People Dancing

Dance in the Dark – new beginnings

Date posted: 30 April 2024

In this blog Kath Kimber-McTiffen talks about her new research & development project, Dance in the Dark and how she finds ways to continue to challenge and develop her own practice of making work for Early Years and families.

I have been working as a dance artist in Early Years and community settings for more than 20 years and for the last 12 years creating and touring professional performances to theatre and non-theatre settings. In Autumn 2022 I reached a pivotal point in my career when the company I had spent the last 12 years building, Wriggle Dance Theatre, came to an end.

I was concluding a significant period in my life, as the winter nights began to draw in, the transition, at times, felt very dark and difficult. As an older dancer who still loves performing, I had many questions, what else can I do? What do I want to do? And can I do this on my own? I had begun to dabble with directing and choreographing work which I wasn’t performing in and discovered that there was a new level of excitement in being able to watch my creative ideas unfold from the outside.

The idea for Dance in the Dark was born during this intense period of reflection. The dark fascinates me as a universal theme that all humans can relate to. I am interested in the commonalities of the dark across all cultures, as humans we bring light to darkness for celebration and to conquer fear. Fear of the dark feels intrinsically linked to fear of the unknown and, in the early years it is also closely intertwined with parent/carer separation anxiety. I wanted to find a way of taking children from light to darkness through a world of imagination, where scary things can be overcome through imaginative play.

In January, I was thrilled to be selected for the Little Big Dance Artists Lab. It was perfect timing as I spent the most incredible week working alongside 12 other amazing artists. We worked with Dramaturg, Lou Cope, Choreographer, Koen De Preter, and Early Years Dance Specialist Hannah Lefeuvre, who all offered their insight into making work for Early Years, as well as facilitating time to play and explore. During the residency I was challenged to think about my own practice; What is the invitation? What is the gift? And what is the legacy?

As a musician as well as a dancer, I was also keen to explore how I could bring together my two artistic practices, which up until now had felt quite separate. In July, I stepped out of my comfort zone to take part in Magic Acorns Early Years Incubate with Helena Rodrigues of Companhia de Música Teatral. With music at the root of Helena’s approach, she creates immersive experiences which she defines as “opening the gates on communicative musicality” with physical theatre, somatic education and free play at its core. Over two days we explored listening, silence, voice and movement to awaken "organic musicianship", connect with ourselves and embrace an awareness of "intuitive caring". I felt utterly inspired and re-energised by the experience and came away bursting with ideas and a renewed confidence to introduce more sound and music into my dance practice.

I have been pondering questions around what I want to make? Should my work be experiential for the audience or is it performative or both? Can I make something that is experiential but also allows young children to watch and be completely engaged in high quality contemporary dance. I needed to find out…

I find that children are the greatest critics and when you get it right it brings a joy that is hard to rival. Witnessing children exploring their own delightfully raw and honest innate creativity lies at the root of what I do as an artist. I have long been interested in the possibilities that co-creation with children can bring to my creative practice. However, I found myself wondering, how can I make this more authentic and meaningful? Is there more I can do? What can young children’s voices bring to my process if I explore this more deeply? This felt risky and exciting.

As children usually become afraid of the dark between the ages of 3 and 6, I decided Dance in the Dark should be aimed at this age group. I developed partnerships with 4 Warwickshire children and family centres, enabling me to work with children age 2-4 and with Edgewick Primary School, Coventry, enabling me to work with children age 4-6.

My creative process began with workshops in school with reception and year 1 classes and in children’s centres with parent/carer and child. I set out to discover; what are the experiences and challenges that children face in the dark? What are the games/movement and sound play that help to explore this concept? What are children’s bedtime rituals and their strategies to deal with the dark?

Accompanied by live music, I facilitated games and movement improvisation using vocal sounds, percussion instruments, shadow play, lights, scarves, tunnels, blankets and imagined night-time creatures. I was able to see what children really engaged with and the many ways that they interacted with the different stimuli.

My biggest challenge was how to control the dark in spaces which were not dark, I overcame this by introducing eye masks and by creating dark tunnels for the children to crawl through. I discovered the majority of children were not afraid of the dark when they were not alone, dark was fun! Parents/carers also fed back that the workshop could help address their child’s fear of the dark “I am so happy and surprised that he has been brave enough to go through the tunnel”.

Alongside workshops, I began a period of studio research with professional artists; 2 dancers, 1 musician/composer, set/costume designer, lighting designer, dramaturg and sound designer. Workshops crossed over with the studio time enabling me to take my learning from the studio into the workshops and vice versa. On two occasions, I invited children and families into studio rehearsals, giving me the opportunity to observe the performers dancing and interacting with the families. I gave the performers sound and movement ideas and props to explore, instructing them to take the lead from the children and to use a non-verbal approach.

As the children moved with the dancers, I played with the lighting in the room and observed how this impacted the children’s experience. Starting from a place of light and with imaginative play the children enjoyed the room going darker. We used giant toothbrushes to brush our teeth before bedtime and enjoyed snuggling up, being rolled up and pulled around on sliding blanket rides. They adored making shadows on a screen, we created a storm with percussion instruments, wind and rain with gorgeous ‘after the storm’ smells. With sparkly torches and scarves we danced with shooting stars which whirled and whizzed around the room, things were scary at times but also fun.

After 10 days in the studio, I created a loose structure for the ideas we had created so far and went back out into the school and community to share them. Each time we did a performance I was able to tweak and make changes, influenced by the feedback and engagement of the children.

Finally, we went back into the studio and worked more closely with our lighting and set/costume designer to further develop my ideas for a controlled theatre space. I was also really interested in how sound plays its part in a show about the dark, which led me to engage a sound designer so that I could explore how I could use sound in a more immersive way and experiment with a mixture of both live and recorded sound.

The R&D period ended with a sharing at MAC, Birmingham where I invited children and families, plus some industry experts to join us as audience. I was thrilled with the response I got, confirming that I had achieved what I set out to do.

“The company has created a lovely, relaxing, comforting space to explore fears in a safe environment. A wonderful opportunity to engage children at a young age with dance and storytelling.” - promoter.

“I thought it was amazing it was fantastic, normally I'm scared of the dark but yeah it was great.” - child.

I have learnt so much from this process… the many ways to collaborate, to trust what I don’t know, to take risks and that the learning never ends. I am excited about the future development of Dance in the Dark which I hope to fully devise and tour in 2024/25.

Info

Creative Team

Produced by Jo Valentine & Kath Kimber-McTiffen.

Images - left to right, top to bottom

Dance in the Dark promotion image: Hannah Broadway. All photographs: Kath Kimber-McTiffen:

Workshops in the community
Dance in the Dark cast
Workshops in the community
Workshops in the community
Testing ‘Dance in the Dark’ in schools
Testing ‘Dance in the Dark’ in the community
Workshop – playing with shadows.

Project partners/supporters