Sunday 12 February 2006

British Dance Edition 2006

Carriageworks Theatre, Leeds
A view of an ice skate rink from Carriageworks Theatre, Leeds

Yesterday at 2pm, we had a performance with Stephanie Schober & Dance Company, in Carriageworks Theatre in Leeds.

It is unusual time because the festival we are performing called British Dance Edition is not open for public. It is for promoters and theatre programmers. All these powerful people come and watch many works for three days and if they like it, they are going to buy. So they are meant to move from one theatre to the other all day. It is very lucky to get a place to perform in the BDE since they select dance companies, and they hold a platform every two years.

So hopefully someone like our performance and give us some performance dates. But this is a job for our touring manager. I am just a dancer so I dance my best as usual.

We performed well. Stephanie, the choreographer and my partner for our duet Catch, is very happy about our performance, which is quite rare, so it must mean very good.
I personally think the performance was generally fine but I could be fitter somehow. Recently, I have not been feeling that my body and mind were quite together. Therefore in rehearsals, I found it difficult to find some feelings and emotions with movements. In Catch, a key of the performance is to switch my mood from one to the other every movement phrase. Each movement comes from a different place and means something different. In that sense, this is fragmented dance but the audience would not see it as fragmented since fragmented sources are coming up on the surface as a form of movement through a filter of subjective "me".
This is my interpretation of this work. Although I was struggling a bit make this process work in rehearsals, on the stage, I felt stronger supported by the sound and the light. I wonder how much the audience can see this kind of subtle discomfort in a performer. I also wonder what makes me feel satisfied with my performance, feedback from the audience or my subjective feeling?

As I feel particularly powerless in any place that has political, financial and business side of dance, I look at a choreographer with an admiration. How can they manage to do completely different two things: creating a work, and all the administration and negotiation?

Lots of dimensions making me think from only one opportunity...


BRITISH DANCE EDITION 2006

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