The Speaking Dancer

interdisciplinary performance training SDIPT; dance research studio/Director Jacky Lansley - module 3

In module 3 we were looking at Visual language and the performer. Delving into the visual apsects of performance, one of our explorations was in a walk along the canal in Hackney, I have posted a few pictures from this walk here..

  
 

These images contributed to our experience of the outside visuals and bringing the ideas back inside to the studio, exploring them in a physical language. It was great to play with using the camera as a frame and finding exciting elements out doors to bring into focus through the lens.

We also explored a visual image we had brought with us to the workshop. I was working with an image by Korean artist living in New York, Miru Kim. 

Miru Kim uses herself as the focus in her photographs, placing her self, as a naked body, in the photograph with extremely dramatic backdrops. The locations for her photographs vary around the theme of abandoned, disused and derelict spaces in New York and other cities across Europe and Asia. These include Freedom Tunnel, New York, River Tyburn, London and the Boxhagener in Berlin. 

You can see more of Kims work here on her website www.mirukim.com

We also brought with us to the workshop an object, item of clothing or text. I decided to bring a text with me, 'Invisible Cities' by Italio Calvino. I found the text and image worked well together as they were both resonating imagery around cities and mythical places, made surreal by the placement of people or bodies in the picture.

I worked in duet with Lucy Tuck, a physical actor, whom brought in an object of a black and white see through cloth, that we used as a metaphorical symbol for both of our personalities, being like two sides of a coin, or similarly like sisters. We placed the performance directly inside the studio where we were performing, using all the aspects of the space in performance, like the stairs and pillar. This was to reflect the themes running through the image and text of space, place and location being the central aspects to the narratives.

I found a lot of inspiration from this workshop for my own choreographic work using images and visual material as a stimuli for creating movement. I look forward to continuing to explore these ideas and finding new ways of working with photography and visuals in choreography.