Third day, the middle of the week, only two remaining and Friday already planned with Shibari in the park and later in the afternoon Gala and I dealing with process/unprocess again.
I taught again this morning, and moved from that directly into working on these ideas I’ve been toying with. I found myself a little unsatisfied, and wonder if this is partly because some of these things I’ve been messing around with since I first started making work, and having had a break from making, this return has left me somewhat disinterested in my previous methods. It feels peculiar to abandon them; they are, after all perfectly adequate for making movement, and I could spend decades on them – but it seems more interesting, more useful to do something unknown, to start again. Perhaps it is the obsession with the result that detracts from the experimenting.
No Michael today, so straight to Gala and ropes. These things have a quietly obsessive quality – once they become a thing of interest, they make a habit of turning up. Michael and Dasniya had a long trial, followed by Gala and I, more on the floor though. Some things worked brilliantly, others didn’t. Often it turns out that what really is captivating is neither attempts at movement, nor attempts at rope work, as if both are extraneous to the task.
Dasniya finished, working more on the duo, and also brought in ropes – many ropes. It made sense of what she was doing somehow. Often I think that sets, lights, costumes and other decoration on top of the movement is a disguise and a deceit, hiding the lack within the choreography. I was happily surprised then to see for once that this isn’t always the case, and that something potentially cheap (it looked very close to Spartacus at times, as we were tying), could instead raise the movement to a completely new place.
I’ve been wondering in all this what I want to do in making theatre, or dance. It feels necessary to start again somehow … maybe to try tomorrow.
