Part one - playshop, Foxwood and Spencer Schools, Nottingham
The Nottingham 'playshop' was a highlight of our visit to the UK, above all because of the challenges of rapid inclusion and the need to utilise straightforward physical approaches to understanding technology. This stemmed from our own analysis of the intellectualisation of virtual projection, which we developed in order to work with people with various intellectual disabilities, including youth with autism. The 'playshop' also validated the positive feedback process we use for the articulation of taste and the sharing of views as well as providing a great richness at a human level.
We planned the 'playshop' to support the participants to:
- Create and develop movement
- Explore scale: small and big, and subtle nuances Perform
- Watch each other perform
- Give feedback
- Acknowledge creativity, of self and others
- Develop respect
- Have fun
- Learn the basics with equipment
- Develop a technological/video vocabulary
- Manage their time, space, their own group activities and props
- Be introduced to codes of behaviour relevant to the creative process, rehearsal and performance
- Take their experience further after consultation and recommendations.
Throughout the entire four-day 'playshop' a few key intro/outro exercises were repeated like rituals to creat a group identity and provide familiarity. For example, the whole group form a circle in which each person allows the one next to them to take their head in their hands.
When working with the students from each school, we applied more or less the same programme structure, along with the following specific focuses:
Day one - Foxwood School
Comfort, safety and visibility of everyone participating by a simple action in a circle, which progressively shifted to using the whole space to develop individual awareness of the students' own bodies and developing relationships as a group. This was followed by small group work each with a facilitator or teacher and finishing with succinct feedback and the encouragement to support the verbalisation of feelings.
Day two - Spencer School
As well as repeating the pattern of day one we encouraged more precise articulation of personal positive feedback in order to refine artistic taste and to develop a respect for differences in taste, personality, physicality and abilities.
This was key to the project as they were welcoming the students from Foxwood into their school the next day. Note: the next day would be the first time the group from Spencer (mainstream students with technology focus) worked with the group from Foxwood (students with intellectual disabilities and/or behavioural challenges).
Days three and four
We proposed to the students that they work on the themes of sewing, linking and making friendship, which among other things allowed them to link pedestrian and abstract movements and to utilise choreographic tools - unison, repetition, dynamic changes and shifting from small fine movements to large, travelling ones. We asked wherever possible and in partner work that pupils from each school work together. Video and projection equipment were introduced as part of a 'games' in which the students used specific movement material to generate images which were played back fairly instantly, so that they could comment and make choices about both the movement material and the images themselves. Eventually they built a performance made like a patchwork that linked the accumulated movement, video and visual material. One section included a sequence with hand kaleidoscopes, roughly edited from camera to camera and projected onto a parachute on the floor, around which they were sitting and sewing.
Some great anecdotes came out of the 'playshop'. A student with autism, directed the whole group in a game by calling out, and later contributed strongly to story telling. Another boy (whose teacher said rarely expressed his feelings) came to us and said there was one thing he hated: to 'pretend' to sew, but reported that he had done it because he felt committed to the group and had anyway enjoyed everything else. Actually he had a particularly big moment, doing a contact game with another boy about half his size - they had a big laugh and sealed their relationship for the rest of their time together.
Exploring the use of new technology without it being seen as a gimmick or trendy is important to us. Giving access to expensive equipment seems to offer recognition of trust. It's another way of using fine motor skills and an additional tool for creativity. After all many kids have already absorbed this as part of their lives - flicking through remote controls on TVs, working at computers, Playstations and mobile phones - they are certainly fed by a growing intrinsic aesthetic and are ready to use these devices. One of the challenges for us as artists seeking to work in this way is the amount of time it takes to build a strong and serious methodology based on collaboration and whilst there is a growing acceptance within the arts and arts education that multi disciplinary work is important the structures for exploration and development are just not yet alwaysin place.
Part two - reflecting on our own process
In undertaking the residency in Nottingham we were also able to take time to think about our own creative development. There were three keys to the process:
1. Movement Installation Interaction
In a very general sense, most of the movement material was generated in the first week, whilst the installation elements were created in weeks three and four, with the last week seeing live performance elements and installations fitting together. (By installation we mean the combination of lighting, sound, projections, set and photocopy art). The process model that emerged from the residency involves an initial physical exploration of the existing environment, followed by the creation of multimedia installation elements that complement or enhance the physical material, as well as responding to the architectural environment in its own right. This leads to an interaction between the physical material and installation, as well as clarifying how the audience is 'led ' through the space by the work and allowing for their response and perception of the work individually and in relation to each other.
2. Improvising for camera 'choreographing' through video editing
The video material was produced with two perspectives in mind: to document the process and to challenge the performers' improvisation. The approach we took to editing provided key questions about the way of 'telling' - by choosing interesting choreographic material to be digitsed, by breaking the linearity of movement and/speech, by dissecting instances, by making patterns with the interface (choreo-edit). Editing or collating material is already a decision - making process and still seems to be linear even if sequences can be re-arranged.
3. Use of interviews
Interviews were used as an interface between process and artwork, and between artists and audience.
This period of practical research raised issues about cultural and historical differences between the UK, Europe and Australia. Here everything seems within arm's reach. In contrast, Australia is big and everything is far away, people are more geographically isolated yet more used to travel within the land (albeit not within the dreamtime anymore). In that context working with technology and looking at networked - performance is one way to fill the gaps between continents. (surfing the net, after surfing the beach).
Staying in Forest Fields in Nottingham was a journey in its own right, with a totally different cultural framework - South Asian and Eastern European cultures, the extensive take away section in the supermarket, the deprivation of the homeless or recent refugees, street violence and the long rainy and cold winter.
That being said, it did not seem that the nature of our work was out of place or inaccessible in Nottingham with its strong tradition of inter-disciplinary arts practice. It was inspiring to see the work of other artists and reassuring to know that critical and experimental art can have a significant impact on the cultural life of a city. Nottingham's support for a high level of avant-garde practice is rare in a world dominated by conservatism, and we were fortunate to be fed by that.
The residence by IGNEOUS in Nottingham was supported by Visiting Arts and the Regional Arts Lottery Programme.
This research has enhanced IGNEOUS facilitation of Movement Video Laboratories back home at the Brisbane Powerhouse.
To contact igneous visit www.igneous.org.au or email info@igneous.org.au