Jessica Wright D.A.N.C.E. Weblog

Better late than never!

Hello and happy Easter to all of you! In fact, I should probably wish you all a Happy New Year while I’m at it - a cringe-worthy reminder of just how long overdue this entry is….. oops! Anyway, without wasting time on bad excuses I’ll get straight down to filling you in on some of the highs and lows of the past few months in the D.A.N.C.E. programme.

After months spent working in the studio, our recent trip to Paris was certainly a highlight, not least because it was our first performance together; and the fact that it took place at the Centre Pompidou didn’t go down badly either! For those of us who had never been there before it took some time to digest the impressiveness of this extraordinary building. From the exterior the whole thing looks as if its been turned inside out, with all the normally-concealed inner workings of the architecture proudly displayed and emphasised by their play-school colourfulness, whilst once inside the vast spaces and endless floors of modern art make even the Tate Modern seem small!

One Thursday each month the Centre Pompidou invites various performance artists to present something relating to a particular exhibition. Under the choreographic direction of Emilio Calcagno (from Ballet Preljocaj), we were located in the ‘Art and Cinema’ hallway and its surrounding rooms, all of which are linked by the common theme ‘the movement of images’ Over the period of an hour we each moved from room to room in a series of improvisation-based installations.

I think that one of the most interesting things for me was how different the rapport with the public was from any performance experience I’d had previously. Being in a gallery space breaks down the public/performer relationship that is created in any traditional stage/auditorium theatre setting. Simply by virtue of the fact that we no longer separate ourselves, but instead invite the public to share the performance space with us, the spectators become participants. The other factor which this non-traditional performance situation forces us to consider is that as dancers, we now share the space of an already existing piece of art, and it’s our job to see what and how we can add to it – quite a different dialogue from our usual understanding of a set which supports and enhances the primary action of the dance.

All of this was a great learning experience and the performance itself a whole lot of fun- with over 200 people coming and going and standing where they pleased. We quickly learnt the art of adaptability to be a valuable one for coping with an audience less than easy to predict!

We also got to take class with the Ballet Preljocaj and saw them perform Noces (great!) and Empty Moves (wasn’t such a fan) as well as finally having the chance to meet up with some of our fellow apprentices from the group based in Aix/Marseille, who turned out to be so much fun we had trouble keeping up! All this, plus the obligatory sight-seeing, crèpe eating and middle-of-the-night-almost-being-locked-out-of-the-hotel panicking made for an exciting and action-packed few days!

Our next performance opportunity will be in June, when we head for the south and once again hook up with the Marseille-based group for a week. The idea is to bring all 24 of us together along with our 4 directors (Forsythe, Flamand, McGregor and Preljocaj) and to have a kind of ‘review of the year’. Along side this, we each have a ‘carte blanche’ to present our own work (something I’ve successfully managed to avoid thinking about so far!!) as well as two performances of Michele Ann de May’s Contre 6 which we worked on with her during Feburary (and discovered the delightful joy of bruises in the process!) With live musicians to perform the score by her brother, the composer and film maker Thierry de May, it’s an exciting experience to look forward to.

Another high point was back in January when Wayne McGregor came to work with us for a few days. Intense is an understatement - we spent three days learning phrases faster than the speed of light, solving physical problems where we had to dissociate one side of the body from the other and generally sent ourselves crazy trying to make arms do what the legs did and vice versa whilst forcing sequences into obscure rhythms we’d never even dreamt of before! Whilst the workshops we’d had with his dancers previous to this were great, it’s not until you actually work with someone in person, see them in action and experience their energy first hand that you can understand the way they work. Despite being close to brain dead by the end, it was a hugely inspiring experience, giving the group the kick up the backside we needed and a wake-up call to the standards a company like Random expects its dancers to meet.

I seem to be making a habit of finishing up on a note of thanks, but here I go again. Wilkinson’s have very generously made a donation towards my expenses on the D.A.N.C.E. project. My grateful thanks to them as well as to the ongoing support of the Arts Council of England.