Tag: dance process

Turning Social Media into Creative Media

Turning Social Media into Creative Media

Today we ran our Turning Social Media into Creative Media workshop alongside the Plan d school of Dance, Barcelona with the help of Twitter, Skype and some great ideas!

 

‘Hoy, junto a Joumana Mourad dictando un workshop entre Barcelona y Londres en simultáneo..! IJAD Dance Company junto a Pland Centre de Dansa. Que buena experiencia!!!’ Juan Leiba

 

The collaberation between the two countries would not have been possible without the support of technology. And what we’re seeing is the potential of the use of technology to create artwork that is accessible. Creative director, Joumana is working with cross platform dance performers, aiming for the creation of transparency between virtual & real: ‘today we managed to incapsulate two countries and different groups of dancers in a bubble of time where sharing was crucial. I’m excited that we’re starting to explore the migration between physical spaces and virtual maps.

Thanks to everyone who made it today and look out for our next social media project!

Diary of a dancer: Sally Marie

Diary of a dancer: Sally Marie

‘So first rehearsal today. Joumana wants me to be beautiful, or at least to stand up straight and not be angst ridden and  overly dramatic! It was slightly a shock, yet an interesting challenge. So I put on my corps de ballet face and she looked a bit happier. Then she had me eating lots of peanuts whilst I danced, which apparently helped my jaw relax. I felt like Eliza Dolittle.

New people, new studios I thought as I walked into the O2 centre today. Love it. Robert was there. Smashing bloke. All swoosh and verve. And then Shanti, the costume designer came in to measure me and I spent the afternoon in a crinoline asking Robert at one point, ‘does my bum look big in this!?’

Its tricky because I feel entirely unable to give up the secrets of the present. Everyone else has. And its been something that has lead to big steps forward for the work. But I cannot and could not. And so this is the point of tension that we are working with just now. I told Joumana I felt awful about it, because I always want to be able to give everything. And yet I just cannot say these things. They are too much to let out into the air. They are the reason I often sob myself to sleep and wake up feeling sick. I simply could not say them.

Still I hope that I can say a great deal else in the show and talk of other people’s secret which are fascinating, funny and tragic in equal measure.

Anyway, ten days and counting and tomo we all meet for lunch time on our day of rest no rest. Can’t wait!’

 

Sally trained at Central School of Ballet and has since performed a great deal with Protein Dance, performing ‘B for Body,’ in the Place Prize final, as well as the following full-length touring production of ‘Dear Body.’ She recently completed a world tour of their critically acclaimed show, LOL.
Sally has also worked with Sean Tuan John, Jasmin Vardimon, Tilited Productions, Duckie at The Barbican, Deja Donne in Italy, Rajni Shah, Gary Stevens, Lulus’ Living Room, Frauke Requart, H2, and Ridiculussmuss at The National Theatre, as well more recently working at St Thomas’s hospital alongside the physios there, developing dance for children.
Her first group work ‘Dulce et Decorum’ was performed two years running at Spring Loaded, The Place and lead to her company Sweetshop Revolution and a newly created work entitled Tree. Other choreographic credits include The Extra, a solo performed at The Linbury, Royal Opera House, ‘Reasons to be Cheerful,’ a musical by Graeae at Theatre Royal Stratford, ‘Nerve,’ a play by Prestige Theatre Company and ‘Violet Smile,’ a short circus solo about a vampire waitress.
She has been twice voted Best Female performer by Dance Europe and twice nominated as Best Female Performer, as well as New Talent by the National Critics Dance Circle. 
Bio: Naomi Tadevossian

Bio: Naomi Tadevossian

Photograph by Roy Campbell-Moore

Naomi trained at London Contemporary Dance School, completing with a First Class BA Hons in Dance. She went on to join National Dance Company Wales as an apprentice dancer for a year and continue to go back to dance with the company as a Guest Artist; working with Christopher Bruce, Itzik Galili and Ohad Naharin, performing repertoire by Steven Petronio and Gustavo Ramirez Sansano and touring nationally and internationally to India and Belarus.
Naomi is currently also performing the principle role of The Spirit of the Vixen in Leos Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen with the Wales National Opera, directed by David Pountney. Over the next few months she is involved in The Bride and The Bachelors at Barbican Art Gallery, performing Cunningham repertoire re-staged by Jeannie Steele.

