CoLab 2016 - Because We're Animals

[colab2016becausewereanimals-blog]

Colab Project Because were animals

Here is the video we created and edited, to be shown on the screen in the foyer at Blackheath Halls.

[colab2016becausewereanimals-blog]

me, a lion.

[colab2016becausewereanimals-blog]

After a successful performance :-)

[colab2016becausewereanimals-blog]

Our group preparing at Laurie Grove for our performance!

[colab2016becausewereanimals-blog]

CoLab Day 5

Performance day! This day was fairly chilled out, involving a minimum amount of rehearsal. We arrived at Laurie Grove in the afternoon to have our faces made up into our animals; there were many snacks and lots of music to relax us before the performance. Then we got cabs over to Blackheath Halls to begin!

The first thing we noticed when we arrived was that our own video which we had filmed and edited was playing on the screen in the foyer; it was really exciting to see this, and a proud moment as we saw our work on display and coming to life. It was soon time to perform, and we began by acting as our animals in the foyer, reacting to each other and interacting with the audience, who were coming in to buy their tickets. After this we came together as a group and showed our flocking routine for a while, before breaking off into our separate groups and performing our group material in various ares around the hall. All in all, I think it was a successful performance, with many members of the audience engaging with us and enjoying what they saw.

[colab2016becausewereanimals-blog]

CoLab Day 4

Today we focussed on creating some choreographed material to use in our final performance, and creating the plan for the order of the show. We split off into 3 groups for the day and used our time to create separate material within those groups. One group, consisting of a leaopard, panther, tiger and parrot, created a seductive feline routine with the parrot accompanying, improvising on his saxophone. Another group, the bushbaby, meerkat, giraffe and chameleon, focussed on sound and incorporated their sounds into the original choreographed material used when flocking, creating an explosive and high-energy performance. My group consisted of me (a lion), a snake, gorilla and two monkeys. The monkeys and gorilla choreographed a whole new set of movement; and I improvised on my flute to charm the snake, who reacted to the changes in the music. This created a kind of dance between us, focussing on reactions bouncing off the others’ improvisation.

[colab2016becausewereanimals-blog]

CoLab Day 3

On the morning of day 3 we improvised for longer in the character of our animals, so we knew how long we could move for, stamina - wise. I found this very tricky as I am a musician and do not have the build or stamina to move for long, so this was a challenge for me. Then we refined our flocking sequence and discussed how we would use it in the final performance; deciding eventually to flock in smaller groups as space is limited in the foyer at Blackheath Halls and it would be very difficult to move all together as one large group. In the afternoon we began filming for the short film that we had arranged to be played on the screen in the foyer at Blackheath Halls. This involved 4 types of movement being filmed. These were; silhouettes of our animals moving behind a sheet, the evolution sequence we had created earlier in the week, solo improvisations, and group movement, reacting to the character of each others’ animals.

[colab2016becausewereanimals-blog]

CoLab Day 2

Today was the first day we met one of our mentors. When I arrived our dance mentor, Heidi, was already there; once everyone had arrived we all sat in a circle and she discussed with us our plans for the final performance. We told her about what we had achieved the previous day, with the evolution sequence, the improvised movement and the soundscapes we had created. She suggested that we first of all create a uch clearer plan for the sequence of our performance on Friday night, and we agreed, explaining that we were going to visit the performance space that afternoon and afterwards would have a much clearer idea of what we would be able to work with in terms of performance material.

Then we tried a technique called flocking, which ended up playing a major part in our end performance. Flocking is a choreographical technique where you group together fairly tightly and the person in front leads the movement, ith all the others following and copying the movements. When the leader turns round the flock turns too, and the new person in front becomes the leader, and so on. We tried this technique first of all as one big group, the breaking up into smaller groups and rejoining whenever we felt like. This worked well as it looked complex and interesting from an outside point of view, even though it was a fairly basic technique we were using.

After this we got into our characters again, but this time we were given certain scenarios and moods to react to, which was very challenging in some respects and very funny in others! Finally before lunch we created a soundscape on a much larger scale, taking it in turns to be the person in the centre of the room while the others cirled round them making a wide variety of noises and sounds, using both their voices and their bodies and objects from the room. This was an all encompassing experience and it felt very surreal to be the person in the centre.

After lunch the entire group travelled to Lewisham to find costumes for the final performance. A number of challenges were presented here, as we could not agree on what to wear; initially we were going for skin coloured tops and shorts to be as basic and human as possible (bare chests for the boys, bras for the girls) but this caused confidence issues in some, especially me. Eventually it was decided that we would wear black on the bottom half and skin colour on the top, be it a bra or a t-shirt. We had arranged for a make up artist to come in on the last day and transform us into our animals, so from here we had everything we needed! Finally we went to Blackheath Halls to observe the space we would be performing in. Originally we thought we would be performing onstage, but it transpired that we were only in the foyer, which presented a lot of problems regarding space and the nature of our performance. We decided to discuss this and try to resolve the problem the next day when we were creating the plan for our performance.

[colab2016becausewereanimals-blog]

CoLab Day 1

The first thing we did today was sit in a circle and go over what animals we had picked to be for the project. After this Aliyah (our project leader) sugested we all warm up. She had prepared some warm ups for us to do which also served as ice breakers as the musicians did not know the dancers very well at all apart from meeting brielfy at our pre-CoLab project trip to th zoo. We did some breathing exrcises with our eyes shut, to relax and to be aware of ourselves in the space. Then we moved around at a walking pace, then at varying speeds, moving between each other to get a feel for the room and the others’ movements.

After this we began to get into character, becoming our animals for the first time. First of all we acted out our characters alone, and then one of us suggested that we begin to react to each other. This was also the point at which sounds were introduced, and our interactions included grooming, playing and fighting amongst each other, depending on our animals and their behaviour towards the others. Aliyah suggested we explore ourselves as humans and how we are related to animals, so we began a sequence whereby we would walk across the room, starting as humans from one end and slowly evolving to be our animals at the other. This gave us a greater awareness of the evolution process and of the posture we needed to create for our animals. This sequence proved to be very effective and came in useful when we were creating our video later on in the project. Next we explored sound. We sat in a circle and played sound games, first of all going around and all making the sound of the animal of the person whose turn it was next. Then we played some sound games, throwing sounds across the circle and each person reacting to the sound they had been giving it, and moulding and changing it before passing it on o someone else in the circle. This led to another important feature of our video - speaking as a human and suddenly morphing into the character of our animals and making their sounds instead. This proved effective as it portrayed basic animal instincts and how far we have evolved as a species. Finally we split up into groups created and recorded animal soundscapes using our own bodies and voices and any objects we found useful. Originally this was going to be the background sound for our performance, but in the end we chose not to use it, preferring only to use our voices instead. In my group we used the hollow inside of a bongo, a bottle half filled with water and some twigs we found from outside, in addition to our own voices and the zipper on a colleague’s jacket, to create our soundscape. Finally we planned to buy costumes and visit Blackheath the next day, in addition to starting to formulate our final piece. A very successful first day of CoLab!