16 August 2012

Projects Sharing 2012

The Kinitiras Choreography Lab 2012 session drew to a close this past Saturday 11th August, with an open sharing of the  outcomes of the lab to a full house audience capacity at the studio.  This session was the third instalment of the lab and for the first time we welcomed international participants as well as two returning 'labbers' - each with diverse languages, training, professional backgrounds, ideas and personal histories.  All these were manifested in the variety of approaches and concerns embedded within the 'exposed practice'.  This fact reminded us that there isn't a single aesthetic that defines what contemporary dance is, on the contrary, contemporary dance is  a matrix of differences that collide, collaborate, intertwine and even conflict on order to speak about the dynamics of our contemporary life.

The event was a mosaic of results of the lab research projects.  They were (and remain) open investigations, the beginning formulations of work that will probably evolve in multiple directions within each artists' practice, the concern is not about making a piece, but creativity as a means to define a method of practice and through this affirm an artistic position from which to engage in and with dance.  Because of this the mosaic was not presented in a proscenium format but in a dynamic open space of interaction.

The projects in order of appearance were:


No Strings Attached
Devised and performed by Angeliki Strati
Photo by Pavlos Mavridis





`Ολον Project
Devised and performed by Ersilia Ypofanti
Contemporary dance and flamenco installed in space, 1+1=1
Photo by Pavlos Mavridis




Εφτα'/Seven/7
Choreographed by Eleni Pantazatou
Music:  'Horizon' by Simeon ten Holt
with Angeliki Strati, Ersilia Ypofanti, Leeda Taktikou, Thania Acaron, Kiani del Valle, Marielys Burgos, Nefeli Oikonomou.
Exploring the personal and the social through contact



The Human Factor/Accumulation 1
Choreographed by Marielys Burgos Melendez
Video:  Mariely Burgos Melendez
with Eleni Pantazatou and Nefeli Oikonomou
Tracing journey, histories in the bodies inscribed in space, letting go.  Marielys participation was made possible through a scholarship from the Department of Dance at The College at Brockport (SUNY).


Lie to me, I like it
Devised and performed by Thania Acaron
Exposing the hidden politics of performance.  Thania Acaron's participation in the lab was made possible with a grant from Creative Scotland, UK.




This one is female
Choreographed and performed by Leeda Taktikou
Exploring female identity through an alternative rereading of the Odysseus myth.





Becoming/Forgetting
Choreographer and dancer:  Nefeli Oikonomou
Composer and pianist:  Kiriakos Spirou
A landscape approached by different perspectives in search of communication.  Two disciplines, a common graphic score.





4D
Choreographed and performed by Kiani del Valle
Video:  Marielys Burgos Melendez
Object/subject dichotomies in and through visual media.





Sound engineering and composer for all music except were indicated:  Kiriakos Spirou
Lighting:  Pavlos Mavridis
Lab director:  Ana Sanchez-Colberg

With our thanks to all at Kinitiras -Antigone, Vicky, Flora, Marian and Fotini- for their work and support in making the lab happen, visiting artists Robert Clark, Michael Klien, Roberto Olivan for their input.  Marianna and Kiki for hosting the international participants and Andras the cat for keeping us entertained.

See the full archive of the research projects by clicking into each participants page. 

Join us in FACEBOOK (see the badge on the side column) to receive information about next years' lab and other activities around it.

9 August 2012

Lab time 9th August 2012



non-stop.  and lunch breaks.  and power naps. and then more work. and questions, and decisions, and titles were agreed today. and a programme was typed.  and props appeared. and  we seem to be living in the studio.



8 August 2012

Lab time 8th August 2012


Intensive research and development days ahead.  We worked til late last night.  Energy a bit low, that 'I am tired' part of the process appearing through the window but, nonetheless, the projects are gaining critical momentum. 



Time for change, alterations, development, throwing everything out the window, only to run and fetch it again, discoveries, remembering, forgetting...




New collaborations continue to be forged. We don't lose sight of the research intention/imperative of the work, the lab, even if it will be open to 'outside eyes' on Saturday.  This is hard, but we are committed to it.  Part of the learning, part of the challenge.  I am doing this in order to.... (fill in the blank...)

