Remaking the World – Choreographic Workshop -- 

 

A choreographic workshop especially for people who are already playing with ideas looking at/thinking about

 

Materials: Paper, pens, markers, crayons, music and way to play it, materials for building environment, materials for building costumes, place to go out and look in the world.

 

1. Your dream dance – working in partners (10-15 minutes)

• Begin by drawing or writing for 30 seconds about the dream dance you are imagining
• In 60 seconds tell someone about what you are making right now or what you dream of making next
• They repeat back to you in 30 seconds what they heard you say
• You say back to them what they are missing or what you want to add and clarify.
• They ask you questions like:

                                               i.     Where does the piece happen?

                                             ii.     What does it taste like?

                                            iii.     How will it make the audience feel?

                                            iv.     When you are performing it how do you feel

                                             v.     In your wildest imagination what happens or what does it look like?

                                            vi.     In sky is the limit world who/what is the cast?

                                          vii.     What does it sound like?

                                         viii.     Draw this piece

• They share their thoughts

                                               i.     This makes me think of

                                             ii.     This makes me remember

                                            iii.     When you talk I picture

 2. How do you Begin (30 min -- 10 briainstor 10 work 10 show )

• Discussion of how we often begin a dance
• Putting opening ideas in a bowl
• Taking someone else’s jumping off point and making from that
• Some of the ways I might begin

                                               i.     With a piece of music

                                             ii.     movement metaphor for an idea that comes up in research

                                            iii.     Making a phrase that feels good or how I am feeling that day and then manipulating it later

                                            iv.     With an improvisation based around a certain idea i.e. this dance is about disorientation – how can I disorient myself with movement

                                             v.     With a piece of text

                                            vi.     With a map of the space or a plan for what can happen inside it

                                          vii.     By creating a costume or a character

                                         viii.     By making a sound score

                                            ix.     By giving myself a series of tasks

                                              x.     By replicating something that I see in the world around me – a picture, a natural process, etc.

                                            xi.     By describing the dance I want to make

                                           xii.     By making a pathway then filling it in

                                         xiii.     By creating an environment for the dance to happen inside of

                                         xiv.     By making a ritual

                                           xv.     By having a conversation

• Put these ways of beginning into a bowl and draw a beginning (or two) from the bowl
• Work for 15 minutes
• Share what you’ve made
• What do we think this dance could be about? – Try to erase what we already know about its origins

                                              i.     This dance makes me think of…

                                             ii.     I see…

                                            iii.     It seems to be about…

                                            iv.     This dance seems to want to….

                                             v.     This dance’s intention seems to be….

 

3. Hidden Intentions -- (20 min)

 

• Pick an intention that someone has named and turn up the volume on that
• Remake this dance trying to draw out and emphasize the intention that someone has suggested for this dance
• Work for 10 minutes
• Share our dances with the new turned up intention

 

4. 30 second make overs – Celebrity Dance  ---- (10 min)

•  Make over your dance to emphasize line/shape
• Make over your dance to emphasize spatial pattern and design
• Make over your dance so that your intention is 1000% clear
• Make over your dance so we see the character and narrative of the performers
• Allow us to see the political ramifications of your dance
• Perform the dance but obscure or make obvious who you are within it
• Distil your dance to its most fundamental element and just perform that
• Work on these assignments privately then share one that seemed most interesting to you

 

5. Incorporating the absurd/accidental – Complicating the mix (10 min)

Walking out into the world - take a walk and look for inspiration you can incorporate

i. Frame – tere O’connor looking exercise - watch the world for 2 min, imagining it is a dance with a proscenium frame and a beginning, middle, and end

ii. Collecting gesture - Collect a gesture from someone you see in the world

iii. Fragment of text - Collect a word of phrase from someone you hear in the world 

Incorporate this outside information into what you have made so far

 

6. At the end return to your dream dance – how does the thing you’ve made reflect/subvert that? (10 min)

• Come back to it and remake it as you’d with using any element that you want.
• Or we can even work to make one larger piece out of all we’ve made***
• Or you can select a director to work with you from all the versions that you’ve made and make a final piece out of it

 

 

 

REMAKING THE WORLD – HOW TO BEGIN A DANCE

 

• Create a place in which your dance can happen

 

• Start with a Costume

 

• Improvisation

 

• A piece of music or what is the soundtrack for this dance

 

• Draw pictures of the scenes

 

• Use movement as a metaphor for what you are exploring

 

• Create a ritual

 

• Do what feels good

 

• Writing – automatic writing, poems, short stories

 

• Begin with a map of what you are creating

 

• Take images from daily life

 

• Begin from a specific location in the space

 

• Tune in to shadow and color and light

 

• Create from stories, myths, legends

 

• Look for a hole to fill – what’s missing

 

• Give yourself a series of tasks

 

• Narrate your decisions