Initial Proposal 

With a groups of seven participants  I lead a three days  workshop titled Reality Bites. It was the first time I embarked on this process which have capsulated concerns I carry from my choreographic work and my practice as a performer. 

The idea of Reality Bites  is to link between composition and performance, and to look into how the process of generating, exploring, developing and editing of material, and the performance of it correlate. In my opinion the question how a sequence, a score or a scene should be performed is as important as other aspects concerning the work such as modes of embodiment, the meaning it attempts to convey or the display of a signature or style of the maker. In the context of the discipline of performing arts, the actual act of performance conditions all other aspects. In Reality Bites I propose that instead of approaching performance at the the final stage of the creation process, when normally the work is articulated towards its public exposure, to  look at the act performance from the very start and throughout the making process.  

The working method intended was to allow the participants to examine their work directly in the context of performing it during few sessions: 

As a point of departure, the participants will to explore and develop movement material following different tasks inspired by methods which I have applied in the course of making my own work . This material was intended to be made either in a body of a duet or a bigger group. 

At the end of the first, short working session, the participants will perform a first draft of their composition infront of their colleagues. Issues concerning the 'performance' such as the relationship with the public, relation with the other performers, presence, the gaze and duration, will be addressed in the feedback. 

Following the feedback the participants will develop their composition further, already applying aspects of performance into the making process. 

When time permits this process will be repeated in a body of one, meaning  all participants will work on their own, on a solo task.  

Process

The process unfolded following the initial plan, yet there was also space and attention for interests and findings that emerged in the context of the practice:

Day 1 

After "a getting to know each other" conversation and an introduction of the idea of the workshop, the participants were divided into working groups around different tasks such as a duet work around "Nasty - Nice", a state of relation which is both friendly and hostile  from 'couple-like'/2006, in collaboration with Ugo Dehaes) and group work exploring the physical condition of being physically attached to each other by "Interlocked -hands" (from 'Territory'/2004). 

After about 30 minutes work the first performance took place. As the the material was still very new to the participants the exploration process continued in the frame of performing it, immediately bringing on to the surface a variety of concerns and interests: For example, 'Nasty-Nice' presented the question of authenticity - experiencing of a state verses commenting or acting it out. 

How to work further on this proposal further - is it going to become a representation of the Nasty-Nice tension/relation, or should the development of the material require other conditions for the material to emerge, out of the actual embodiment of the state? 

 "Interlocked Hands' proposed questions concerning the gaze. As the task asks the participants to tune into the happening among themselves, which can turn the situation into a closed one, how to practice this interaction having the question of the gaze in mind? 

Other questions became important for the development of this material - what brought the group together, what 'made' them interlock their hands and what keeps them together?

Day 2

The participants embarked on a second session of work, processing the feedback from the previous day. A second performance took place, this time in front of an audience which included spectators who did not take part in the worksop. The guests spectator were invited to offer feedback on the performance having in mind the question 'what if this presentation was a real performance…? Aspects concerning the usage of speech (who are the performers addressing when speech is becoming part of the situation?), the level of engagement and presence, as well as issues from the performance of the previous day became also notable from the feedback of the visitors. 

After our guests left , in order to facilitate a second performative attempt, I articulated a general grid of relations among the performers and between the performers and the public: 

I Ignoring or avoiding contact with the audience 

II Allowing the public to watched 

III Including or acknowledgin the spectators 

IV Addressing the public 

V Interaction, positioning the public as an active participator in the performance. 

Adding to that, I presented the difference between 'making something happen' and 'allowing something to happen' as an approach for the development and exploration of material in a performative context.

The participants where invited to explore the grid in short sessions of performative acts. The question in mind was about how the attending to the different relations and the transformation between them  informed both the exploration, and the construction of the material. At the end of the experiment we held an internal feedback session to conclude that phase of the process, as the focus of the following day shifted to solo work. 

Day 3

Acknowledging the very broad scale of the relation-grid, the third day evolved around individual exploration. The participants were invited to develop the grid and add their own definitions.  The first proposal was to perform a singular action, with (or without) an object, to practice either one mode of relation, or a shift from one mode to another. Proceeding from there, the second proposal was to perform 'the opposite'. The participants were invited to interpret what 'the opposite' meant for each one of them and to incorporate their findings into their solo. The third task was to perform the mode of relation from 'the opposite' solo without an action, while standing, facing the audience from a pretty short distance.

The final task  was to recall the mode of relation which was practiced in the previous round and to allow movement to emerge out of that experience. 

In the feedback which concluded the session and the workshop the participants exchanged about their experience both as performers and as public. The solo work amplified especially the point of self-judgment which became an obstacle for some of the participants to tune into the experience of watching and be watched; bare and still, before and beyond movement, open for motion to unveil their being rather than disguise them. It was agreed by all that the solo work was a taste of a practice that demands much more time and attention in order to be properly  integrated into a choreographic work, and possibly become the work itself. Yet, even as a 'one of' attempt, the solo-sessions were a fine way to wrap-up the (instant) process which the workshop attempted to convey.