Interesting Times

by Ruth Barker, 19 Jan 2010

Hello,
Two things I wanted to talk about today. Not sure yet if they’re related: we’ll have to wait and see.

The first is Rough Mix related. All is going well at Dance Base, and all the practitioners’ projects are coming on apace. Actually, they’re coming on surprisingly quickly and confidently. In one week, we’ve all developed pieces which are interesting and even powerful, and everybody is on track to present a new work-in-progress at the public showing on Friday. So, how does this happen? What is it that has created this ‘hot-house’ atmosphere in which our 5 creative people (supported of course by our talented team of performers) are thriving?

The first thing that springs to mind is the supportive context – that there’s a strong network here, and that that facilitates our co-operative exploration. But there’s something else going on as well, because it is important I think, that we all come from different disciplines: somehow this has helped us work quickly and fruitfully on the new work. Why? In a sense this seems counter-intuitive. I would perhaps have predicted that the lack of a common language would have slowed us down. After all – we can’t use the ‘shorthands’ we often rely on (I can’t say, for example, that an idea is ‘too Jessica Harrison’ or whatever. The rest of the group wouldn’t be able to translate that). We’re also seeing other’s work out of context. My knowledge of the theories and histories of dance, drama and (to a lesser extent) film is minimal, and so I don’t immediately see where ideas come from, or how they may be related. None of this, in the event, has mattered however. In fact, it may have helped.

Robbed of a commonality of words, we have also been stripped of a commonality of assumptions, and I think this is at the root of our flourishing. Because we have been able to stretch and to play without being overly conscious of others’ opinions. This period of play (coming as it does within mature and in many cases very established practices) has been a little shake-up. A little invigorating mix-around which has produced some very interesting results, which are then – crucially – fed back into the dough to re-catalyse it. The balance of group-work, in which we’re all learning a new discipline together, and the time we have to think about our own individual projects has kept this motion of thinking and learning and doing in constant dialogue. Good stuff. And we still have 4 days left!

The other thing I’m thinking about on my morning commute is a snippet from Radio 4’s Front Row programme, which I heard last night. In it, they interviewed one of the artists who’s working on a project for the Cultural Olympiad – Anthony McCall who’s developing a new public sculpture for Birkenhead. The work will consist of a three-mile high column of cloud – intended to be visible from up to 100km away – and will be on-site for 18 months. The interviewer asked if McCall wanted his work to join the ranks of those intentionally temporary projects that ‘the public’ have fought to keep. I was curious, of course, because our next Theme will be Temporary Projects, and all that surrounds them. The way the interviewer phrased this question was particularly interesting. I’m paraphrasing here, but I think it’s almost right: ‘do you want the public to adopt your work, or are you looking for a bit of controversy?’ The artist seemed to think carefully about his answer. ‘Adopt is a good word’, he said. I think I’d agree with him.

More later,
R.