“Processing Dance – Relations in the creative process” – Public Lecture & Workshop

25.9._Sa_13 h_Public Lecture_25. & 26.9._Sa/So_Workshop_in Englisch
What does affect you when you are making a performance? Is it the performer or the technician you’re working with, or are you also influenced by the technology itself, by the chair in the studio, by the sounds from outside? Every process has its dramaturgy, its time based story with interacting actors. During this workshop we will become aware of the human and non-human “actors“ that are working with or against us in a creative process. We will work on a small becoming-performance. By being aware of the relations between makers, objects and questions in various phases of the process we will be able to process, and then stimulate the practice of others. The workshop will start with a public lecture that is used as a theoretical framework for processing dance in process.

Jochem Naafs is a researcher, dramaturge, writer and live artist based in Utrecht and Berlin. He studied Theatre and New Media Studies (MA) at the Utrecht University. In his work he constantly merges theory and practice. Currently he is working as a researcher for the research group Theatre-making processes (HKU) and as a lecturer for the Professional School of the Arts Utrecht. He worked as a dramaturge with Powerboat, Michael Pinchbeck, Jack Gallagher and participants of Choreoroam, wrote articles for various organisations and magazines. As a live artist he created the lecture performance Jij, and the performance Pauze.
www.playfulperformance.nl | www.bit-dansdramaturgie.nl

The workshop is part of a research on transdisciplinary making processes and is made possible by the research group Theatre-making Processes of the Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU). http://tmp.hku.nl/

Public lecture “Processing Dance“
25.9.2010, 13 – 14 h

Workshop
25.9.2010, 14 – 16 h /20 h, The Half, performance (part of the workshop)
26.9.2010, 13 – 16 h
Level open Fee: 45,- / 35,- € concessionary rate on arrival of the full workshop fee before 13.9.10 and for professional performers; Performance The Half is included

Application workshop@tanzfabrik-berlin.de

Ort: Tanzfabrik Berlin/Wedding in den Uferstudios
Uferstr. 23, 13357 Berlin

“Het woord ‘dialoog’ blijkt een kernachtige samenvatting van het werk dat Dansateliers verricht. Een dialoog tussen de choreograaf en de toeschouwer, tussen de choreografen en hun dansers, tussen de choreografen onderling en tussen de choreograaf en de dramaturg” (Website Ongepolijst).

In 2009 heb ik het programma van Choreoroam gevolgd. Het artikel dat ik naar aanleiding hiervan geschreven heb: “Een vluchtloze vogel en een boek on bullshit” (“A flightless bird and a book on bullshit”) wordt tijdens het nieuwe dansfestival Ongepolijst gepresenteerd in de bundel Een open boek – dans is dialoog. De bundel zal tijdens het festival op 11 en 12 juni ook te koop zijn. Onder ‘Read more’ is een korte teaser te lezen van het artikel.

Een vluchtloze vogel en een boek ‘on bullshit’
Zagreb, Rotterdam, Bassano del Grappa, Londen, Kopenhagen, Madrid en nog eens Londen: een halfjaar lang de tijd om te experimenteren, te onderzoeken, te (her)ontdekken, in valkuilen te lopen, op te krabbelen, het overduidelijke te doen of het onbegrijpelijke. Zes maanden om je hersenen te laten overkoken, inzinkingen te krijgen, je af te vragen waarom je dit in vredesnaam doet, te beargumenteren, je vreselijk goed te voelen en te bewegen.
Voor jonge choreografen bestaan diverse mogelijkheden om in georganiseerd verband kennis te maken met collega dansmakers en andere manieren van dansmaken. Er zijn verschillende uitwisselingsprogramma’s waarvan Choreoroam er een is. De vraag is op welke manier een dergelijke georganiseerde dialoog van betekenis kan zijn voor deze makers. Om deze vraag te beantwoorden heb ik Choreoroam bezocht in Rotterdam, Bassano del Grappa en Londen en de makers aan het werk gezien, met ze gewerkt en ze geïnterviewd. Langzaam maar zeker ben ik als dramaturg deel gaan uitmaken van deze uitwisseling. Choreoroam is een programma van ruim zes maanden voor 12 choreografen uit zes landen in zes verschillende steden.

I visited Choreoroam in Rotterdam, Bassano del Grappa and London during 2009. Choreoroam is a program for exchange and research and development for choreographers.  Now I am working on an article on the international dialogue in the dance community for Dansateliers based on my observations and on interviews with Choreoroam participants.

