Arts:Blog

While there are many disciplines in my work, I feel that each is interconnected to create the whole. I find the process of conceptualising a performance the most creatively satisfying. The most exciting and perhaps most addictive aspects of performance composition are: the research, the thought-processing, the dreaming and sculpting of ideas, concepts and imagery and the distillation of imaginative possibility. If I were to pick a specific discipline, I would say it is ‘design’ that I enjoy most. I view most of my work as design, whether that is the props & set, the movement, the clothing, the atmosphere and experience. It is risky and exciting to garner balance between disciplines within the work.

Without giving away too much, how much can you tell about this project, These Delicate Things?

These Delicate Things is a non-narrative live performance; a musical and visual observation of loss & creation, disappearance & presence. The American photographer, Francesca Woodman—her photographs and her life & death—inspired the performance. The performance is composed of four ‘planes of performance’: a string quartet, a display case, a specimen desk and a projection screen. The performance is divided into two acts, scored by Dimitri Shostakovish’s String Quartet No.15 and Gavin Bryars’ String Quartet No.2, respectively. The quality of performance is meditative, introspective and full of tension between stillness and movement—the compounding of potential energy as space and time dissolve into moments of suspended animation—while the string quartet moves continually onward through the musical score. Three contemporary dancers manipulate objects and their bodies to create ever-changing tableaux, like clouds shifting in the twilight sky, exploring what things remain. At the core of the visual language is commissioned ceramic bowls by Louise McVey, costume pieces by Kelli Des Jarlais and lighting design by Nich Smith, along with bones, mirrors, taxidermy and stale coffee.

Francesca Woodman's photography definitely has parallels with literature: darkly sensual and allegorical (evoking the likes of Angela Carter, AS Byatt and Virginia Woolf) - is that something that appeals to you, a lyrical quality?

I have not necessarily drawn parallels between my work and literature, but I do often speak of my work being poetic and metaphoric. I continually find myself drawn to visual symbolism, whether that is in broad brushstrokes or in unseen details. Indeed, dark sensuality appeals to me greatly, which is perhaps why I am so captivated by Woodman’s photographs. I have found that through the process of composing this performance I have found myself sculpting a performative world, which evokes a dreamlike quality of shadowy vibrancy and romantic poeticism. I do enjoy lyricism and the pursuit of beauty, though more recently I have been intrigued by the concept of presenting the tensions within the sublime—finding beauty in the terrifying.

You have done a lot of collaborative work- how long does the initial process of workshopping ideas take?

In my past works, I have also gone into the process with quite a strong concept and vision for the work. The collaboration is a process of continual peer imagining and problem solving. The workshopping of ideas tends to happen with a surge of potentiality, then a slow burn of deeper reflection, conversation and refinement. I do not think that I can give an actual timescale, as work in the creation of a new work cannot organically be contained by office hours.

Who are your biggest influences, in terms of choreography?

My choreographic practice encompasses the design and movement of all of the elements of performance, thus my biggest influences, currently, are Robert Wilson, Hotel Pro Forma and Merce Cunningham.

What is exciting is that your work appeals to people who may not 'get' dance but be more inclined to see theatre pieces- why do you think so many people like to blur such boundaries in art?

I think that boundaries have been blurred between art forms for a very long time, and in contemporary theatre even more so. The art form which—to me—has remained the most delineated is classical music. There are more companies currently who are interested in blurring the lines between concert and theatre/spectacle, perhaps in an aim to connect to more divergent and disparate audiences than the classical music demographic has been in the past. I find the performance of live musicians within a work to be an exciting integration of music, not as background ambient sound but as a tangible and conceptual presence within the performative language and structure of the performance.

On the note of dance, I have an interest in working with dancers as performers, though there is not much stereotypical “dance”. I respect the cognitive embodiment of dancers, the disciplined body, the precision and ability to choreograph nuance within pedestrian movement. Movement is an aspect of performance that I am obsessed with. I believe that there is movement within and movement created by a musical score. For me, the fusion of music, movement and visuals are not innovative but are organic and innate. I aim to allow the performance to engulf the senses and whet the imagination, not close down meaning to absolutes and narrative structures of meaning.

While my work crosses art forms I have come to think of my work not as multi-disciplinary but as an art form in and of itself. It is an art of complexity and contradiction; an art form which centres on the idealism of finding minimalism within multiplicity. I think we blur boundaries in art because our senses and stimuli are no longer—if ever—distinct and delineated in our lives.

These Delicate Things is at the CCA, November 13^th-15^th, 8 pm.

www.cryptic.org.uk

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