My diverted train from London, via Oxford is offering me far too much time to gather my thoughts and my reflections from the Dance UK conference. As I fill my heart with the most beautiful rhythms, from the band Paprika Balkanicas, I am struggling to align the contradictions of this weekend.
First and foremost: Congratulations are owed to Dance UK for bringing together so many thinkers from the UK dance scene together for such a varied conference.
I gave a presentation on Friday, at The Place, which you can read below. I was speaking on a panel called Digital: What’s in it for dance? And exploring the stunning nature of Augmented Dance. I was terrified to deliver this, and in my heart of hearts I knew this was because I respect and love the dance world in the UK, but have felt so terribly isolated, that my sense of imposter syndrome was running high. There was good reason for this: My invitation to speak had come from one of the UK’s most interesting futurists, not the dance establishment. Secondarily I had had to fight for a ticket to attend the whole conference: As an independent dance artist, running a self financing company, paying £250 to attend a conference that I was earning £60 to speak at was impossible; especially factoring in travel, accommodation and food. Having reconciled myself to not attending just before Easter, I received an email from the conference telling me I could invite two VIPs to attend, who would receive complimentary three day tickets… This epitomises one of the biggest contradictions of the conference: A presumption of importance… After a swift email exchange I was offered tickets for the whole conference, which I really appreciated.
Last Autumn I flew caution to the wind and reminded the delegates at Consiusa that culture is our history, our sense of land, country and society; creativity is the manner through which we explore our sense of self against this landscape and technology is a tool to help us be creative. Holding this in mind, I steeled myself, found sofas to sleep on, and went to listen to the UK Dance scene’s view on it’s future.
Here’s what stuck with me:
“Breaking Forms, because we’re crushed by boundaries” Ivan Blackstock from the fantastic Birdgang Dance Company. So “we make something from nothing“. “We are creating art to feel validation in the world.”
So much of the conference conversation was focussed on process rather than these deeper drivers and, of course, evolution is inherently driven by drivers. And as Stine Nilsen from Candoco brilliantly reminded us:
“Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation“.
I realised as I heard Ivan and Kenrick (“Just because“) Sandy talking on the second day why in Bristol I am drawn to the breaking, social and hip hop scene. Because as self evolving forms, they welcome you with open arms: As a tap dancer at a BBoy battle I win respect for my exploration of the music, the footwork and the syncopation. I learn from them performance and confidence and new edge to my improvised forms (not to mention a growing ability to pull out some floor work). My greens shoes have taken me far. A chance moment of stupidity 18 months ago has a revealed a community who go “Hey you’re back! Wicked, get on up here!”.
As I sat in a fascinating panel about dance from the African Diaspora I realised I’d inadvertently been seeking out rhythms and physical centres of movement for my whole life that told different stories. I’ve studied reggae, street locking, Rwandan dance, rhythm tap, Argentine tango, Latin American and ballroom, Javanese and Bharatnatiam, Lindy, Jive, Charleston (not to mention ballet, english tap, jazz, contemporary and alot of circus) and historical dance not as a stamp for my CV, but because I love how differently they use rhythm, what their historical narratives are and where the literal centre of the movement, the funk, sits in ones body.
On Sunday morning I remembered during a debate about training (focussed on a very limited range of styles) how choosing to learn these styles, to take classes outside my vocation training had had to be done on the sly: as I could have been expelled for taking additional dance classes. Just Saying.
And I thought again about drivers: The best performers are not the most precise, as Amanda Hancox said “the perfect arabesque is impossible”. The best performers are within the music, the space, their bodies and rhythms (and yes they have developed a physical excellence to achieve this). To achieve those four things (musicality, spacial presence, physical embodiment, living rhythm and electrifying timing) we need to understand the cultural roots of dance, and create our own understanding of our relationship with that history, and our sense of self. Then the magic happens. Evolution begins. And not only that, we become life long learners who seek out a relationship with the world around them. The truest route of politics I ever heard expressed was by Shami Chakrabarti (the director of Liberty) that politics is the negotiation of your core drivers and values with those of the people around you.
I don’t know of anyone who lives in 4/4 or 3/4. But I do know that when I hear and see friends singing their traditional acappella Croatian songs, that the rhythms, despite their formal complexity are organic and living and sit in their bodies in the most powerful and vibrant way.
Maybe I’m mad: But I think it’s easy to join the dots. It make perfect and wonderful sense for me as a tap dancer, and an augmented dance choreographer to spend a week in Surakarta working with a Javanese dance master and Bharatanatyam dancer, to create pieces to Gamelan danced in the dust and gloaming in the Prambanam temple complex. It makes perfect sense for me to work with Architects and urban designers re imagining the future of cities, and the next day be explore the interrelationship between composing choreography and choreographing composition. And I think that that is my versions of Kenrick’s sweet deep well of creation, in the centre of his triangle of his past self, choreography and teaching.
There was an incredible re-iteration throughout the conference of the ideas of ‘being the best” (and an underlying presumption that the current establishment knows what that is). That impossible arabesque came to mind. I found myself rebelling against this: Pushing at those narrow, railroading boundaries, and realising: No one else is doing what I do – it may not be perfect, but as an exploration of my relationship with the world around me, it is valid. Not only is it valid: It has an audience and maybe I should finally stop beating myself up that it’s not necessarily here in the UK, at least at the moment. I relish my international work; the challenges and stimuli always fuel me with love.