Rogier Brom and I are finishing our dialogue on Nieuwe Grond and the cultural climate of Utrecht. It will be available soon on this website and on www.nieuwegrond.com. We both wrote a main text and used these texts to start a dialogue on the various themes we recognised during the Nieuwe Grond symposium.

The symposium on Dance Dramaturgy was a succes. More information and reflection soon on www.bit-dansdramaturgie.nl.

From the first of February untill the end of August 2010 I will work from and in Berlin instead of Utrecht. I hope I will get to know the local dance and performance scene.

Jack Gallagher on the Danslab website:

In Danslab I aim to find some missing links between the communication rules we traditionally come to expect in public space and the language of dance. I will focus on the gap between dance practice and the expectations of an audience who are not immediately privileged to the dance culture. A new ground zero for the performative mover. I want to develop a new line from the Counter Technique, developed by Anouk van Dijk during the past 12 years when I was a main proponent, with expert contributions from linguistics/psychology/philosophy. I will draw a new map for my composing method using Performative Speech Act Theory, Peter Sloterdijk’s spatial modeling & Lacan’s logic of discourses. The main question from Performative Speech Act Theory is -What do we do by saying? I will turn this around- What do we say by doing dance? I’m looking to materialize my hunch about the dialectics of dance between body and meaning. Through Lacanian theory, I will tackle the issue of how dance often says too much!

Collaborators:
Matthew Kelly Roman (dancer)
Diane Elshout (research assistent)
Jochem Naafs (dramaturgy)
Derrick Brown (advisor)

More information will follow soon.

Michael Pinchbeck wrote a reflection on Beginning, Middle, End. This is one of his remarks:

Working with other artists, I have learned how to express myself and respond to feedback I was not used to receiving in new ways. Sometimes it was, as Adrian Heathfield describes post-event writing, a beautiful catastrophe of misunderstanding. We wrote letters to each other in our own languages, in our own handwriting. As Mole Wetherell says, the thing with letters is, by the time they arrive the whole world has changed around you.

The idea that, when time goes by and your letter is on it’s way to it’s receiver, the world around you changes, appeals to me. You get the time to reflect on your own idea before someone else interferes. When finally the answer comes you to tend to be less defensive in a way. You rather try to construct new ideas from your own letter, the letter of the other and your own refelction. This is one of the reasons Joris Weijdom and I started our conversation.

My way of working with Michael, often via Skype, Youtube and email, was sometimes difficult, but it builds in a certain patience as well. A patience very well needed in a creative making process, certainly in one where more people are involved. Time always seems to be short, being forced to take my time, is something I would prefer to build in to my future processes.

After last year’s Dialogue (this years Europe in Motion) Springdance commissioned for a collaboration by three former participants from three different countries to make a performance for this year’s festival.
Andrea, Madalina and Michael decided to propose a performance, which would both allow collaboration and autonomy. The title of this performance, Beginning, Middle, End, refers both to the structure and concept of the work and to the structure of the working process.

The working process of six weeks was preceded by virtual contact in which the idea was worked out. There were three periods with actual contact: 4 days in March (beginning), 4 days in April (middle) and 4 days in this week (end). In these week they were showing each other what they have been working on and figuring out how these three parts fit together to form one performance. The remaining time each maker worked on his or her own part. But they kept looking to each other’s parts, via skype and live. This looking played an important part in the process.
The three parts were allocated alphabetically: Andrea Bozic asked her long time collaborator Julia Willms to work together to make Beginning, Madalina Dan worked on Middle and Michael Pinchbeck worked on End.

So this performance started out of 3 words, both as form and content: beginning, middle and end. The question is what it means to have such a structure for both the making process and the performance you’ll see tonight. Next to collaboration and autonomy this structure also provided content. What is beginning? What is ending? What is it like to be in the middle? And how do a beginning, a middle and an end relate and interact?

In the end this last question is perhaps the question I was thinking of as a problem in the beginning while reading the proposal. Now I would rather see it as a challenging idea to work from rather then a question that needs to be answered. I would like to end my introduction with the following quote, which can be seen as a starting point for this collaboration:

Every moment has a beginning, middle and end, then dialogue will have meaning.
(http://www.abwag.com/beginning_middle_end.htm)

I wish you a pleasant performance.