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Cathy Marston
'Scotland, Wales, USA, Scotland, Switzerland, Scotland, Home...' | |||||||
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She has been writing for Ballet.co since 2000 and still finds time to dance as well, currently with ARC.
Link to previous column.
Link to later column
Diary Oct 04 It’s been a rather long time since I last wrote… my excuse is that I’ve been running around the world and well… as I had my lap top with me it’s not a great one but better late than never no? In one sentence, I’ve been to Scotland, Wales, the States, Scotland, Switzerland, Scotland and now I’m home… I’ve just started dancing with Arc Dance Company so my body’s a bit sore to say the least but it’s good to be moving again and even better to see a bit more of my friends! My trip to the States was a bit of a work finding mission; I visited seven cities and lots of ballet companies and festivals to introduce myself and suss out the scene over there. I’ve written a diary in Dance Europe Magazine about it so won’t repeat myself here – but it was fantastic fun and will hopefully lead to more trips over there… What I will talk about here is my time in Scotland; I was lucky enough to be invited back to Cove Park Artist’s Retreat and again, had a wonderful time… ………………… Rather than the conservation park that was one of its previous lives, Cove Park is now a breeding ground for conversation. In my experience, you put interesting artists in the space together, give them a task – cook a lasagne for example – and while you may or may not end up with a tasty meal, you will most certainly have a stimulating discussion on the way. In my first retreat here, I had chosen to invite three collaborators, for three weeks, to work on one specific project I had in mind. This was very successful and I feel it was a completely worthwhile use of the time and space. On my second retreat, however, I wanted to try another approach. There have been several artists, with whom I have an interest in working, who I have wanted to get to know. Cove Park seemed like the ideal place to invite these people to just ‘get talking!’
I invited Jon Bausor, a theatre designer and regular collaborator of mine, and Peter Anderson, a dance filmmaker and video artist, to join me. I have had an idea for ballet forming in my head for a while inspired by the works of Ibsen and Munch. I have been dreaming about the themes that are woven throughout the writings and paintings of these artists and wanted to research these with Jon and Peter - using them as a starting point to discuss ways in which video projection can be integrated into regular theatre design – so the film is not just projected onto a screen at the back of the stage but rather works in tandem with solid objects to create an environment of constantly shifting qualities. I have tried to meld these two mediums in a dance work before – with considerable success – but the process had been difficult and not completely satisfying for me; as the artistic territory of the filmmaker and designer overlaps so much it is imperative that a close and friendly collaboration is found between them. In this previous case, I had regularly been made to act as an intermediary as they fought for their individual voices to be heard. This time, before finalising my artistic team I wanted to spend some time with Peter and Jon to see if they could both ‘get on’ and if their artistic visions could be entwined both with each other’s and my own. Cove Park is the perfect place to establish these things; on arrival in Glasgow we did a ‘group grocery shop’ that I remember fondly as the start of our collaboration! Both avid cooks and eaters, Jon and Peter sprang off down the aisles while I followed with the trolley – observing and hoping that the same mutual enthusiasm would extend into our ‘real work’ as well. It did, and over the six days we spent together I watched artistic ideas and opinions develop as we walked, ate and played! Not to say we didn’t directly focus on Ibsen at all; I had brought a number of books that we all read, and then wrote notes to each other and discussed at regular intervals. After a few days I realised that rather look at Ibsen’s themes in general, what I really wanted to do – although was initially nervous about – was create a full-length adaptation of his play, Ghosts. This was the play that had drawn me to him in the first place and the more I investigated his other plays the more Ghosts kept coming to haunt me! Having this specific narrative gave a direction to thoughts about the ways film can be worked into a dance space. I didn’t want to start putting our ideas in a chronological order, or structure a piece yet, as I wanted to involve Ed Kemp, a dramaturg and writer. Therefore we produced a list of thoughts, ideas, images and references that can be used as I work with Ed on the ‘book.’ Since my residency at Cove I have worked further on our ideas with Ed and proposed an hour length production to ROH2 that is now planned for September 2005 and will also include a commissioned score by Dave Maric.
Over the weekend I had invited Scottish composer, Stuart McRae, to join Jon and I. Stuart and I were introduced about two years ago and since that time have had a couple of short conversations about our own work and also about our mutual dislike of certain aspects of opera! We had both agreed that we dislike watching singers ‘stand’ and sing while the story is told only through the libretto. We decided that if we conceived an opera together the dance and music would share responsibility for the narrative thrust; the movement would convey inner emotions with freedom of images and metaphor, while the song carried the narration. Conversely, the thread of the story could shift to the dance while the singers and music would draw us inside the subject to deeper layers of meaning. Over the three days we spent at Cove we spent time listening and watching each other’s work – and talking about our own interests and preoccupations. This led very naturally into conversations about areas of mutual concern and how we would be interest to collaborate. Finally, we decided to put pen to paper and, staring across the Loch, wondered what sort of subject would work for our ‘Dance-Theatre-Opera’. We knew it should be a one act, chamber piece and we were both keen on a mythological idea. More than that I can’t explain – an idea that I love seemed to fly in on the wind. It’s what happens at Cove Park! It’s based on the story of Echo and Narcissus and I won’t describe any more than that now – but look out for it!
