Intonation by Project Volume
Intonation
promotes the artistic voice of artists and dancers with learning
disabilities. This was a new body of work exploring an exchange between a
visual artist and dancers at Modern Art Oxford in response to sculptor
Thomas Houseago.
Project Volume
Project
Volume is a dance organisation committed to providing opportunity,
access and advocacy for people with learning disabilities to create and
develop professional dance skills, thereby raising their potential,
profile, voice and visibility within our society.
Project Volume
trains dancers with learning disabilities to be conversant with
contemporary dance culture so to effectively articulate their own
artistic vision. It conceives the current hybrid nature of dance, to
include film, performance and art to address the artistic development of
the individual, as well as supporting different learning styles.
The idea
'Intonation'
begins to look at how we can articulate the artistic voice of dancers
and artists with learning disabilities, to be more visible within our
culture. As dancers we can show our responses and ideas physically,
taking the body as an 'active script'. As artists we can draw and etch
out our thinking onto a page or a canvas. We can therefore think of art
and of dance as forms of 'articulated vocabularies'. Intonation then
explored the bringing together of the different 'vocabularies' of art
and dance.
Through Intonation, a place of exchange was created
between these different artistic vocabularies. This took place as a
five-day performance residency, at Modern Art Oxford, working in visual
and physical responses to the sculpture exhibition by Thomas Houseago,
What Went Down.
The artist and the dancers were either emerging
or working professionals with learning disabilities, to ensure a
rigorous dialogue in which to inspire, challenge and learn from each
other. The visual artist who took part was Danny Smith. The dancers were
Frances Weir and Ruth Williams, associated with Anjali Dance Company
and Chris Pavia from StopGAP Dance Company. A professional non-disabled
dancer Hayley Arundel also took part for Ruth Williams to choreograph.
Encouraging dialogue
The
inclusion of a non-disabled dancer in 'Intonation' was to ensure a free
flowing dialogue between the mainstream and disability arenas. Dancer
Hayley Arundel extended her understanding of working with dance and
learning disability through being directed by choreographer Ruth
Williams. Whilst Ruth continued to develop her evolving choreographic
practice, without assumptions on 'with whom, or how and where' she may
work in her burgeoning career.
This dialogue between disability
and mainstream arenas was further underpinned by working with Chris
Pavia from integrated Dance Company StopGAP. Chris took encouragement
from working with other up-and-coming choreographers with learning
disabilities, whilst developing new choreographic tools to take back to
his company and to use in his own practice.
Developing the vocabulary
The
dancers and artist were introduced to the exhibition of Thomas Houseago
and created a shared movement and visual vocabulary from their
responses. The responses were firstly initiated from a collation of
words from the dancers and artist responding to the exhibition. They
then refined their choice of words to reflect their thoughts on the
exhibition. From these words each dancer created choreographic material,
which illustrated the contrasts of themes inherent within the
exhibition.
By working together, artists and dancers with
learning disabilities could share responses and inspire each other
through their different approaches to the same exhibition. Both artist
and dancers were asked to explore the texture, material, emotion,
concept, structure and weight of Thomas Houseago's sculptural work.
Learning-disabled
artist, Danny Smith, was pivotal within this creative process. His role
was to constantly document his own responses to Thomas Houseago and to
capture the physical explorations of the dancers as they worked.
As
the dancers developed their individual choreography, Danny drew their
responses. Danny's drawings then formed an almost, 'notational response'
of the line and form of the dancer's movement. The dancers then
responded directly to these notational drawings, selecting the weight of
a line to define their movement, or a texture to illustrate a quality
of movement.
This 'shared vocabulary' of physical response and
visual art formed the structure from which the artist and dancers could
nurture, explore and extend their respective ideas and practice.
Dancer
Chris Pavia talked of "the structure of the sculpture and exploring how
it was made", as informing his choreographic work.
Solos were
created in direct response to a chosen sculpture, with sections of
movement then interwoven into a group sequence or duet as each dancer
selected a phrase from their choreography to teach each other.
The
'director's' role was simply to show the dancers and artist with
learning disabilities the possibilities of reading these different
physical and visual vocabularies, sharing and exchanging them to gain
deeper insight into developing their own ideas.
"By having more time to look it gave me more courage to look", artist Danny Smith talking about his experience.
Composition
Unlike
a stage an exhibition is not neutral and working within it demands a
respect for all the elements of art, space and dancers to be of equal
importance in the final performance.
Working within an art
exhibition brings into play the tools of choreographic composition as
dancers make complex decisions about where to place their work in
relation to the space, sculpture and each other. The dancers
experimented and developed an awareness of how their choreography
corresponded to the sculpture.
The nature of this exhibition
embodies silence, so rhythm and dynamics are taken from responding to
the direct line, form and flow of the sculpture. The dancers went
further taking the musicality and rhythm into their choreography from
Danny Smith's, almost 'musical drawings' in their 'notation' of the
dancers moving.
This layered approach allowed the intrinsic
responses to the exhibition of the artist and the dancers with learning
disabilities to be clearly pursued and revealed through a series of
public performances in the gallery.
The performances
Four
promenade performances took place at different times of the day and
evening to allow for a rich diversity of audience. The promenade design
of the dancers' choreography correlated to the exhibition layout and
the role of the artist Danny Smith as artist, observer, notator and
conductor.
It was vital to the work that Danny's role was not
passive but instrumental within the dance. This was shown at the
beginning, whereby Danny drew a sculpture whilst the dancers illustrated
their reading of his drawing though the immediacy of their responses
through dance. It concluded with Frances dancing as though drawing the
lines of Danny's drawings of the dancers onto her body.
The
nature of a performance within a gallery offers two key aspects to
developing a greater awareness of the work of artists with learning
disabilities. Firstly, you get the accidental viewer, the viewer who has
come to see the work of Thomas Houseago, who stops and watches. The
second aspect is of being able as the 'audience' to make choices to
move, to shift perspective, to see the work more closely or to stand
back and observe at a distance. Since there is no stage, the barriers of
performer and audience are permeable and can therefore offer a greater
sense of intimacy.
An articulated view
A
key aim of Intonation was to provide a unique and rare insight for the
viewer, to engage in the responses to the exhibition of the artists and
dancers involved. This was indeed a rare opportunity, as people with
learning disabilities may be traditionally excluded from sharing their
views on art within our culture, through the difficulties of speech or
literacy.
Often we engage with our knowledge of culture through
reading or listening, but what of those artists and dancers with
learning disabilities for whom this 'method' may be problematic? It can
mean two things: firstly, as a culture we are not enriched with the
thoughts and intellectual contributions by artists with learning
disabilities. Secondly, those artists without this 'conventional voice',
with much to say, go unheard. This can support a crucial
misunderstanding that if this artistic thinking is not clearly visible
it therefore does not exist.
"When I work at my art I spread my
feelings about how important it is to me. I am confident and clever at
what I do and feel most confident when I am doing my art." Danny Smith,
Artist.
However, if we return to the original vocabularies within
art and dance, then it is here we may begin to find how best to learn
about how artists and dancers with learning disabilities see art,
perceive art and articulate their own ideas and vision.
contact theprojectvolume@aol.com /
visit www.projectvolume.org
A
film is now available on Project Volumes website, it is best
experienced in full screen format, which captures the intricacies of the
work. Intonation was funded by Arts Council England.