7 August 2012

Tuesday 7th August 2012

Working with Roberto Olivan Day 2:
If yesterday was about 'feet' (and with that thoughts on weight, balance, trust), today it is about hands as a way to enter into issues of projection of energy.  Presence.  We explore backs, arms, fingertips, manipulations, swings, spirals.  Energy through the body, millions of points in a line (quoting Carolyn Carlson). (Aside:  as he teaches he quotes other dance artists -yesterday Forsythe, today Carlson-  which is not  something that all artists are prepared to do.). Weight, impulse, he insists on efficiency, not adding anything to the movement. We explore putting weight on the hands..."yes it is simple, but we have to strat from the beginning"

Deconstructing the flow of energy through the body, deconstructing the planes. Projection from centre to fingertips and the path of movement that it generates. Articulating of the wrists, fingertips, letting that turn the body through space.  "Where are you going?"  He asks and then states "give the accent,  the body will follow.  Same thing with our legs, foot turns to the back, the rest follows,, like an arrow...claro adelante, claro hacia atras, ecolo, well done..."  A second floor combination...


As he elaborates the combination, attention is given to the musicality of the phrase ("piano is not the same as pianissimo, a musician understands that, why not in dance?, a phrase is not just a phrase, think of the details".).  Later on he stops and gives attention to spatial organisation, clarity of where the dancer is in space, he speaks of this in similar terms as Laban's kinesphere, "where I am in space, when I turn the space of organisation is with me.".  He states, when I start dancing I see  lines in front of me, to organise my self in space, then I can be free...Much better chicos, but don't forget pleasure, at the end this is the most important,  always..."...


After a short break we switch to 'making', devising is perhaps a better word.  He gives everyone a paper.  In couples; one dances (for one minute) whilst the other writes, whatever comes to mind, not descriptive, like automatic writing, left side of the brain. Three cycles of dancing, writing for one minute.



Then in a circle, the  writings are then read/spoken/shared.  I cant help but notice the array of languages -Spanish, French, Albanian - English is the foreign tongue for all,?  most? yet the one we use to speak to (OK one exception:  Paul has English as 1st language) .  Words:  black hair, flowing around, enredadera, limpiando el piso como elefante, boing, boing, boig, bleu, thalassa, seriedad, jellyblock, kinisi, to parafiro, trapezi, ma mere...diafora, makria..kati leo, trexo gia to leoforio..."Why am I interested in this...I like that each person is like a universe..."  he tells an anecdote to elucidate, about beuty, circus and a big trapeze artist, like a truck driver,  and his notion of beauty, not the perfect unison of dance but sheep, his mother...which made Roberto question beauty in dance, the phrase that came out of that conversation between Roberto and the big guy became the most successful one of the show, not the dancy dancy ones.... something about the human betrayed trough dancing...again...brings me to the recurrent thought, who we are and what we become in and through dancing, not the fabrication of movement...

Next stage:  he asks each to choose one phrase (singular statement, not a collage) from the writing  and bring it to movement.  The group will move around the room and when someone is ready they call attention, and dance for one minute, engaging with all.  Roberto demonstrates to "you are so beautiful...", we are lucky, we have been given a command solo performance by him...  We start, lots of walking and no dancing..."don't take forever please...take responsibility, take centre...bring us to your universe...'


6 August 2012

Monday 6th August 2012

Working with Roberto Olivan:  Day 1
Physical work on day 1, then composition tomorrow. Unknowingly, he is serving as as a great summary of the main issues of the lab. We start working with feet: weight, breath, fall, getting rid of excess tension, freeing the body to flow, within itself and through space. Working with the dynamics, alive, flexible and then impact, working on the innate dynamics of the body, surprises, (waking up the body), Action-reaction. Getting rid of 'residual movement' (the excess habits that we bring moving that may not be necessary in the moment). Isolation. Lots of bouncing and ahhhhhhsss, get rid of the tension, finding a more neutral position, starting from simplicity, finding accents, choices, choices, choices he says....Speed, precision, daring, enjoy. He does not stop, we are communicating in three languages, lots of Spanish (I blame the Puerto Ricans)... laughter, lightness., hard work. "Mejor, respira....breathe in , breathe out, knee in , knee out, libertad (freedom), very simple, very complicated....RISK!!! maybe we fall, but maybe we discover something new...details, the manner in which the material is done, the way we do things, Awake the animal instinct, avoid splitting the body, being able to respond as a whole, not broken in parts... We work on a phrase.... "I like to add moments of acrobatics...to push the boundaries of the language...but to do them with the softness and fluidity of contemporary dance..."

