Traditional Dance. What do we
mean by this in the context of community dance and communities? In this
multi-cultural and multi-ethnic country what are we describing as
traditional? Are we talking about the traditional dances of England -
Morris and Maypole and similar? Or are we talking about the dances
performed by many of our communities to celebrate their own traditions?
When
offered the artistic direction of the World Dance Day project for Dance
in Devon these were the questions I was asking myself. The brief was
relatively simple. Lead a two day residential at the Beaford Arts Centre
in Devon and develop dance, or movement, or a process where the dancers
present would then take movement they had developed or learnt and
create a dance piece for their own groups to perform on World Dance Day.
The brief topic was also clear. You must work with the idea and
exploration of 'traditional dance'. This was an opportunity to work
with 10 dance artists, exploring an area of dance that was new to me
but one that I was very excited about.
The dance practitioners
coming to the residency had a very broad mix of dance backgrounds. There
were practitioners of African dance, Appalachian precision clogging,
flamenco, break dance, 5 Rhythms, contemporary dance, belly dance and
contemporary improvisation.
Another significant question I was
asking myself was that with all of these differing traditions, training
and experience, how was this going to be possible? At what point does
the teaching and learning of a sequence of movement break down due not
to the quality of dancers' teaching and learning, but due to the varying
histories of those dancers and the varying nature of the movement
parameters they work within?
Through all of this questioning, my
answer became apparent. The traditional we would work with would not be
traditional dance as an historical dance form, but would be a hybrid
movement experience we would create through the unique mix of all of us
together. Thus, by being together as a group, we would create our own
'tradition', which would be unique to us. This would involve creating a
process of exploration of movement and each other's language, and would
require everyone to be open about their own histories and be prepared to
take on each other's ideas of movement and history.
The
residency started as most residencies do, with introductions, histories
and interests, particularly relating to why we were together. With such
diverse backgrounds of movement, performance, creativity and
facilitation, this was a fascinating insight into the breadth and depth
of our dance world. Everyone, even with similar traditions in their own
dance experience, had had such varying lives and interests in dance that
it was guaranteed to be an interesting couple of days.
Introductions
were followed by the untangling of everyone's definition of
'traditional dance', with a particular focus on 'tradition'. The
responses were as varied as the histories, with a theme that seemed to
predominate, that tradition is a structure, not necessarily a dance,
formed of ritual, celebration and belonging around and through which the
dance happens. Tradition is the emotion, is the reason for dancing, and
is that which belongs to you. A number of dancers talked of the deeply
ingrained sense of rhythm their traditions gave them, and again this did
not necessarily occur in a dance form.
After further
conversations around what everyone's individual tradition was and how
that related to all of our differing definitions, we found our way to
Beaford Village Hall, our studio for the two days.
How do you
share practice across multiple dance traditions? We started with a
classic game of show and tell. The first task for each of the dancers
was to identify a number of key movements in their traditions, which for
them summed up their physical language and were identifiable as key
indicators of style. These movements were then put into a short sequence
by the individual and shared and learnt by everyone else. The breadth
of styles, ideas, movements and philosophies was wonderful, and we
finished the session buzzing having danced across the world and back.
The
next task was in pairs, and each individual in each pair shared with
the other their sequence of their 'tradition'. The pair then put these
sequences together, manipulating the material in whatever way they felt
would give them a better physical understanding of the movement and
would make for an interesting sequence. This is where the exploration
of the group as a tradition really began, with the sharing of movement
material and working with a generosity and openness to the altering and
development of their own movement. The results from this exploration
were stunning, with a fusion of traditions that created vibrant and
alive sequences of material we hadn't seen before. The participants were
stretched into moving in new and challenging ways and were also
surprised by working creatively with a whole new palate of movement
choices.
This process continued in a number of different tasks,
all developing out of the desire to fuse traditions to find new
languages, to explore new ways of working, creating and learning. The
richness of the material and the excitement at the learning through the
process didn't abate, until we found ourselves with two hours to go
before we finished. The last task. This was for each individual, bearing
in mind the group or groups with whom they would create the World Dance
Day performance piece, was tasked with collating the movement they had
discovered, explored and created. This was so that each individual
walked away from the two days with a clear understanding of their
experience, both philosophically and physically, and had material that
was going to be useful to them for working with their group.
The
following weeks involved the individuals working with their groups and
exploring how the movement they had experienced and creatively explored
at Beaford informed their final product. The approaches of each of the
individuals in pursuing this task differed in many ways, from creating
the sequence themselves and teaching it to their groups, to
facilitating a choreographic process, to loosely defining a set of
improvisational parameters.
World Dance Day this year coincided
with the Royal Wedding, so it was decided that, in Devon at least, we
would have World Dance Week. And it was throughout the week before and
the weekend after World Dance Week that all the performances happened.
There were a number of ceilidhs across the county, each of which had
performances of different sequences born from the residency. We had a
youth Appalachian precision stepping group fusing break dance and
flamenco into their own steps, break dancers fusing African,
contemporary and belly dancing into their movement. I'll not forget
seeing the belly dance group on Exmoor dancing an extraordinary sequence
fusing their incredible movement with flamenco, break dance, African
and 5 Rhythms.
Ultimately my concerns for the incompatibility of
styles, training, experience and knowledge proved unfounded. Get a
group of dancers who are thirsty for experience, exploration and
self-development together and give them a focus they are responsible
for and you can make anything happen.
contact benjamin@attik.org.uk /
visit www.attik.org.uk