We just spent a happy, busy and thought provoking week together in residency at Yorkshire Dance, here's what we got up to:
What was the purpose of the residency for you?
Daliah: To continue researching music and dance improvisation in performance and aim towards delivering a workshop as our final residency sharing.
Marie: Keep developing skills and methods for improvisation. Looking into developing workshops incorporating tasks/exercises that were directed more towards musicians. Re-connecting as a group for upcoming performances.
Seth: To continue to develop the techniques and language of our group improvisation.
Rachel: To develop our work together more, to become more familiar and comfortable with each other and therefore more able and willing to be brave, daring and to negotiate unfamiliar terrain together, particularly in performance.
Oli: To continue our exploration of improvisation as a mode of expression across the disciplines of dance and music and to develop a way to pass on the exercises we use to inform our practice to others.
How did you work in the residency and what were your approaches?
Daliah: To start with, we allocated a person “in charge” for each day of our residency, who would come prepared with ideas for a warm up as well as ideas to be explored for the day. As a result, we worked on quite a few new ideas and areas we had not yet explored fully. It felt like a balanced approach and exposed and injected the week with a different sense of dynamics.
Marie: As a collective we like to emphasise that we have equal responsibility of the work load in terms of admin but also in terms of creative input. The way we divided the week up ensured that we all had a say in how we would like the group to develop. We each got the chance to practise delivering workshops and to try new ideas and finally it meant that we experienced four other individual’s different approaches to improvising and teaching.
Rachel: We explored physical tasks to warm up and tune in physically with each other. For example, physical listening exercises, and connecting your partner’s body to your own contact with the floor through a mobile responsive centre. We improvised blindfolded. We tried out the improvisation scores ‘Only Now’ and ‘Now and Again’. We took time to reflect and evaluate.
Seth: We worked through a series of exercises for free improvising musicians, and then applied the same techniques to movement and dance. The pieces were a combination of performance piece, game, and exercise, and lead us in some surprising and useful directions.
Oli: In an attempt to develop the subconscious aspect of improvisation and our listening skills we did an improvised music exercise from John Stevens 'Search and Reflect' that required intense listening and automatic singing. We then translated this into movement and onto instruments.
What were the most important things you learnt from the residency?
Marie: The most important thing I learnt during this residency was how to articulate what we do in the collective and how to be more reflective and critical of my practice.
Daliah: We investigated rhythm a little further and delved deeper into the territory of textures. When advertising our workshop, we were particularly concerned with making the wording of the poster as accessible as possible for non-movers and attract music students from LCM.
Seth: I have learned about incorporating rhythm in our practise.
Oli: The incredible influence a simple rhythm can have on an improvisation - the importance of rhythm in improvisation. The value of exploring a broad range of approaches for improvisation.
Rachel: Learning how five people can successfully co-lead a workshop. Discovering the positive impact and context that reading about improvisation can have on my practice.
How did this residency impact on the overall development of your artistic practice?
Rachel: Answering Marie’s question ‘What do you enjoy about improvisation?’ and reading other people’s responses was a really valuable experience for me. I feel more prepared and confident to be able to grasp opportunities to perform.
Oli: I have gained many new workshop ideas and new ways of approaching the study of my art.
Daliah: Prepare for upcoming performances in July and gain increased confidence and complexity in our delivery.
Seth: Furthered the group dynamic, in that we explored new ways of improvising together, learned new forms, and developed our language.
Marie: By being able to maintain my improvisation practice at an intensity that a residency like this provides, I feel I get equipped with high standards of improvisation and creative skills that I meet in the professional dance world. It means that I can make a choice to continue my practice as a dance artist and contribute with my experience and knowledge to a wider community.
What was the purpose of the residency for you?
Daliah: To continue researching music and dance improvisation in performance and aim towards delivering a workshop as our final residency sharing.
Marie: Keep developing skills and methods for improvisation. Looking into developing workshops incorporating tasks/exercises that were directed more towards musicians. Re-connecting as a group for upcoming performances.
Seth: To continue to develop the techniques and language of our group improvisation.
Rachel: To develop our work together more, to become more familiar and comfortable with each other and therefore more able and willing to be brave, daring and to negotiate unfamiliar terrain together, particularly in performance.
Oli: To continue our exploration of improvisation as a mode of expression across the disciplines of dance and music and to develop a way to pass on the exercises we use to inform our practice to others.
How did you work in the residency and what were your approaches?
Daliah: To start with, we allocated a person “in charge” for each day of our residency, who would come prepared with ideas for a warm up as well as ideas to be explored for the day. As a result, we worked on quite a few new ideas and areas we had not yet explored fully. It felt like a balanced approach and exposed and injected the week with a different sense of dynamics.
Marie: As a collective we like to emphasise that we have equal responsibility of the work load in terms of admin but also in terms of creative input. The way we divided the week up ensured that we all had a say in how we would like the group to develop. We each got the chance to practise delivering workshops and to try new ideas and finally it meant that we experienced four other individual’s different approaches to improvising and teaching.
Rachel: We explored physical tasks to warm up and tune in physically with each other. For example, physical listening exercises, and connecting your partner’s body to your own contact with the floor through a mobile responsive centre. We improvised blindfolded. We tried out the improvisation scores ‘Only Now’ and ‘Now and Again’. We took time to reflect and evaluate.
Seth: We worked through a series of exercises for free improvising musicians, and then applied the same techniques to movement and dance. The pieces were a combination of performance piece, game, and exercise, and lead us in some surprising and useful directions.
Oli: In an attempt to develop the subconscious aspect of improvisation and our listening skills we did an improvised music exercise from John Stevens 'Search and Reflect' that required intense listening and automatic singing. We then translated this into movement and onto instruments.
What were the most important things you learnt from the residency?
Marie: The most important thing I learnt during this residency was how to articulate what we do in the collective and how to be more reflective and critical of my practice.
Daliah: We investigated rhythm a little further and delved deeper into the territory of textures. When advertising our workshop, we were particularly concerned with making the wording of the poster as accessible as possible for non-movers and attract music students from LCM.
Seth: I have learned about incorporating rhythm in our practise.
Oli: The incredible influence a simple rhythm can have on an improvisation - the importance of rhythm in improvisation. The value of exploring a broad range of approaches for improvisation.
Rachel: Learning how five people can successfully co-lead a workshop. Discovering the positive impact and context that reading about improvisation can have on my practice.
How did this residency impact on the overall development of your artistic practice?
Rachel: Answering Marie’s question ‘What do you enjoy about improvisation?’ and reading other people’s responses was a really valuable experience for me. I feel more prepared and confident to be able to grasp opportunities to perform.
Oli: I have gained many new workshop ideas and new ways of approaching the study of my art.
Daliah: Prepare for upcoming performances in July and gain increased confidence and complexity in our delivery.
Seth: Furthered the group dynamic, in that we explored new ways of improvising together, learned new forms, and developed our language.
Marie: By being able to maintain my improvisation practice at an intensity that a residency like this provides, I feel I get equipped with high standards of improvisation and creative skills that I meet in the professional dance world. It means that I can make a choice to continue my practice as a dance artist and contribute with my experience and knowledge to a wider community.