But the final contradiction was that original loneliness of not quite fitting in: I heard so many references to work that “should be seen internationally“, “work that wasn’t ready“, “we don’t need any more mediocre choreographers“. As a case in point: we have massive audiences internationally: 7,000 a night at times. The producers, and venues and head of arts in those regions are excited by our work, and ask us to headline alongside national companies from all over the world. We receive standing ovations for our shows and repeat invitations. But with those quotes bandied around so freely by the establishment I am left asking “Is that me?” “Am I the mediocre choreographer that shouldn’t be supported to tour internationally?”
As I said in my provocation I know I have only found the broad strokes of Augmented Dance and I’m always trying to interrogate it’s use of form, and rhythm, and space further. How do I grow more eloquent, stronger as a choreographer? Especially if the fact that I am not using the traditional vocabularies understandably makes some people uncomfortable engaging in a choreographic discourse? How, without the support of our community will we get better?
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui said one of the most enlighted things I’ve heard in the UK dance scene for a long time: Yes there are restrictions working with dancers from difference dance forms: “There are always restrictions: your restrictions are your perception of the other person“. “How do you teach a fish to climb? Maybe you need to create an aquatic environment“.
StopGap mentioned a beautiful mantra “We question, we re-invent, we reflect and we refine“. That is the iterative action led process that I’ve mentioned on so many previous occasions in this blog.
I have questioned alot of things this weekend. I have begun to reflect, and refine, now I must choose my first personal actions so I can iterate/ re-invent/ evolve. Certainly Sue Hoyle’s mantra of “Just Do It” now has an echoing response of “Just Because” and Annette Walker‘s fantastic laughter.
I pleased I went: I’m pleased I took the risk to speak out across the weekend, and sharing my companies learning and knowledge, and I’m glad I had the chance to listen and be inspired. But as a whole: the UK dance scene needs to buck up it’s ideas:
So my tap shoes will be back on my feet first thing tomorrow. 7.15 am, if First Great Western ever gets me home…. And I’m off to HipHop/Urban Culture convention this weekend.
(PS: the train did release me, and Monday did start with Tap)
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My name is Laura Kriefman, I am a choreographer specializing in Augmented Dance, the tangible fusion between movement and technology. I will use the word digital once. In a derogation manner,
Last year, at a retreat for choreographers a dance industry leader asked me:
“Is the only reason you call it dance, so you can access funding?”
My company, Hellion Trace is self financing. We create interactive movement installations and big spectacle shows that tour all over the world: This year alone our work will be seen in the US, Sweden, China and Indonesia, with audiences of up to 7,000 people per night. We have won 4 awards for Digital Innovation, and an honorary Mention at the Prix Des Arts, Ars Electronica. Everything we do is about movement, and dance.
My craft is far from perfect, so I’ve sought mentors for each of our projects to help me strengthen my choreographic form. On a recent tap project I reached out to a dear friend who is one of the world best tap dancers, and loves our augmented dance work. He said:
“I don’t know if I could trust the technology. I guess at heart I’m just a luddite”
4 years ago: I was a luddite: now I am equally described as a choreographer and Creative Technologist because I have blown my world apart trying to find out what dance could be in the 21st Century: Augmented dance is about an equally weighted dialogue between technology, audience and movement. It inheritantly liberates dance and most fascinatingly creates chaos because that dialogue between forms disintegrates the silos we unwittingly live in.
Most of the dance industry won’t touch technology with a barge-pole (unless it’s another static projection, or streamed performance). It’s such a shame because the chaos is a beautiful live dynamic dialogue that is unique and changing each performance, full of new movement qualities, new audiences to dance and the arts, and positive memories. And fundamentally it’s just another tool to tell different stories.
I understand why though: I have had to interrogate and change my craft at a fundamental level – find comfort in new languages, creative processes, technologies and that leaves you for a period of time feeling suddenly violently deskilled. In dance you are taught by a master (who was taught by a master) and your specificity is part of what makes you a virtuoso and keeps you safe. Accidently what is created is a self referential work that alienates the majority of the public who can’t see any assimilation between the way they move and the coded vocabulary going on onstage.
As a company we have found every single, lonely pitfall of leaving the safe zone to explore a new evolution of dance: It takes around 2-3 years to really develop a company member’s enjoyment of finding comfort in the chaos. Funders don’t always appreciate and understand the necessary shift in creative timeline, process or some of the cost centres needed to create truly Augmented Dance, and national leaders still insist “digital” is webcontent.
We’ll keep doing it though: because breaking the form democratises the wealth of instinctive movement knowledge we all have. Celebrating this knowledge within beautiful sounds and visually stimulating interactive environments that a 3 and 73 year old love equally is a game changer. Which brings me to my final point:
At the final interview for a funding bid we were asked “sorry, who is your audience ?”
As we develop our interactive installations we talk about those who learn through action or learn through observation. We talk about the quality of engagement for the active observer. We believe the experience of the people watcher is as important as the extroverts. All our shows start with public interactive installations, before the discoveries are reflected back into shows which continuously sell out, attracting non-arts attendees to dance for the first time.
I now work as often with coders, product designers, architects, engineers, and futurists as I do dancers and composers. I have adapted my creative and collaborative processes, learnt new interdependences and found a critically challenging and engaging space that forces thinking up from the small identical traditional audiences.
So here’s my battle cry from the parapets of not fitting in: Hellion Trace passionately believe that with the incredible collaborators we work with worldwide, we change the world through Augmented Dance by encouraging connections and spontaneous movement, serendipity and memories of a new dance vocabulary for the 21st Century.