PAL's involvement with dance began with a pilot Choreographers' Lab in 1999 supported by NESTA (the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts) as one of their 'Pioneer Projects'. As the result of the successful pilot, PAL began plans for a Dance Lab each summer for the following three years. The third of these was held in August 2002.
Artistic vision, aims and objectives
PAL Dance Labs focus on the need for dance practitioners to research and experiment, developing new work without the pressure of performance deadlines. PAL recognises that provision is needed for professional dancers choreographers and performers across the arts, as individual artists, to work collaboratively in the practice of performance making. The PAL Dance Lab also draws attention to the importance of the role of the performer in the creation of work, and how equal collaboration across the creative team can shift and develop work process and products.
Basing the artistic vision on these elements the objectives are:
- to create a context of inquiry and adventure for performers, choreographers and artists from other media, where there are no preconceived expectations other than to explore new ideas and initiate new performance work
- to investigate a wide range of inter-disciplinary physical (and verbal) dialogues between classical and contemporary languages/traditions and between live dance theatre and new media performance
- to give 'power to the performer' as well as the director, encouraging innovative approaches to the working processes of all artists in the creative team
- to encourage research where physicality is explored in depth as the initial focus for making performance in live theatre and digital media
- to situate the dancing body within a wider arena of art and performance, with particular reference to film, video and digital programming.
Overview of Dance Lab 2002
Over the three years, the Dance Lab has persistently addressed a very particular moment in the creative process towards making new performance. It provides time for the bit before - before decisions about themes, before grant applications, before the choices of performers, choreographers, collaborators and styles of work. It allows time for the practice of making performance between artists before the fixed (often hierarchical) roles of the creative team come into play. It blows apart what is expected, what has been already established, it allows space for something different to emerge, which has not yet been conceived. It allows for collaborations between artists who never imagined they might work together. It allows for the sharing of different languages whereby a new layering of information can occur that might not yet have been considered. It allows time for play and improvisation, play being the vital force that inspires all the performing arts.
The following aspects make the PAL Dance Lab unique, stimulating a constantly changing dynamic process throughout the three years:
- the Lab is performer-led without hierarchical roles in the process of making performance
- the Lab is about processes not products
- the backgrounds of the participants are culturally diverse
- all learning takes place from within the group
- the choice of artists creates a dynamic balance of creative differences.
The element of being performer-led has shifted over the three years. For the first two years participants attended the Lab with a pre determined role: performer, choreographer or collaborator. The performers were asked to nominate the choreographers ahead of time, of which it was possible to accommodate four within the spaces provided. Inevitably, the choreographers who were chosen did not always match the needs of all the performers, creating tensions that contradicted the notion of a performer-led Lab. In addition, the artists from media other than dance felt at times that they were there to service the choreographers rather than contribute equally, simply because of their pre determined roles as 'collaborators'.
This year there were no roles, each participant coming as an individual professional artist and each with different skills. This relieved the tensions of previous years and allowed for a fluid exchange of ideas and ways of working within entirely new collaborative partnerships.
Artists from music, film, digital animation and theatre felt more fully integrated into the process of making performance. In 10 days, it is difficult to entirely remove the hierarchy of roles, which have become habitual patterns in many artists' working lives. However, on the whole, participants found their own groupings and each artist took on the role most suited to his/her area of investigation. Whether this way of working will prove as fruitful as previous years in the further development of projects outside of PAL, only time can tell.
But in terms of each professional artist's development it has most certainly been an enriching experience.
I sometimes found the dancers I collaborated with thanking me for my work in a way that suggested that they were being considerate of someone who had in some way serviced their project. This seemed to have a hint to me of a certain sense of hierarchy of importance. For myself, I considered myself to be an equal collaborator. This issue is endemic in the relationship between music and dance outside of the LAB.
Jamie McCarthy composer/performer
Throughout the three years the emphasis on process rather than product has been one of the powerful attractions. The practice of making performance takes place every day without external judgements and without attention to success or failure. Each year this has led to new starting points for performance while allowing artists the space to break habits and investigate new ways of thinking and making.
The Labs have also encouraged debate and discussion on various issues related to dance performance. Last year there was an overdose of this element, with group discussion and feedback sessions going on till late at night. In response to last year's feedback, we decided to have less formal debate this year, allowing artists to discuss amongst themselves.
