This past August I started working on a fresh idea, building a new dance. This project is still in it's early stages, but the current working title is: Life Cycle of a Malignant Debate. This duet is the result of the first creation period for an ORez project, generously offered by the Ottawa Dance Directive. I built this 8-minute work in collaboration with the performers Sarah Hopkin and Geoffrey Dollar.
Sarah Hopkin and Geoffrey Dollar rehearsing Life Cycle of a Malignant Debate
We are curious about the other, suspicious about the other, we converse with the other, attempt to convert the other. Differences get in the way of collaboration. We grow apart, carve out our territories. We mirror behaviour from opposite sides of the battle. Frustration and conviction heighten and we can no longer even look at each other.
In the choreography, you will see motifs become conversations and conversations become motifs. I set out to explore ideas of people growing increasingly apart, movements growing in contrast between the two dancers, zones on the space gradually being carved out to specific dancer territory, one being converted to the other’s point of view (way of moving), being drawn to one another, seeking compatibility and unison. I was also inspired by the idea of gravity, an extension of the idea of what pulls us towards one person or another, playing with proximity, weight, and orbits. The project’s movement vocabulary has been inspired in part by political speech givers, but I am also playing with lots of virtuosic moments performed by an exciting, capable cast.
My last four creative processes have had the pressure of presenting a finished work at the end of the creative process. I have sped through creations with clear deadlines and parameters. This project is an opportunity to work creatively without these restrictions, and lay the foundation for a fuller creative exploration. No expectations swayed this first draft of the process.
A first draft of Life Cycle of a Malignant Debate will be presented following the presentation of where the wings grow by TAKE UP SPACE. December 6 & 7, 2019 at 7:30 pm at Academic Hall of uOttawa (135 Séraphin-Marion Private, Ottawa). Facebook Event
Geoffrey Dollar and Sarah Hopkin rehearsing Life Cycle of a Malignant Debate