We work through the phrase until the level of physicality is high..then .ten minute break...Moving on to 'composition', duet tasks. offer a body part, touch, offer another, in duet. "we are not improvising" but making a 'sequence' through the touch points and being creative we the manner in which we offer the point...making it complicated, creative he says, not just point point point boring. bit where do I go/how do I go to the point of another that I need to touch, and from there what journey do I (explore?) take to offer a new point of contact. He speaks of this as bare bones, to have a bulk of material to build something tomorrow in part two of the masterclass.

Roberto asks to show the 'bits', he offers suggestions of where the material could go. He mentions (that word again), that one must be aware of what is 'proposed' and work from there. He notices that the duets have resistance so he stops to take the group through a simple carrying exercise to build on trust, tact and to stop being afraid of giving our body and taking the body of another. Offering strong base. Later he addresses the group, suggests an opinion: the need to commit fuylly to movement as somthing that emanates from me, it is not something I go to, it is something given from within.

4 August 2012

Saturday 4th August 2012

Michael Klien:  Day 2

The Valley of Glades.
We move. 
We begin by establishing a 'place' for real dance.
Evolving strategies 'to dance', whatever they may be. 
Begin to understand the strategies, place, stimulus from the space, from others, music. 
Place of negotiation, the studio.



Group discussion/////Strategies found:
  • discomfort
  • things that give me pleasure
  • speed
  • searching for interactions (even if not nearby)
  • interruptions of the flow at given times
  • not all equally successfully, differences of intensities
  • found myself using very much my peripheral view, catching images from within the blurriness
  • It was like I was giving tasks to myself, trying not to do what I always do, forcing to break the patterns
  • I can recognise this for myself, feeling safe, when I get there, I cant think outside, something risky, ahead of me, I cannot think, having reached another state.
These are all practise based, awareness leading to understanding choice, responses, to 'get there', collect strategies, communication, creating a catalogue of strategies to access, these are individual strategies, at this stage not yet communicative, that is the next stage. to be together in a moment of 'dancing'.We try a few y as a group: blurriness, discomfort, cradle of the unknown (everything that you know hurts so you have to get out of it) , repetition.


WORKING WITH THE SCORE: IM FETT (2011)

3 August 2012

Friday 3rd August 2012

Working with Michael Klien, day 1.
We begin with introductions, the labbers are joined by four visitors, including  Nefeli (labber 2011), this is great, two post labbers. Nefeli and Eleni have re-engaged, bringing a continuity/evolution to the long term identity of the lab.

Michael likes to start with speaking.  Defining choreographic approaches -representational, structural, epistemological (how do things come into being-flow, education, knowledge).  What 'nutrients' does each process bring to the human condition to or life.  Not a matter of right or wrong but of choice.  But there are dominances.

Then there is social dreaming...within the Tavistock Institute, where people share their dreams, with no reference to the dreamer, but the dream itself, free associations, if you do this over days, it becomes a matrix, with its own commonalities...shared symbols.  Establishment of a common reality through the dream ...dreaming is a constant state;  at night the inhibitors are down, then we notice that we are reading.  The inhibitors  are day to day reality, growing, in the stream of everything...  out of this stream 'reality' springs and separates itself from the 'dream'... insanity perhaps a constant state of dreaming. ...  we remember the historical connection between art, insanity and dreaming, strategies of coping.... In social dreaming everyone is creative, not just artists.   Important to this is the idea of emergence...signs, language, relationships that emerge, created.  'Everybody is an artist' (Josef Beuys).

We start dancing.  Just dancing.  Fifteen minutes of just dancing....15 minutes later...he asks: from all that time, during how much of it did you really really really dance?  Kiani interjects "it depends what we call dance"....  so she says 15 minutes.  For Thania, from 45 seconds to 15 minutes...  Michael:  have you ever danced more in your life?  do you feel that you have danced in your life more intensely than this that you have done now..'  murmurs of 'of course'..... so... the next thing to do is:  to 'really dance'...only 7 minutes, really really dance.