Cultural diversity was an important issue addressed this year. In previous years there had been an over emphasis on white western dance forms. This year's Lab began to redress this in balance, enriching the Lab as a result. Artists attended who had knowledge of South Asian, African, West Indian and South American performance forms. Sharing rather than homogenising difference is a positive forward-looking aspect of the Lab that hopefully can be developed in the future.
The diverse skills of everyone involved, was a massive bonus. It also raised a lot of questions and debate about the possibilities and problems of using different styles of dance to make work. The concerted effort to have a diverse range of culture as well as having the lab performer focus was beneficial to everyone's learning experience.
Alan Miller dance artist
There have been no outside mentors or teachers and all the learning has come from within the group - a sharing of different knowledge and information between highly skilled artists. This is integral to PALs overall vision. The Labs are not courses, but laboratories for professional artists' development. Participants take equal responsibility for the dissemination of knowledge rather than acting as a student.
The structure of the day was good. It was great to have a sense of the whole group through the classes in the morning. The morning jam was a good opportunity to explore the notion of what is improvisation, as well as a personal challenge to contribute and be evoked.
Stine Nilsen performer/CandoCo Dance Company
The creative dynamic of the Lab is due, in part, to the choice of participating artists, which spans between experienced and younger artists and across a wide range of physical languages and different performance media. A major and significant change over the three years has been the dance artists' relationship to digital technology. The first year there was some resistance to the idea of working with digital animation. By the third year, film-makers and digital animators have been enthusiastically welcomed as integral to the collaborative process. Dance artists now expect digital film and animation to be part of their performance work. More importantly, the film/digital artists appreciated the benefits of the physical improvisations with the dancers. This year, an opportunity to 'move' their bodies provided each sound/digital/film artist with a closer connection and a fresh outlook to her/his own work.
I intended to approach the Lab in the role of 'Installation/film artist' but, due to the non-categorising of the participants, found myself exploring other more physically involving areas such as voice and movement. This was hugely rewarding and helped keep me in touch with the 'immediateness' of performance, a sense that I can often lose when dealing with technology all day.
Nic Sandiland performer/installation film artist
Looking back over the three years, this year's Dance Lab was perhaps the most successful. The performer-led element and the day-to-day structure and organisation had been finely tuned. The process confidently attends to the work of opening the space for participants to create without pressure or competitive tensions. It is a process that encourages talent, allowing artists' ideas to emerge into practice and develop without fear and expectations. This year has demonstrated 'how' artists work together, through non-hierarchical play and collaboration to stimulate creative partnerships, new ways of working and new performance.
As with previous years it is expected that various projects will be developed out of this year's Dance Lab. This has already started to happen. Lucy Baldwyn has made a film with Vena Ramphal. Nigel Charnock, in his role as director of Helsinki Dance Company has invited Guy Dartnell to work with him in Helsinki.
The Future of the Dance Labs
As an achievement of the three years (and the pilot), the Dance Lab has created and honed a rigorous working dynamic which can now be applied to a range of performance products and professional development schemes. A model is now in place, which addresses cultural diversity and performance issues for artists not only in dance but across the performing and digital arts. We envisage an exciting future whereby this model can be employed to influence the world of professional development for performing artists, teachers and academics across a range of interdisciplinary art practices. The model can be bought and borrowed, shaped and shifted to meet different demands across the globe.
PAL provided me with a unique opportunity to observe a multitude of outstanding creative approaches to initiating a collaborative working process.
Anna Krzystek performer/choreographer
'Amazingly tranquil and inspiring setting, brilliant food and good people to be with. It was great not to have the pressure of having to produce art-for-others and without that pressure I think we produced more.'
Nigel Charnock performer/director
Never before has a hungry artist been so well fed.
Mojisola Adebayo writer/performer
The Lab allowed me to understand what I was most interested in without worrying about which ideas are most likely to receive funding, find interested participants, etc. Overall, being free of outside distraction for ten days, for me, was not only a welcome change, it was also an opportunity to discover where my truest interests lie.
Janet O'Shea dance artist/academic
For more information about PAL visit www.pallabs.org or contact office@pallab.org