The trilogy of `love` beyond beauty, truth and drama

The initial starting point in directing and choreographic process in developing the `Love`trilogy: the core and heart of the idea behind creating a performative trilogy concerning the theme of love has been the reflecting studies of the performers involved in the creational process. These spectacular and performative sequences begin with `Savage/Love`- the first part of the trilogy desgined in 2019. Starting from the desire in exploring the unfamiliar professional aspects of dance-theater and contemporary dance techniques, the personal experiences of the performers become the leading sources of inspiration in the directing and choreographic process. The middle part of the trilogy will be shaped as a performative show entitled `August Rush`. The last and third part will organically become a performative solo- `In/UnLoved bodies`.

Screendance for Adult Dancers:

The purpose of this research creation project was to engage in and analyze a process of creating a digital contemporary dance composition. To do this, the researcher completed a choreographic process with a video component for a live performance at a theatre. Observational field notes were collected and analyzed through an interpretive lens to identify the unique challenges that arose during this process. The findings provide insights into the choreographic process, the challenges of navigating technology use within a limited budget, and the uncertainty inherent in a creative process. Furthermore, the project sought to provide an alternative to the weekly technique class in order to further engage adults and the audience in the art form.

Walking in a cage: Attuning to atmospheric intensities through corporeality

This article discusses an artistic act: walking for seven sequential days inside a cage made of chicken wire in the grounds of a former mental hospital in Lapinlahti in Helsinki, Finland and its potential to offer insights into past events in mental hospitals through the notions of corporeal attunement and atmosphere. The idea for Walking Cage was prompted by a word in the data, which included memories by patients and non-patients of Finnish mental hospitals gathered in connection with a multidisciplinary research project. Passers-by, occasional co-walkers, weather conditions and the grounds of the former mental hospital partially formed and deformed the atmospheric qualities of the artistic research event. These qualities were experienced through corporeal attuning influenced by the Skinner Releasing Technique, a somatic movement method. The article proposes a singular way of approaching the possibilities of corporeal openness and sensibility in a choreographic process in which, illuminated by, among others, the notions of threshold and limit, one becomes a stranger to oneself by surrendering oneself to atmospheric intensities. This artistic research study adopts a phenomenological approach, drawing mainly on the ideas of Jean-Luc Nancy, Mikel Dufrenne and Emmanuel Levinas.

Cathy Marston

British choreographer Cathy Marston has sustained a choreographic career for more than three decades. Her work crosses European ballet cultures and extends from her classical training into a current contemporary ballet context. Focusing on Marston’s narrative works, this chapter demonstrates her position as a translator of literary texts, specifically Charlotte Brönte’s Jane Eyre. Through a dual-layered exploration of her choreographic process, the chapter offers an examination of her use of European theater practices and design strategies, including regietheater, suggesting her liminal positioning between Continental and British stylistic traits. Furthermore, the chapter discusses the collaborative construction methods used by Marston through a descriptive analysis of the development of Jane Eyre, a ballet created for Northern Ballet (Leeds) in 2016.

Szenarien des Entwerfens

The contribution aims to look at the figure of the scenario as a format directed toward the future, which introduces into the choreographic process the potential agencies of singular materials and media, procedures and practices. On the one hand, the scenario connects to the context of its emergence and on the other, it emphasizes the unpredictable which occurs within the relationality of singular agencies and their assemblages. The various practices of scenography open up the spatial dimension of choreographic assignments and their negotiation within the occurring arrangements. To examine these different ideas and link them to each other, the essay looks at William Forsythe’s ‚Human Writes‘ and explores the concept of his choreographic objects as a mode of expanded choreography, as well Meg Stuart’s ‚sketches / notebook‘ as an interdisciplinary ritual.

Collaborative Ethics: Choreographing within the system and beyond

Examining our collaborative choreographic process and embodied investigation of accomplishment, this article argues that our ongoing performance-making practice offers new insights about a systematized, continual demand for productivity that prioritizes the individual. Focusing on our recent trio of dances, choreographed from 2015 to the present, we propose that our collaborative process and relationship intervene on neo-liberal conditioning within academia and provide a different approach to shared institutional experiences. Our insistence on co-authorship and cooperation, both onstage and on the page, creates an undercurrent of resistance to dominating structures of scholarship and hyper-valuing of individual achievement.

The Influence of Contemporary Dance, Used in the Choreographic Process of Chinese Mongolian dance

China is a country that has 55 nationalities. The Chinese folk dance is a dance that also has 55 varieties of folk dances. Chinese Mongolian dance is one of those folk dances. The Chinese Mongolian dance mentioned in this paper can also be interpreted as an academically trained Chinese Mongolian dance.

Somatic ethnographic research: A choreographic process informed by Alexander Technique

I write from the perspective of a dance artist interested in reflecting on and sharing my experiences of applying the Alexander Technique (AT) to a choreographic process. The inquiry was framed by dance ethnography, and I choreographed, danced, interviewed and performed with emerging to established dance artists specializing in Contact Improvisation, and interviewed and participated in lessons and workshops with AT teachers. During each phase of the research, I asked: why and how does AT guide me to embody my practice as a choreographer and dancer? This self-ethnographic research outlines an AT-inspired dance methodology using a systematic somatic process to enhance physical, mental and emotional coordination for choreographers and dancers. I propose that AT expanded my attention moment-to-moment to develop my choreographic intentions and desires.

De-centring the choreographer: Historically inspired interruptions/disruptions in an exploration between sculpture and movement1

This article reflects the process of choreographic making where the choreographer actively decentres her choreographic choices by collaborating with participating dancers and historical inspirations. It explores the creative potential of archives ‐ a set of temple-sculptures found in eastern India called the Alasa-Kanyas (meaning indolent maidens) ‐ as past evidence of historically marginalized bodies of the temple-dancers, also known as Maharis, in the field of the eastern Indian classical dance form called Odissi. Alasa-Kanya: Sculpture in Odissi (AK), a Practice as Research (PaR) experiment, imbricates the historical and the theoretical in choreographic practice, re-inscribing the archival traces of the Mahari as found in the sculptural traces of the Alasa-Kanyas by an inculcated deconstruction of Odissi dance vocabulary. According to philosopher Jacques Derrida, deconstruction destabilizes the hierarchy between the centres and margins of a given area of knowledge. This experiment questions the hierarchical construction of Odissi dance as technically elevated than Mahari performance. Theoretical deconstruction is complemented by an embodied investigation via structured studio improvisations using the Creative Articulations Process (CAP). Choreographic process and analysis of AK deconstructs the technicity in Odissi movement via engaging with the Alasa-Kanyas or the sculptural archives of the Maharis in Indian temples. In this way, the once marginalized interrupts the dominant historical narratives and disrupts the patriarchal construction of a male centre, in turn questioning the agency of the choreographer in the choreographic process.