Time to discuss.  Lots of questions about the implications of Michael's proposals.  Particularly about the 'most intense'... Michael brings the issue of 'experience' in relation to intensity.  The group questions (for a first time?) Michael's proposals....  great.  For Michael 'the best dancing' happens when you know what it takes to arrive at the 'real dancing'... to be aware of the conditions that are set, can be set, to make dance happen.  Notice the change of movement as conditions change. He speaks of a 'drop', does it always have to be a 'drop'?  not drop as such 'a transformation'.

Last conceptual push:  'dance as sheltered by philosophy'.  Alain Badiou walks through the door holding A Handbook of Inaesthetics.   Dance as a metaphor for thought.  How dance relates to thinking.  Not dance as institutional arrangement.  Philosophy has a notion of dance, reminiscent of early childhood, a certain kind of phenomena (Nietzche and Mallarme).  Dance as a disclosure of being. Even spiritual if you want to take it that far.  Proprietor of one's experience.  Badiou says  'dance against gravity', what is that....?  Badiou's poetic provocation...gravity of organisational structures, what pulls in one direction. State of dance moves against this state (s) of gravity.  Need for space:  that can extend itself to its 'proper height', whatever/where ever it needs to extend,  a measure of its essence.   The place where the body becomes its own forgetting, forget that one is dancing (because it becomes pure being not needing its own awareness?).   Dance is a search, once there is an event there is theatre, not dance.  Dance is the possibility of art as inscribed in the body...therefore it is continuous, this moment, this situation.  Dance is always a new name given to the Earth.   Complex thought body,  where it internal relations go into a state of flux, relations are flexible, not repeating, change...each arrest gives results in a new constellation, reoccurring, re-establishing itself and its known connections into the new.

To make connections he describes recent events:  Silent Witness (in the Irish Parliament) and A Man Dancing  (Museum of Modern Art, Dublin) last year.

Question from Angela:  back to intensities, is it what we need, or work against conditions to be encountered, to dance in spite...response:  you are then a proficient dancer...  mediating, meeting the demands of sharing, with what is personally needed. perhaps a mixture of both.  Practice [of]  changes.  Technology of the self.

It is proposed that we go back to respond to the question 'how much dancing did you really do?' (in the 7 mins exercise), and having listened to MK, the answers are revisited.  it is not the intensity but what is the 'really really'...  Thania:  degree of connection not necessarily intensity, but intensities in/of.... tangibility about concreteness, concreteness a type of 'representation'.


Thania comments:  if dance is not a language, why are we talking so much and not moved?  where all all these thoughts in the act of dance? Good point/  This is the challenge of havimg a dance therapist/choreographer/dancer in the midst. she is good with methodologies, finding the gaps the contradictions.....  what are they?  what do we do when we face these contradictions?  what thought does it bring?  what action does/can they motivate?

Scores//////moving////tomorrow/

2 August 2012

Thursday 2nd August 2012

LAB TIME:

Projects in development.
 Leida talks to Kiriakos about soundscores. 








Eleni (returning past labber) will be working with Marielys Burgos.




Thania (the doctor in the corner) is working through her notes...

Wednesday 1st August 2012

Working with Robert Clark, Day 3
...transition into something we can work with, from generating material and going through processes, into issues of form and reception, making decisions through the process in relation to a concept/idea/pursuit. He asks the group to transfer the description/experience/verbal task of happiness into physical form.  They work in silence for about 35 minutes.  The he asks them to present the fragment to each other, we discuss the impact, the effect.  He offers feedback on how he 'wpould use these' in his evolving project towards a new piece (In fact these Lab days are a pre-research to a work that will begin later in the year).  He reminds us that he is making very quick decisions to illustrate certain issues.  He apologises for the appropriation of the material, but we all are clear this is needed for this particular process.  The work is focused and hard.  He asks you to reenter the material through different approaches, trying to find layers to the proposal of 'happiness'.  There is much talk about a piece on happiness not being happy at all.  He is tough with the group, asks them concentration and physical commitment to the task. 

31 July 2012

Tuesday 31th July 2012

Robert Clark Day 2
We begin with warm up. Drawing attention to fluidity, softness, the spine, mouth, breath, length, articulation of the body (joints), sense of weight into the ground.  Allowing the contact work to  become a proposal through space.  Considering what it takes to work with another, overcoming resistance, balance...

