works still to be made: les sylphides

les sylphides

This work takes the form and structure of the original ballet Les Sylphides by Michel Fokine, but reinvents/improvises the choreography. It may or may not use the music by Chopin. It probably won't. Maybe some nice guitar reinventions. I'm not quite sure about the gender balance staying the same either. It might be a bit weird to have one man dancing amongst so many women. Or it could be fantastic. 

(I performed in our ballet school concert version of Les Sylphides, which pains me to call 'our ballet school concert version' because at the time and in my memory it was and continues to be completely the real thing. I loved it. The hair, the long tutu, the standing still, the kneeling, the walking round in a circle, the arm wafting and the standing still. I just watched a Baryshnikov version on youtube and felt I knew it backwards. It is an incredible ballet - taking an element of romantic ballet and dispensing with the plot. The first of its kind. Move over Nijinsky. Its time for the Fokine revival)

where my heart is

works still to be made: what we are going to talk about is the main question

what we are going to talk about it the main question

This is a piece that Wendy Houstoun and I played around with last year when we had two wonderful weeks in Berlin. It never quite got anywhere, but since being in Europe again (though a very different part) I've been thinking about it and finally watched the video footage we took. I am quite terrible at the task I am set, but I think i could get better. What we are going to talk about is the main question is a lecture of sorts. It could be performed by me or Wendy or together. It will be meanderingly brilliant.

(the video is us talking about what to do, not actually the piece)

works still to be made: alien (film series)

alien (film series)

A solo for Elizabeth Ryan. A verbatim performance of all Sigourney Weaver's action and emotion in Alien (1979). Without props or narrative. Music by Gail Priest.

The next in my film series after Working Girl.

(I don't know why but it takes a long time to get a dance work made or it does for me. For example, I first began working on Opening and Closing Ceremony in January 2009 and it was performed in its finished variety September this year which is a scary three and a half years later. Of course, its not like that is all I did in that time, but still it seems a little slow. However, I feel like I am constantly having amazing ideas for new works of varying degrees of difficulty that may or may not ever get made, and instead of waiting the full 21 years or so to see whether they do get made,  I thought I might make a collection of these fictional (or more optimistically yet to be made works) here on my blog. I wanted to have a book, like artists have books, but instead of it being work I have made, the works in it are ones I could have/might have/should have made. A portfolio of the future. This is the first one.)

nottingham

Lizzie and I are in Nottingham. Time is passing quickly or it feels that we are stuck in an eternally repeating day. Moving in the studio feels difficult, even with our newly purchased tracksuit pants, but we are finding a way slowly. I have realised how absolutely linked my emotions are to my dancing practice, and because I am trying to ignore or hold back or deny my aching heart (the deep chasm of not being with Ada) and pretend I can just carry on like normal, I am not finding my dance ability very satisfying. Today was the second day of our 'dance to an album warm up practice' through which some things were found and I remembered again how much I love Martin Creed. His ballet and his talks. Brilliant.

new start

I'm going to try again.
I have just started a Critical Path residency with Lizzie Thomson. In December, we go to Nottingham, but now we are at UNSW, starting gently - dancing a bit, writing a bit and talking a lot. Today I have been watching dance on the internet and I found this. I like this.

last days of europa

So without making a comment about how this blog as a means to document my travels has been pretty much a failure, and resisting the temptation to make more promises, and ignoring the fact that it is a new year when I get good for a couple of weeks at such promises, I will just say with no small hint of sadness that we are now into the last days (the last week expired yesterday) of our European adventure. How did this happen? Well if I had bloody well written this thing, I might be able to look back and see, but instead I'll have to live with the fact that I'm living in the moment, moment by moment, and can only go by how I feel. We are back in Berlin and I feel immensely contented (or if you are content, are you just content? I suppose you can't be partially content). I feel all my doubts and worries about whether what I was doing was the right thing to be doing melt away, and I feel very happy about all the projects, all the cities, all the experiences and all the fun I/we have had. And of course I don't want to leave. Which is funny because when I first arrived I remember thinking 'I'm not sure if I even want to be here' and then thinking 'well, enjoy it now because by the end you won't want to leave' (thats the sort of internal dialogue way that I think). And sure enough, Toby and I are making all sorts of resolves to somehow return. Maybe we will. But for the moment, we are enjoying every minute.