Last night our hour-long concert of music and dance - 3 & 10 Across the Pond – was performed live in Liverpool, Florida, Edinburgh and online. Once the live audience members filled the theatres and online audiences settled into their armchairs the lights went down and the magic began. Opening the show was Making Connections. The work, inspired by paintings from the artist Piet Mondrian, started the show in a whirlwind of colour. The dancers were dressed in reds, blues and yellows as they danced upon an imitation of Mondrain’s ‘Composition C’. Whilst the musicians played lively music, packed full of personality and featuring moments of pre-recorded jazz music. Next came a beautiful piano solo by musician Robert Fleming, calming the atmosphere and allowing the audience time to prepare for the next dance piece.
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It's Show Time! After 4 months of hard work it is finally show day. Dancers in Liverpool are currently enjoying their warm up led by company dancer Bex. Very soon Liverpool will be linking up with Edinburgh to begin the technical set up and dress run of Making Connections and Distant Voices. We are then expecting Florida to join us at 6 pm (GMT) for the final dress run of The Handsome Moon.
At 7:15 pm (GMT) in Liverpool we will be inviting our audience to join us for a wine reception in the Arts Room at IM Marsh Campus. (Theatre doors will be opening at 7:47 pm (GMT)). Remember it's still not too late to come and join us live in Liverpool, Edinburgh or Florida! 'The Handsome Moon'
Today we began rehearsal as a full company with all members of LJMU, NSU and ENU working together. The piece is finally complete and today was able to run smoothly as we did full run through's of the piece. LJMU technician Noel Jones began to set the lighting for Liverpool, so that the lighting may reflect the themes of the music. The lighting gives sombre tones of purple and blue with occasional spot lights to illusion the moon, really emphasising the musical and dance themes. 'Distant Voices'
We began structuring the movement for the musical improvisation. This section was all about play and interaction between the two screens in the original piece and to recreate this we plan to play with close to and far away from the camera. During this section the musicians rely heavily on the movement of the dancers and so Pauline had to set rules for the dancers to be bound by: for example not to touch hands during a certain duet or a particular move has to occur at a specific point in time. Dr. Luke once again joined us to ensure that interest is kept alive for both live and online audiences. 'The Handsome Moon'
Today we began shaping the third movement of The Handsome Moon. This section can be identified by its 'wave structure' as it sees dancers melt and roll to the floor as others step of the rolling 'waves' of bodies. This section also exemplifies the musical themes of loneliness as dancers move between different still images that they feel expresses the theme. However, this is then contrasted by a 'hugging' phrase in which the dancers appear to hug a partner before slowly melting away back to loneliness. As this is the final section of the piece the movement because slowing down and there is the use of a lot more stillness having a powerful impact on the last few minutes of the emotional piece. 'Distant Voices' Today Dr. Luke joined us over Visimeet to help critic and advise on the spacing and execution of the piece. This was very valuable as it helped dancers to realise how often they needed to be in the space so as to not leave a black stage for online audiences. The dancers needed to set off for their journeys earlier than they thought in order to keep the live space active and interesting. We also began to work on the musical improvisational section of the piece. In this section the musicians are tasked with improvising based on the actions of the dancers they can see on the screen. The musicians are to improvise for approximately 60 seconds taking some instruction from conductor Ken. In the meantime it is imperative that the dancers also observe Ken as it is his directions to the musicians that the dancers follow to take their next cue. 'The Handsome Moon'
Today's rehearsal was mainly spent recapping and clarifying the work achieved during rehearsals on 11th November. The company worked on linking together sections one and two after piecing together Grass Hopper, Ribbons, Tea Party and Swaying Willow. We were able to dance the whole piece thus far with the music for sections one and two. 'Distant Voices' This week marked the first rehearsal of the reinvisioned Distant Voices piece! Working for the camera. As this piece was originally created in both Liverpool and Florida we now once again have the task of developing the piece for just one set of dancers in one country. For each piece of choreography that was created we then had the task of creating several versions so that we could understand how best to appeal to our live audience in Liverpool and the online audience. This way of working generated three different versions of each section: A) All dancers the same side. B) Dancers mirroring each other on either side and C) Dancers on opposite sides to one another. This was a really interesting way of working and really helped to concrete in the dancers mind their role of dancing two audiences at the same time. 'The Handsome Moon'
Due to the UK clocks going back this week our rehearsal time with Flordia was shorter than usual. This truly highlights one of the difficulties working with dancers and a company spread across either side of the atlantic. As today we had the entire company of dancers present we were able to successfully run the entire piece so far, Both Liverpool and Flordia presented their moon solo's to one another and we found groups of solo's which had be developed with quite similar movement. At the moment we feel these solo's will start to build part three of the piece. Rehearsal's then moved on to rehearsing Grass Hopper, Ribbons and Tea Party. During our rehearsal of Tea Party we brought two more dancers from Florida in to create an equal balance of dancers on both screens. The musicians joined us and we got to hear the second movement of music for the first time. This sections of music is representative of longing. 'Making Connections' As we said goodbye to Flordia for the day, Liverpool and Edinburgh continue with Making Connections. We started this rehearsal polishing and refining the material created thus far. The MA students then took over to create a new original section for the piece, inspired by other painting of Mondrian... 'The Handsome Moon' Today dancers began by creating short solo studies inspired by images of the moon selected and sent to us by Dr. Luke. Once the dancers has created these we transported back to last weeks rehearsal and began to really refine the movement created here. Some small changes of dancer positions and facings enabled patterns to become a lot clearer for both live audiences and the online audience.
Unfortunately again this week we have been struggling with sound again this week in Liverpool with our sound resembling something like Darth Fader. 'Making Connections' During rehearsal of this piece today the Liverpool dancers began to work on section two of the piece. They took duets and trios and worked them into all being trios because of the higher quantity of dancers this year. These trios work to highlight the boxes on the floor of the Mondrian painting. A blue trio has been created with cool and slow movement as the choreographic inspiration. A yellow trio dramtically contrasts this with bouncing, exuberant movement. Followed by a red trio who's movement is sharp and arngry and fast. 'The Handsome Moon'
Again we started rehearsal with Liverpool taking direction from Luke. Luke took his phrase from last week editing it to move the Liverpool dancers to a different part of the space in order for the screen and Florida to be seen clearer. As the dancers from either side start to collaborate more and the movement get more complex its harder for the dancer to see cue's to move - we are relying on finding cues within the music to ease this. Edinburgh joined us live for the first time today! Today we heard the first movement of the musical piece 'Poems for the Handsome Moon'. This is the first of three movements within the music which has been inspired by 9th century female Japanese poets. However, once again sound was a problem during this rehearsal as an echo looped occurred. 'Making Connections' Today was the first rehearsal with live music, having previously rehearsed with recorded music from 2015... Florida join us again!
Dr. Luke led the beginning of the session today directing the dancers in Florida and Liverpool with material that he had already set for 'The Handsome Moon'. Taking instruction through the screen for the first time too some getting used to for the dancers in Liverpool as they had to take time to understand Luke's instructions. Next LJMU presented the four sections created last week (Grass hopper, Ribbons, Swaying Willow and Tea party) Pauline and the Liverpool dancers then worked on teaching dancers in Florida movement from each section, creating new duets for Ribbons and Grass Hopper from across the screen. Towards the end of rehearsal today we were having quite a lot of trouble with sound and echo feedback making it very hard for Florida to hear Liverpool and so making communications difficult. |
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Emma Saville is in her third year of study at Liverpool John Moores University and is the present project manager of the Telematic 10 company. Archives
January 2017
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