The second part of the session is dedicated to the process of research.  Robert shares his new proposals on 'happiness'.  The first tasks are verbal, we talk, we share thoughts of what it is, looking not just for the words, but what happens to us in the process of reflection, of 'telling', of listening, speaking on behalf of the other, the responsibility of mediating, the difficulty.

Two words surface:   PROPOSALS and PROVOCATIONS.  He leaves us with the task of reflecting on the 'transition into something we can work on'.

30 July 2012

Monday 30th July 2012

Working with Robert Clark
 After one introductory week of considering process, we now go micro, into the body. We begin with a short warm-up (no technique class this morning) small work with touch and contact to establish a ground for the work to come. Thumb working on toes waking up (firing, Robert says) our sense of balance through the vertical.  Robert asks them to stay connected to the partner manipulating, not allowing the experience to close in- only experienced internally.   The images alter from metaphors to anatomy, the body-work is not locked into one mode of language.


He speaks of (through touch) establishing a relationship, opening up to what the body (of the otter) proposes(in moments that I follow) as well as what I propose to the other body (through touch) when I lead.  He speaks of a dialogue (that word again and again).  He reminds us to keep it 'small' so that it does not propel into 'something else'.  He asks the group to change partners, as a way to remain sensitive to the fact that every instant is particular, there is no repetition.  Avoid just repeating, what worked with one may not necessarily work with another (all these relevant to experience of moving and experiencing movement, these two in a dynamic flux).  Keep changing the proposition:  Contact exercise.  Rolling: one rolls, 'one takes a lift'.  It is not what we are producing, but constant exchange of experience, of changing propositions and following them til the next one appears.  Marielys interjects "conditions" (connections to the previous made). A lot of giggling.   Getting used to 'putting weight into' the body.  Interesting  that even trained dancers find this  a challenge.  The exercises pick up layers,  now we enter into depending on shared point of balance to generate a more (shall we say) daring movement journey.

Robert speaks about bringing 'the human' back into dancing, with specificity.  Why forget it is/maybe a man dancing with a woman who may or may not be smaller, bigger, whatever.  He does not want to over do, just bring this to play - shifting the body as form, architecture etc with moments of encounters.. A starting point, acknowledging an other through focus.



 He introduces his research as such: the body as a 'proposal' (multi-layered/multi-dimensional).  An exercise:  with eyes close (in partners) we find with one hand the body of the other (who has created a physical state), the hand stays, another hand searches for another point in the other.  The hands find a proposal, which is then embodied.  n Bringing back the dimension of touch, to balance the previous work with vision.  


Relationships -in space, across bodies, across movement, across energies, across sound- are taken as proposals to responsive action.  Sense environment, what I choose, what I foreground, background, again what proposes, what is followed through, when it ends and the new begins.

28 July 2012

Saturday 28th July 2012

Working with Kiriakos Spirou
Sound is captivating me. Sound and the task of repetition to seek for exhaustion. Change... slight change or Sudden Change. Decisions. Changes that could not be perceivable, changes that are supported in its structure. An structure that comes from the doing. The Human Factor as a condition resonates in my head. What is shown in the beginning disappears, ultimately the beginning is not the beginning and it gets lost in the doing. Embodied methodology and intention. I have my preferences and my biases, we all do... Marielys

25 July 2012

Wednesday 25th July 2012

I have my tasks ready for Leeda and Ersilia, but I have an ethical conflict. I read yesterday another chapter of Adriana Cavarero. I realized there is no way I can read things in the order they are given to me, I instantly reorganize information according to... my needs? However, I found the striking moment on page 50. Now I read it and it makes no sense when I isolate the information. I need what comes before that fragment in order to make a sense out of it. When I read it last night I asked myself: How can I ask/ and recover each corporeal history? Now I wonder how should I ask things and what tasks  can I give in order to see the particularities of each moving body/being?? Is this an epistemological questions? If I ask the "wrong" questions, will I have the wrong answers?? This leads me to contemplate my preconceptions and expectations... Everything will be fine!!! It is about exploration... there is no right or wrong... change and uncertainty is a sweet and delightful  space/stage to inhabit... The ethical issue is still present: I do not want to see movement, I want to experience their moving bodies.... Marielys


Today was really amazing for me to see what other dancers could do following my tasks, I notice some moves that conveyed a specific mood (like disappointment for ex) and how much somethings related ansd some other were completely different.  However I deceided I will focus more on my moving, egotistic as that may sound. This is me now/here ..In Mariely's task iIfelt like a reptile, tension of the mouth goes to the hands as well and couldn't  be isolated.

