausting Dance (2006) Andre Lepecki argues that the use of stillness can challenge the very essence of dance itself:

“I suggest the perception of the stilling of movement as a threat to dance’s tomorrow indicates that any disrupting of dance’s flow- any choreographic questioning of dance’s identity as a being-in-flow – represents not just a localized disturbance of a critic’s capacity to enjoy dance, but, more relevantly, it performs a critical act of deep ontological impact. No wonder some perceive such an ontological convulsion as a betrayal: the betrayal of dance’s very essence and nature, of its signature, of its privileged domain. That is: the betrayal of the bind between dance and movement.” (Lepecki 2006: 1)

Dwelling in this possibility for a moment one can only wonder what is this stillness? A hush in the noise? Adding to a flow does not necessarily mean increase “to me it is dilution.” (Larkin 1964: 40).To be still particularly in dance is a risk, interrupting (or is it punctuating) the flow.

How can we be still? How does one come to be still? An apparent absence of movement on any large scale anyway, alongside a profundity of presence. To be acutely present in this still-ing. How do we sense ourselves in stillness? In what ways do we know ourselves and others in stillness? Maybe there is a connection here to a point of recognition for the audience-spectators – I see your body still and I know my own body in stillness, I remember, I may or may not be able to dance those steps you have just danced but I can be still. My stillness may be different from yours but it is mine and in this sense perhaps we are not so far away from dance, my dance and my movement is different from yours but it is still movement, it could still be called dance if I choose.


Lepecki, Andre (2006) Exhausting dance: performance and the politics of movement, London and New York: Routledge.

Larkin, Philip (1964) The Whitsun Weddings, London: Faber & Faber.

Blog 1 - November 2010

I begin through trying to find stillness in order to find focus; this is clearly a possible mantra for life as well as the beginning of a PHD. Everywhere I turn there is change and the current political climate affords little stasis. Focussing upon stillness provides a metaphorical, methodological, aesthetic and artistic frame from which to begin.

It is not surprising that I have felt unease as a choreographer to be drawn to focusing on stillness. To what can appear to be, at least on the surface, as the complete antithesis of the role, if it is seen as a putting together of movement and creating dances. Even more illuminating is the realisation that I am re-seeing dance as a way of moving from one moment, of stillness, to another.

I am finding writing much harder than I remember and I turn to stillness through intrigue and through uncertainty. I find myself drawn to moments of uncertainty, to the sure and certain knowledge of uncertainty. To not showing, not revealing and not turning out.

However, for me, there seems to be no hiding behind stillness, no possibility of being carried away in or distracted or disorientated by movement. This is not a casual and fleeting affaire. Still in-flow and in-between. From this microscopic place, located firmly within my own presently highly reflexive practice I lift my head and know anew. If only to re-see choreography in relation to composition, an arrangement in space-time, a placement, a framing and I look outwards. I leaf through all sorts of possibilities from library shelves and on-line catalogues and finally find places to begin, to begin to move alongside.