 
How are you involved in In-Finite?

I became involved with IJAD Dance Company’s In-Finite recently. I am an interactive performer in the process and am a secret holder and distributer. I am looking forward to creating personal relationships with anonymous, trusting participants, whilst having others observe this exchange. There is something very special about live dance, and proximity in which it happens… In-Finite will explore this personal relationship, which I find excites the performer and the audience.
 
What about your own secret?

All secrets are personal which is why they are a secret. Some are dark and others are humorous. It’s interesting to categorise secrets in accordance to what makes them a secret? My secret relates to a personal relationship, it deals with trust and lacking in trust. This has had a big impact on my relationship with important figures in my life. My secret can be saddening, but it deals with my personal development through such relationships.

 In-Finite comes to Rich Mix on 8th March 2013. For bookings click here.
Bio: Reynir Hutber

Bio: Reynir Hutber

 
 
 
Reynir Hutber is a London-based artist working with emerging technology. Reynir is collaborating with IJAD as an ‘Experience Designer’, filmmaker and media researcher.

 

 

 

How would you best describe your work? 

‘I am a London based artist working with emerging technology. I combine performance and technology to create immersive installations that often invite the participation of the audience.’

 

What’s your role with IJAD?

I am collaborating with IJAD as an ‘Experience Designer’, filmmaker and media researcher.

 

What attracted you to In-Finite?

‘I was attracted by the opportunity to research and explore potential relationships between dance and technology. I was also interested in the way in which social media could be used as a tool to include people in the development of a performance.’

 

Tell us something about your secret…

‘Sometimes I find it amusing and other times frightening.’ Read more on Reynir’s work with IJAD and the In-Finite project in his post, Art and Technology. He also tweets: @reynirhutber

 

 
In-Finite comes to Rich Mix, London on 8th March. Bookings here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bio: Héléna Casari

Bio: Héléna Casari

Héléna began dancing at the age of 5 at the conservatoire of Cergy and went on to join the contemporary section of the Paris Conservatoire (director Mrs Moreno) where she was taught by Catherine Vesque and Sabine Ricou, ‘who really inspired me’. In London, she did her Bachelor in Dance Theatre at the Laban Conservatoire and regularly took part in the Laban’s Events, such as “Common Bodies in a Space of Difference” by Zoi Dimirtiou (tour in London and Athens), repertoire pieces (Scramble by Cunningham) and her own choreographies.
After a placement in the Carolyn Carlson dance company during the creation of her new work “Synchronicity”, Héléna joined the IJAD dance company as a dancer (December 2012). She tweets at @hlnac
 
Photo by Yves Kossi
 
 

What attracted you to In-Finite?

The way Joumana uses the self to connect the dancers and the audiance. I believe in this creation process. the self plays an integral part in human motivation, affect, and social identity and sharing a secret can change your self-perception and your relationship with others. So, it could totally interest everybody and have an impact beyond coming to see the performance.


What’s the most exciting part of the project?

First working on my secrets was really exciting but at the same time scary: How can you approach such a personal subject, it’s not something you want to spend time on, you just want to lock it somewhere and that’s it. The idea of showing my secret to an audience is scary I get afraid that somebody will get what it is and will judge me. But finally, when I saw all the other dancers and people on IJAD’s website sharing their secrets, I felt much more comfortable to realease my stress and feel OK to open myself to others. Being more comfortable with myself and my secret will end in me being much more tolerant with my past and my old choices.

I hope we can find the best way to make people feel comfortable to share their secrets and find use in this process and maybe even apply it to their future.

