A solo performance study — a dance scientist who is also a dance artist — exposing the effort beneath ‘effortless’
Athina Vahla in collaboration with Emma Reading, Mary Ann Hushlak, Susan Sentler, Sarah Chin, Squib-Box and Monica Alcazar.
On October 30th, Dance Scientist Emma Reading performed a new dance work for the annual IADMS (International Association for Dance Medicine & Science) conference in Birmingham.
Emma Reading rehearsing
I Drink the Air Before Me by the Stephen Petronio Company was the first dance in the month of Dance Umbrella 2010. The title, inspired by the words of Ariel in reply to Prospero in The Tempest, hints at the ferocious speed, verging on mania that the dance creates. As the audience take their seats the dancers dressed in coats and long johns are on stage with a ballet bar warming up. Petronio wandering around the theatre muttering, dressed as an old salty sea dog: sou’wester, fake beard, wig and big boots (designed by Cindy Sherman). On stage too were a small orchestra and at a grand piano, Petronio’s collaborator in this production, composer Nico Muhly. Ropes are strung across the front of the stage to the circle (relieved I’m sitting stage right so not in my eye line).
As the music begins and the dancers move the audience are transported to the sea: dangerous, deep, wind lashing, out of control, man-over-board sea.
A children’s choir sing at the beginning and at the end.
On Saturday The Liberty Festival took place in Trafalgar Square. This festival is an annual celebration of the contribution of deaf and disabled people to London’s culture. Candoco Dance Company in collaboration with Scarabeus aerial dance theatre performed Heartland, inspired by the legend of the Minotaur. The performers, Welly O’Brien and Bea Perini performed using an Aerial Hoop, Silks and a Corde Lisse.
I have drawn Candoco during rehearsals over the last six years, I have been invited to join the rehearsals in October this year as they prepare for the show at Queen Elizabeth Hall and I will join them again in early 2011 to draw during rehearsals of the new work.
My great friend, Rachel Gadsden, was capturing, on canvas, basketball training.
On Wednesday evening 14th July Hofesh Shechter Company performed Political Mother to a packed auditorium at Sadlers Wells. I was there with my sketch book drawing in the dark. (See my blog for May 28th to see my drawings and read my review of the company at Brighton Concert Hall.
The stage is in darkness; a single spot reveals a lone samurai soldier committing hara-kiri. The image is so unexpected; I feel the scary sensation of being sucked inside a video-game. As he slumps forward, a politician comes in to view gesticulating wildly and ranting nonsensically from a balcony high above us.
As two men dance, four drummers are lit up playing a fierce and powerful rhythm. Adding to the scary surreal video-game dimension, they are also dressed in Samurai costume and their faces obliterated by darkness.
When I drew the dancers during rehearsals I saw beautiful emotionally charged fragments; to watch and draw these intricate rhythmic fragments joined, together with massive powerful and at times lyrical music, dynamic lighting and costumes the dance took on a whole new meaning. The dancers dance collectively, supportively in a group, but in contrast there are moments of such deep isolation and emotional pain of individuals that I feel overwhelming sadness and the breath catches in my throat. Certainly a sense of the futility of war comes across.
Suddenly on the balcony, above the action of the dancers, five foot-stamping, hair-swaying electric guitarists added to the shock effect by playing at full volume and I am catapulted back to the present day to a gig or music festival. The altered rhythm and atmosphere is reflected in the movement and mood of the dancers.
This jumping between time frames; the intense energy emanating from both the dancers and the musicians; the speedy switches of emotion and the fantastic geometric contrasts of light and shadow are all familiar territory to teenagers. I hope they will be in the audience at Sadler’s Wells in July to appreciate it.
At the premier at the close of the show there was a standing ovation, I cannot believe that it will anything less at any other venue.