Choreographing on Commotions

I've just spent the last week end in Manchester choreographing on a youth dance company called "Commotions". The company has about 12 members ranging from 12 to 18 years old. It is a very nice non professional company with varying dance abilities.

I was asked to come and create a 6 minutes piece on the subject of "secret", in two days. Sadly the lack of founding doesn't allow for more time but I thought that it would be a great challenge. Being a choreographer is still something new to me as I am more of a dancer and teacher. I started planning the work about two weeks before going to Manchester, mainly by making lots of material. By material I mean dance phrases. I also decided on what the music would be and I created a rough overall structure. Although the time with the company was short I also wanted to make sure that some of the material would come from the dancers.

I arrived on the Saturday morning and we got started right away. First I taught a big chunk of movement and then we started playing with the rough overall structure. I wanted to see if some of my structural ideas would work. When the dancers had done enough learning we moved on to a creative task. The task was to pair up and play with the idea of:
- one of them walking and staggering and occasionally reaching with one arm. As if lost or in need of help.
- the other one grabs the arm and pulls it. Playing with pull and push.

I don't think I explained it very well but they still came up with some great stuff. I should have broken it down a bit more and made the first instructions more physical. We would then have been able to move on to a more conceptual idea.
For the rest of the day we worked on setting each of these duets and we played with the general structure of the piece.

The following day we started by running through what we had done the day before. Then we carried on working on the overall organisation of the piece. By then a much clearer structure had started to appear:
1st part - group section
2nd part - duet,solo with group in the background
3rd part - group section to end

I then asked the dancers to make one duet out of all the duets they had made the day before (only using the best bits). We used that material for the last group section. We also worked on the duet and solo that are in the 2nd part.

The idea of "secret" evolved into something a bit different. My first idea was about an oppressed state such as a totalitarian regime. Trying to show people that are sad and with no individualities. In that sort of environment people have secrets, but only in their thoughts.

Debbie, who was helping me, shared the fact that it reminded her of "1984" by George Orwell. So we thought about it for a while and decided to call the piece "101" in reference to the room 101 in the book. This is the room where people get punished by having their worst nightmare realised.

So the piece became even clearer:
- group section (showing oppression and lack of individualities)
- duet, solo with group in background (expressing how the group feels inside)
- group section (oppression leads to revolution)

The darkness of the subject never seemed to be a problem for the dancers. It is nice to explore dark ideas every now and then. The ending suggests a positive future without making it too obvious.

By the end of the Sunday we had a piece. There was still some cleaning and rehearsing to do but the piece was there. The dancers worked really hard. I didn't give them any break apart from a 30 minutes lunch. They were so good, patient and understanding with me. I am very grateful to all the people that helped during these two days. Debbie, who invited me in the first place, was amazing. She was so good at pointing me in the right direction and giving ideas. I feel I have learnt a lot through this experience. This was really a great opportunity.

Thank you Commotions!

Reassessment

Reassessing, although very hard, is fundamental.

I find reassessment a brilliant challenge. Every time I question something about my class I start thinking about answers and solutions. Even if I don't reach a conclusion I always feel stronger and more prepared afterwards. It triggers new ideas that I want to try out. It keeps me on my toes. I can not find any good reason why not questioning the way you do things. Obviously, like anything, it is important to do it moderately.

The danger lays in what you do after questioning your class. I noticed that small changes are often the best way to go. It allows you to back track and take an other route if necessary. Sometimes not changing anything is the best option, you only need to try again and observe more. Some students need to hear things more than once, others simply need time.

It is also important to wonder if you have asked yourself the right question.
A student once shared with me the fact that she finds some of my exercises completely useless. If I had been inexperienced I would have simply stop doing these exercises or I would have tried to change them. That's why I think the question has to be carefully asked.
Where does the problem come from? The exercise itself or the fact that I haven't explained why we are doing it? If I have explained why we are doing it, then why did one of my student not get it?
It would be too simple to blame it on youth (she was a teenager), or lack of enthusiasm. It is important that all students understand the information.
In this case asking the right question is very important. You might find that the student wasn't paying attention or that your explanations weren't clear. It's necessary to check all options, always asking:
Could it come from me?

Some of the most interesting moments to question are the successful ones.
Why did it work?
Because once you know why something works then you can push it further and play with it. It is always a shame to find a class that works and keep teaching it the same way for the rest of your career. The students change enormously from one class to the next (age, level, abilities) so we can't teach them all the same way.

To conclude I would say that it is important not to take reassessment as a criticism but as a constructive challenge. At first I thought it was important to always have an answer but I now find that it is better to look for an answer by experimenting with new things. There is no rush to find a solution to a problem. The most important thing is to keep trying to find the solution.