Output details
35 - Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts
University of Winchester
BOW Short Dance Film
This project (2010-13) aimed to discover the extent to which embodiment and compositional choices result from cultural contexts in contemporary dance.
• Artists from England, Faroe, Belgium, Malaysia/ USA, China and Thailand used Cunningham dance technique and visual-spatial perspectives for replicating space forms and coordinations to discover nuances in dynamic, posturing and motivation.
• Kinetic forms, video and discussion were used to identify roles of feeling (dynamic), intuition (timing) and cognition (spatial attention) in the embodiment.
We discovered that the Asian dancers used a more sustained embodiment of time and resistance in their use of weight; their dynamic embodiment was less free and more controlled. The ‘Western’ dancers tended to use a broader dynamic range and their spatial motivation was predominant.
• To apply these discoveries, a ‘bow’ was used; mechanically, as a cultural concept, a psychosomatic experience, intent and metaphor.
• Each choreographer used an improvisational sound score to organise the vocabularies within minimal and repetitive patterning cycles.
• Solo and group processes were used to attend to the roles of feeling, intuition and cognition in composition and performance.
Distinctions were apparent in the development of form; organic sequencing or practical /logical reasoning; embodying expressive or spatial form; phrase lengths and duration of evolution.
The insights were shared through the development and performance of a sectional work of 90 minutes, a short film and six workshops. To reiterate the insights, Thai shadow puppetry and site specific locations were used to look beyond the traditional frame. Different frames for the experience & perception of time and place/space diminished the distance between Artist and viewer.
Discussion with Artists, audiences and observers at post performance talks and feedback sessions confirmed the currency of cultural aspects.
This project has been used as a model for dance exchanges by the Asia Europe Foundation.
