WHAT DID I DO?
For three hours a day, over three weeks, I worked with nine Taiwanese dancers to create a short dance work, “The Absence of ToM”. My work was presented alongside works by the other eight international choreographers who also participated in the 2011-International Young Choreographers Project (2011-IYCP). There were two performances, for an audience attendance of over 600 people.
I received great feedback about the work from peers, audience members, arts workers and my dancers. Some of that feedback involved discussions about the possibilities for future teaching and choreographic opportunities at the Tsyoing Senior High School in 2012, which I am extremely excited about!
A question and answer forum, facilitated by the Co DirectorS of the 'International Young Choreographers Project’, Wang Yunyu and Miss Chou, at the end of the second performance, was an opportunity to talk about my work and my choreographic practice with the audience.
On a number of occasions we (the choreographers) were able to share our ideas and processes, debate over our thoughts and theories on contemporary arts, and develop international friendships with each other. This resulted in the exchanging of our networks and created opportunities for establishing future projects.
I was also fortunate enough to take some time to observe choreographic trends in Taiwan: I travelled to Taipei and sat in on a closed rehearsal of prominent (and good friend) independent choreographer Cheng Tsung-Lung’s new work ‘The Road’. A work that comprises of three amazing dancers who dance non-stop for 70 minutes! Even in the studio, this work had me mesmerised the entire time. This experience also presented me with an opportunity to talk to Cheng’s dancers and his Producer Pin-Hsiu, about contemporary dance, dance development in Taipei.
WHAT I’VE DISCOVERED?
Until recently my choreographic practice has mainly been involved in working with my collective of Brisbane based artists, Ryadan Jeavons and Liz Vilmanis (new collective we’ve formed as Prying Eye). These artists are familiar with my choreographic processes; we debate, discuss ideas and thoughts, explore new concepts and to take larger risks in our art, by trying to develop different methods of creating movement and content.
However, in Taiwan, I was alone, under strict time frame constrictions, with nine new dancers, who spoke very little or no English and knew nothing about my collaborative choreographic process. These dancers where used to a more ‘directorial’ approach to choreography, where they were told to ‘do what I say and practice the movement until it’s perfect’. I was constantly looking for ways to break that out of the dancers, to show them I wanted to work collaboratively. I wanted them to allow mistakes to happen, to evolve and change the movement and to focus with me on developing the concept I had in mind. But then I realised I couldn’t expect them to understand how my process worked, in just three weeks. I had to make adjustments to my process, to accommodate their needs as well. I found that my choreographic process with them changed dramatically. I had to take the time to develop formulas within my choreographic process, that would help them to understand where I was coming from and to help them feel safe in knowing that mistakes and failure where ok, during the creative development. Taking more time to lead them through some of my choreographic processes; they then became more confident to ask question and hence were willing to take more risks.
Participating in this project I’ve discovered that I have two choreographic processes, one that I’ve developed with the collective, Prying Eye, where the collaborative input is evenly shared, and the outcome is less of a concern and the original concept evolves and develops. And the second process where I use more familiar formulas and choreographic tools that I can impose on the dancers and relies on a clear concept that I can articulate to the dancers from the beginning. This process is important because it builds trust and enables the dancers to perform my work in an honest fashion, rather than imitating what I want from them.
Understanding this difference has strengthened my choreographic process, enabling me to adjust quickly to new circumstances and foreign environments, and to work under short time frames and with constraints. I now feel confident to work outside of my comfort zone successfully and still enjoy myself at the same time!
WHAT NEXT?
This project has helped me to lay the foundation for a bigger work exploring the concept of the “Absence of Theory of Mind”.
And in early 2012, using Brisbane based artists, I hope to revisit some of the choreographic material developed in Taiwan and to continue to develop my choreographic process through exploring ideas that I didn't have time to develop then.
OPENING NIGHT!
Here is a video document of the opening night performance. Unfortunately I feel it losses a lot of the content through its 2 dimensional translation, but it dose give an idea of the structure and style of the work.