24 July 2012

Tuesday 24th July 2012

Thoughts on the go

Ersilia's task made progress on my chaotic stuff for "Female Odyssea." (working title): a routine movement that appears on everyday life and how that changes by outside circumstances... like fighting the demons that have only one purpose: to distract and split in two or more in order to destroy your decision to make or do something that your heart desires.  Aggeliki's task made me realize how things related to our live and i cant move my big toe with out the other toes move as well as .(.i would pay to see the big toe move itself ) then I realized that this team can be very creative ..and maybe I had been dreaming it for a long time .So..I am looking forward for Mariely's task tommorrow and i am very concerned to see  if i can manage to bring to the surface movements from the other participants ...in a choreography (Leeda)

23 July 2012

Monday 23rd July 2012


Lab Time.

Can I let go if I am not holding anything at all? Are we ever in that stage of not holding anything? This questions are now running through my mind... I embody holding as a task. It comes from Angela's feedback: She could not think of letting go without thinking in holding first. This led me to tension -in specific body parts-, and tension led me to origins. Origins again. What is the origin of the tension that is held?? I am literally talking about body conditions. What part of the body are physically engaged when I move my arm? Paralysis!! I decided to change my task. Holding and Origins are still there: I am on the floor sliding my body backwards and all of the sudden I feel unnecessary tension, an stage or ALERT. I decide not to move until I feel my body free from that tension. ANXIETY is on my flesh for I think my habits are revealing. HABITS another big word. Paralysis in gone!!! Sliding took me some place else. Let go and collapse. Am I going back to the beginning? - Marielys

Holding. Letting go. 
Holding. Dropping.
Holding. Refusing to let go.  
Obsessing.
Rupture.
No Air. 

there are many things enforced by my brain-work ….the amount of the questions are capable of making me feel stupid but I guess I am in the true way of research ..thankfully there is always the statement ..This Is Me Now/Here that calms down and let things happen ..          Leeda





confused and restart from the shoulder in discussion with the ear...


20 July 2012

Saturday 20th July 2012

First lab time, independent research time.

I have a lot of images in my head!!! Angela shared an image she had with mirrors on the floor while she was embodying the task I gave her... I wonder what are the boundaries among disciplines, when my dancing stops being dancing and becomes something else if moving -not movement- is an intrinsic aspect of the body... I do not care about this right now, I do not mind if what I do trespasses the traditional boundaries. Being is more complicated than categories.. It is what it is... Marielys

Friday 20th July 2012

Day 3. Thoughts on the go

Digging.Exhausting. Sharing.Holding. Sustaining not necessarily sustainability...Key words to today's process.  From the experience of moving to experiencing movement, precise, specifically, distinct.   There is much talk about yeterday's homework, questioning our motivations, fears, desires, commitment to being a creative artists in and through movement. We exchange tasks to see the effect of our thinking on another body, and then use that to 'dig' into a further layer of possibilities to develop a process. Language worlds, allowing individual knowledge from specific practices particular toeach participant to inform the evolution of today's work. The participants pages should be up and running in a few days...




I had made an image that I was a fish,with one right-hand. I made my water tank  to live in,  then I realized that my left hand trapped behind my back wasn't an enemy but needed my right hand's help to set me free..I think i did..and Although  i am a fish some times,.i have to leave my glass home, swim the wide sea..... Leeda (responding to Marielys Burgos' task)




My body hurts -I am dancing after a month without moving at all- This is day 3 of the lab, Ana is talking and uncertainty is on my flesh. I hear the word AUTONOMY. My writing is slower than my thoughts. I explored a task given by Leeda, an open task: Pelvis. I tried to exhaust the exploration. I watched Leeda embodying the task I gave her, I am hungry and I have questions... Marielys


Body. Space. Sound within. The sound makes the movement go free. It's liberating. It evolves. Angela


Aerial Balance. Sports follow instructions. Arts follow Tasks. Explore the journey. Tha bag which wanted to become paper. (Ersilia)