From Inside to The Outside
I started the physcial research of waiting by myself to see how I interpret the concept of waiting, what movements I do when I have to wait for something or someone and then I contacted my friends to help me with my research. I did that as I wanted to see how others wait as well as to get more inspiration for the movement material. It was also an opportunity for me to see how I could guide the performers I will get for the Making Space project. It really worked for me how I started - beginning on the inside, from being the perfromer and physically researching and trying things out, and then going to the outside and observe. I first got to see how my body feels when waiting and how it reacts to it and then I got to witness it by watching my friends. We also exchanged so that sometimes I stepped in and they could watch. I thought it would be good for them to see it from the outside, it could give them more ideas for their exploration and also I thought that me researching together with one of them would make it easier for me to guide them and show things that I want to research rather than only usig of words to express my ideas.
From "Inside to The Outside" also refers to the space I used to research waiting. I did my own research on the outside of my family house in Błonie - at the tarrace and in front of the front door. It is a more private space, I was in different space but not exposed to the people. When I researched with my friends we went to a place near the city center in Warsaw. It was not as busy but we were definitely more exposed than if we would be in the enclosure of my house.
On the photos belowe are all the notes I made about the research I did in Poland. These combine findings, questions and ideas that came from both my own physical research and the research I did with two of my friends.
Instinct Over Planning
Since the beginning of my choreographic studies I am learning to tap more into my instinct and to make use of it. I have strong planning skills and I used to always rely on them and never listen to my instinct. Plan and analyze less and let things emerge - that was the feedback I was getting quite a lot. Nowadays I defenitely use my instinct more but in new situations or contexts I fall back to my planning skills. They act as a pillar I can fall back on, and which makes me feel secure. This was what happend in Making Space as it was my first time being the maker and not the performer in a public sapce. The week before I created a very detailed plan for each day. I wrote down what time we start and end, which exercises we will do, what I will say to my performers, how long each exercise will take, when we will have a break etc. I did at also to make sure that I have enough to give to the performers, that there will not be moment where I do not know what to do and I will waste the time during the rehearsal to think what can we do now. After all I threw my whole plan away. In the first day I did follow my plan to some extent but the rest of the week was going with the flow and letting my instinct take over. I observed my performers, made notes and created from there. I acted upon what was happening in the moment. I am really glad I went with this, that I decided to reject my plan becaue the process went very well and I was very satisfied with what I have created.
About "Arriving in The Space"
Everyday (besides Friday, the day of the presentations) I started the rehearsal with an exercise that I called "arriving in the space". In the previous Making Space projects, when I was in the role of the performer, the makers always started the rehearsal with letting the perfromers walk around the sapce and write down thigns they observe or that come to their minds while exploring the location. I wanted to do somehthing like that but a little bit differently. I did not want my performers do the same thing over and over again (as they also had the experience of being performers in the other Makins Space projects) and because I wanted to shate with them something that comes choreographic practices. This resulted in "arriving in the space". This is what I said to the perfromers:
"Take a moment for yourself to arrive and feel the space - you can walk around, you can sit and observe your surroundings, you can listen to the sounds, do whatever you need in order to feel the space and connect with it. Be aware of where you attention goes to, what you focus on".
"Arriving in the space" had no fixed time range, it varied from 10 to 15 minutes. It depended on how things were evolving. If I saw that the performers are entering something, I will give them time to explore it, if I saw that it was slowly going nowehere, I would end it. Afterwards we would take 5 minutes to write down things about the experience.
Day By Day
Day 1 - Arriving in the space
Regular "arriving in the space"
Day 2 - Arriving in the space with a task
In the second day I decided to give my performers a task, which was taken from what they shared with me on the first day about "arriving in the space". For each person I selected 2 words/phrases that I found the most interesting and I gave them the choice to pick one that they would like to explore. The word/phrase they chose was their task for "arriving in the space", to see how that would inspire their movement and how would that affect their connection with the surroundings.
Day 3 - Arriving in the space with music
In the first 2 days of rehearsals we never used music. As music is a big inspiration for me, I decided to use it for the 3rd day of "arriving in the space". It was purely to experiement, I wanted to see what affect music would have on my performers. I created a playlist with 5 songs, there was no reason behind why I chose these specific songs. The only thigns was that I wanted to mix various styles and energies. While my performers were in the task, I observed them while also listening to the playlist. It was very interesting to see it, the experience was totally different.
Day 4 - Arriving in the space with other music
My performers seemed to like the idea of "arriving in the space" with music and thus I created a new playlist to keep it fresh and exciting.
Day 5 - No arriving in the space, warming up together
Moment of synchronicity. Each person doing their own thing but finding each other after some time in the same position.
Observations
The tree dividing the space
Leaving the clothes
Playing with the depth
Balancing the space
Strangers becoming friends
Throwing something to the trash can
Hanging elbow
The leaves falling down
Building up the movement + circles.
Circles which refer to the idea of time passig by, just like the hand on the clock circulating, going from one number to the other.
Looking at something, investigating it
One in the open space, the other between objects
Feels like I am in a movie or watching a movie (music)
Giving the leaf to the other person - moment of connection & generosity
Music seperates us from the here and now, I feel more like I am in my own world
The bags and the bikes actually create a nice scenery, maybe it is also a way of blocking the bench so that other people will not sit on it
Following. One person does whatever movements they want and the other one follows them with a slight delay so that it still looks to some extent natural.
First exploration with the waiting concept. I gave my performers (colleague and teacher/coach) a score to follow and some things they can play with. I did not have anything specific in mind that I wanted to try. I simply found the location, let them explore for a little bit and once I could see what is happenning and what the space if offering then I started to give them more clear direction and tasks.
Some of the things I said to them:
- You are wating for a very important phone call
- You are in a sneaky way following the movements of the other person
- You are teasing and playing with the other person
- Break the linearility of the two benches by also going back & forth (depth), in diagonals and also by being on top of the benches (standing on them)
Stressed And Not Frustrated
With my concept of waiting I wanted it to grow into more movements, that is starts quite relaxed and then the movement builds up as a result of frustration that you have to wait for something or someone for so long. On the first day I did a guided research with my performers that I thought would lead them to build up the movement and have more switches and dynamics yet that did not happen. I did not know how to get them there. After the guided research we shared some thoughts and somehow we got to the concept of stressed waiting. One of my performers said that when they have to wait for so long then at some point they give up or do not care anymore and that it would rather be stress that would make them move more. They gave the example of waiting on the train station for their friend where they have to catch this one train in order to make it to their flight. They are waiting for their friend, the train is about to come but they are still not there. The stress comes that their friend will be late and they will miss the train and so the flight. They shared that this is what makes their body uneasy and that is where all the daily movements come out. For this reason I decided to go with "stress waiting" instead of "frustrated waiting". For me it is the frustrated waiting that makes my body move but for my performers is the stress waiting and as they are the ones they are going to perform it was the smart decision to go with what makes their body uneasy while waiting. In conclusion, the concept I had took a slight turn, not neccessairly movement ideas I had but more in the words I use to describe it.