So what has sharing your own secret meant for you?

My secret started when I was a child I didn’t wanted to hurt my family and so I kept it to myself for a long time. Now as a young adult I realise that it had an impact on my life and maybe if I was able to share it in a more free way with people, my life would have been very different. Sometimes for family or society reasons or even my own self-conscious I have been ashamed of myself but now I just want to free myself and make a step forward, accepting my past. As a process it works beyond interpretations. It’s a very honest, intense, challenging experience.

In-Finite comes to Rich Mix on 8th March 2013. For bookings click here.

 

 

 

 

Performing secrets – the process

Performing secrets – the process

I set out choreographing for In-Finite by asking dancers to interpret their own secrets. We had lengthy discussions about the impact of a secret on our lives and the kinds of feelings we might be putting to movement. We talked about the experience of keeping a secret, the associated emotions, the overwhelming impact secrets can have on our daily lives and the possibility of forgetting a secret completely. What we didn’t talk about was the secrets themselves.

Because the word secret has taken pride of place for this project. We must have used it a million times by now, in rehearsals, in our online discussions, in our everyday chats. We’re twisting it round and turning it inside out and inspecting, exploring and interrogating it as inspirational tools and choreographic elements. But the word itself can only go so far. If words are signs then secret is the perfect word – it’s purely a symbol.  Any creative response to a symbol is going to be detached, to lack authenticity.

As we’ve been writing, talking, dancing and tweeting about secrets, it has become clear that it’s a pretty hush hush area. This area where me as a choreographer will not invade as a sign of respect to the dancers privacy; this hush hush area became problematic a stumbling block, as I was unable to push the choreography further.  There is a secrets comfort zone and no matter what you happen to be talking about, one major thing is true – you’ll not divulge the actual secret. The secret is the unsaid thing. The secret elephant in the room. We could talk for hours about the sheer devastation caused by a secret or about the empowered feelings of owning one – we’re happy to dance around it, explore the feelings related to it – but we’ll not word the secret itself. I worked with the dancers on their secrets but we worked on the associated feelings and the words surrounding the secret. Imagine 8 dancers in different parts of a room. Moving separately with their own secret, like satellites of secrets. In the first 2 weeks of rehearsals, not a single secret was told.

So I started to think about the ingredients needed to take the dance from a floating concept of individual journeys, to a collaboration.

Lou Cope, the dramaturg collaborating on this project, suggested what I think we’d all forgotten, our own secrets. While this part of the performance involved interpreting our own secrets, the next stage would be interpreting others. Lou was right, how could I ask my audiences to open up for the first time about something so deeply personal and not offer my end of the bargain. How could we expect engagement when we weren’t prepared to put ourselves on the line too?

What followed was perhaps the hardest part of this process, for all of us. As a choreographer I felt this tremendous burden – would my dancers be willing to share? What responsibility do I have towards them and the audience? Would I be willing to share my secret in return? This was last Thursday and the change to the rehearsing space was intense. I’ve always promoted transparency in our rehearsals and processes but this was more, we were equal, together. We all had secrets but instead of keeping them to the silent movement space in our areas of the room – we owned each others. We shared. As a result the movement became more vulnerable, more honest and less dramatised.  It was as if, in sharing our secrets, we’d reattached to honest emotions…

Now our job turns to the audiences and how far we share our secrets with them. As independent and personal a secret might be, sharing is not a one way street. If you’ve followed our progress over the last couple of weeks, you’ve seen us ask audiences for secrets. We’re now seeing how many people want to share but don’t quite feel able to. The word secret teases us, it gets us wondering what it might be like to not keep it a secret anymore, it tickles our need for truce. What does it take to put it into words?

Joumana Mourad is a Dancer, Choreographer and the Artistic Director at IJAD Dance Company. The In-Finite project comes to London on March 8th and tickets can be booked here. Joumana tweets at @JouDance.