After re-arranging the space and making it feel like home for my time as artist in residence at Dance4 my time is up. I was very lucky to be able to have the space in the centre of town amongst the creative juices of the staff in the Dance4 office as they prepare for NottsDance 2011!! Myself and two other dance artists used the space and delved deep into some of my research: "what happens to the space when a designer and two trained dancers have to co-exist”? Well, that was the question that I went into the space with, hoping to touch on a few answers or even just observe what happened.
I am currently involved in two research projects one which looks at The Human Vs the Mannequin and the other With your Partner which will be an on going project here in Nottingham, which investigates the mechanical aspect of the making of lace manufactured here in Nottingham as well as the final product of lace itself.
I had split time frame with my dancers, so I worked one-on-one with Samantha Stonefield for four days then Kate Prosser joined us in the space for the last four days. This worked as I wanted both artists to respond on instinct and not to be affected by one another’s idea or take on the proposals brought to them by myself.
As artists we always enter a space with a plan or a mission but things change things, get real and, for once, I just went with it. As my time went with Sam went by I realised the way in which she was responding to the information was bringing something much more tactile than I anticipated, and time and process became involved as a part of the mixing pot. I must admit that it threw me at first as it wasn’t “on the list” (!!) and I had intended to arrive at a place with one dancer before the other arrived in two days time.
Time kept itself as a constant reminder as the light from day to night peered through the huge windows the studio. Grace finally made it to the studio and we had a one-to-one bringing her up to speed with my idea but making sure to pick my words carefully as I didn’t want her to be conditioned by my time in the space with Sam.
Hours passed with myself and Grace in the space warming up, responding, vogueing and making notes. Sam arrived and we all came together and to work further. For me I found it very interesting watching them both work with the same idea but approaching it from different perspectives. At times they both doubted themselves especially when Grace was vogueing to techno music and Sam was asking herself as many questions as she could possibly think of in response to the piece of lace she had hold of.
It was around that point I decided to keep them as two separate solo synopsis of work that I wish to develop in the future. Maybe I was making more work for myself but I realised that’s what I had been doing whether I realised or not.
Things began to shape up in space with fabric, lace, flour, pictures and movement and things were finally stating to make sense and feel right. However, with Grace I got to a point where I became obsessed with her getting tired as tasks got more difficult and I really just wanted to push her whilst she was in the mind frame. Each time I pushed the material from what she delivered it got more and more raw and she was creating and delivering material in the language I had intended to leave my time in the studio with. Naturally, what I was finding with tapping into the beauty of the tired I filtered gradually over to Samantha’s movement quality in the space and it changed the look and added to the essence without changing the trajectory too much.
My aim for time in the studio wasn’t to leave with something finished; it was really mainly to make two small synopsis of work so I could get an idea of how my ideas could look in space, as well as collaborating with others. At the end of our time in the space I opened up the studio for a mini idea sharing after giving both dancers one more instruction. They now had total freedom to change the space, the music and timing of what we had been investigating since the start. The control was in the artist’s hands to decide when we as the audience should enter the space. The performers choose how they ended their exploration with other people now in the space. I think I added this at the end purely for the element of surprise for myself and also to see how they responded to complete reverse in responsibility.
Others and myself were finally invited into each performance by the dance artist with the freedom to walk around the space and watch from where we chose. Watching it with a slightly fresher eye it made a difference and I was able to step out of the whole process and observe.
A small Q&A at the end gave us all a chance to think and feedback about perception, responsibility and performance.
Then time runs out as always!
Overall it was extremely great fun to be in the studio amongst great, hard-working people and creative goodness.
Stay up to date with both works at Studiofiftyfive@blogspot.com, on our blog studiofiftyfive.blogspot.com or at Nottingham’s Light Night on Friday 18 February at the Nottingham Playhouse 7.45 pm.
Dwayne Antony
Freelance Artist
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