For the second week of my stay I had invited a filmmaker, Margaret Williams, who had filmed an evening of my work at the Linbury Studio Theatre for the BBC earlier this year. We had enjoyed collaborating and were extremely happy to be asked by Jan Younghusband of Channel Four if we would like to propose her some ideas for further work together! Jan suggested that, as I had not made dance for the camera before we should initially think about four three-minute films that could be show separately or together and that this would hopefully lead on to longer works. As Margaret and I are always incredibly busy in London it had been impossible to meet up for any length of time to work quietly on these ideas so when I suggested she come to Cove Park she was delighted. I also invited a collaborator of hers who often works in video art and editing – Nick Herret. He had agreed to come and teach us basic editing on Final Cut Pro as well as join in with our brainstorming. My final guest was composer, Dave Maric. I had choreographed a piece of his – Broken Fiction – last October, and when we met for the first time at the premiere discovered that he was very keen to work closely with dance and was interested in collaborating with me. Again, we had not found the moment to get together to discuss this more, but I had listened to more of his music and was seriously considering him for the composition of my ‘Ibsen Project.’ His work is extremely sophisticated rhythmically but also creates theatrical atmospheres and has sensitivity that I describe as ‘heart’. I had wanted to bring him here with Jon and Peter but he was on tour, so instead I thought I’d see how he and Margaret got along. In the back of my mind I also thought that his work could work very well in film so perhaps both projects could involve him! Margaret and I had briefly discussed an idea of making our ‘shorts’ in Cuba. We were both inspired by the poetry of the place – it’s geography, history and people. We were also keen to go before Castro dies. Throughout the week we spent a couple of ours each day working on editing, looking at technical aspects to dance film and discussing the qualities of my choreography that could be treated well by viewing them through the lens. We then went for walks, talked Cuba, read about Cuba and scribbled ideas. Dave and Margaret got to know and respect each other’s work very much – as I had expected. His background in jazz and world music also makes him ideal as a composer for this project in which we don’t want to imitate Cuban art but rather reflect what we see and hear from an informed but foreign view-point. I attach our ‘proposal’ to Channel Four. Jan loved our ideas and although we are still seeking ‘top-up’ funding as the budget runs slightly over what Channel Four can allocate the particular slot, we are confident that our plans to go to Cuba in November will go ahead.
As I was leaving Cove Park in July, Julian told me that there was a week in September in which the ‘pods’ were still free. If it would be useful I could come up again! I asked Dave Maric if he would like to join me again as I had decided to ask him to collaborate with me on Ghosts but we had not had time to talk much about it yet. He was delighted at the prospect to make another visit to Cove. In the meantime I went to the USA on a trip that I had arranged to introduce myself to various ballet company directors as well as theatre producers and presenters. My last stop was Philadelphia where I visited the Pennsylvania Ballet but also two artists – Amanda Miller - a choreographer and Tobin Rothlien – a video artist, who direct a company called Phrenic New Ballet. Initially an offshoot of the ballet company, Phrenic’s mission has a lot in common with my own and we were very excited to talk and share experiences and ideas. I had been introduced to them by Bill Bissell – the director of Dance Advance which is a charity linked to the Pew Charitable Trust in Philadelphia. Bill was hosting my stay, and when I told him about Cove Park where I was returning the following week he immediately offered to fund a visit for Amanda and Tobin to join me! So the next week I found myself back in Cove with Dave, Amanda and Tobin. I was also keen to spend time with Hugh Watt – a video artist in residence at Cove for three months who I had met on my last visit but not been able to spend extended time with because of my other visitors. In this visit I worked with him and Amanda on ideas for a dance/video installation. Amanda and I took it in turns to be ‘a dancer’ while Hugh tried various ways of projecting on us! This was all very basic as we would need much more space and equipment to investigate our ideas thoroughly but our interest has been pricked and we would like to find an opportunity to work together further. In this week I spent time talking Ghosts with Dave as planned and also getting to know Amanda and Tobin. They are in a position to be able to seek funding to invite choreographers to work with their company from abroad but had recently been let down by someone from the UK who backed out of his contract at the last minute. We agreed that without a certain degree of acquaintance and trust it is difficult to organise long distance collaborations – particularly ones that embrace a certain degree of experimentation. I think discussing artistic ideas/agendas and spending time with them in Cove has allowed certain seeds to be sown, and the talks we were having about cross continent collaboration could indeed grown to be fruitful in the future. | ||||||||
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