Dance – Page 2 – Frames of Reference

Ama

A breathtaking short film by underwater freediving artist and director Julie Gautier.

“Ama is a silent film. It tells a story everyone can interpret in their own way, based on their own experience. There is no imposition, only suggestions. I wanted to share my biggest pain in this life with this film. For this is not too crude, I covered it with grace. To make it not too heavy, I plunged it into the water. I dedicate this film to all the women of the world.”

海の女 (ama) is the Japanese word for “woman of the sea,” which is also the name for Japan’s traditional shell collectors. The film is a metaphoric nod to these united women, while also representing the relationship that connects women from all over the world.

“For me, this film is a way to say: you are not alone,” said Gautier, “open yourself to others, talk about your sufferings and your joys.”

Polka

Polka by Mark Morris. The dance uses a piece for violin and piano by contemporary composer Lou Harrison. Morris was taken by its final movement, called, strangely enough, “polka.”

I always start with a piece of music. I’m not doing, like, a musicological analysis and writing a paper or anything, but I’m figuring out in my mind what makes that particular piece work. So my intention is to say through dancing exactly what I think is being said through music.

Because I heard that “polka,” I said I must choreograph this right now. And to me, it sounds very, very ancient. And so I wanted to make up a dance that was evocative and a little mysterious and seemed like maybe people had been doing it for hundreds or thousands of years. That was my assignment.

Juicy Lucy

A tune for Mother’s Day from Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood.
This sweet video was directed by Billy Martin; he’s the drummer in the band –

The video for ‘Juicy Lucy’ features my mom, who is a former Radio City Rockette. At 81 years old, she’s still a phenomenal dancer. I’ve wanted to feature my mom somehow for a long time. She put tap shoes on me at a very young age and got me into rhythm.

Medeski Martin & Wood

Smashed

A short trailer for Smashed by Gandini Juggling.

A mesmerising mix of circus and theatre, inspired by the work of Pina Bausch, “Smashed” is a series of nostalgic filmic scenes exploring conflict, lost love and quaint afternoon tea.

Another version, filmed outdoors, was featured here in an earlier Frames Of Reference blog post. Continue reading “Smashed”

Vollmond

The Christmas full moon got me thinking lunatic thoughts and I remembered this wonderful piece by Pina Bausch for Tanztheater Wuppertal.

Vollmond, meaning full moon or high tide, is among Pina’s most revered works and has been making waves, literally, since its creation in 2006… The full moon highlights our humanity and how we get thrown into emotional highs and lows. Pina’s dancer-actors ride this roller coaster throughout Vollmond, showing vulnerability and strength, detachment and desire, collapse and vitality. It’s visceral. It’s deeply relatable. There is no one story to this show, it’s a glimpse into the lives of a handful of intertwined individuals. Vollmond is a work you can return to and always come out of with a new perspective. Continue reading “Vollmond”

Flying To Barcelona

Over the Pyrenees a week before Easter, en route to Barcelona, the spectacular view a heartbreaking reminder of the suicidal plane crash five days earlier. A flight from Barcelona to Düsseldorf had fallen from the sky onto similar mountains near Barcelonnette in the French Alps. It was impossible not to think of it, to imagine its kamikaze descent, to remember its helpless victims. Continue reading “Flying To Barcelona”

4 x 4: Ephemeral Architectures

A short trailer for a new piece by Gandini Juggling, to be premiered in the Linbury Studio Theatre at the Royal Opera House on 13th, 14th, 15th January – 4 x 4: Ephemeral Architectures features jugglers and dancers performing together with live musicians in a work constructed from grids and patterns and mathematics. See more here – Gandini Juggling, and for an earlier piece see – Smashed.

Sacred Monsters

Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem after their final performance of Sacred Monsters at Sadler’s Wells. They gave it their all and got a rapturous response from the audience. We were fortunate to be there. Continue reading “Sacred Monsters”

Away With The Birds

Hanna Tuulikki’s ‘Air falbh leis na h-eòin’ is a body of work exploring the mimesis of birds in Gaelic song. On the 29th and 30th of August it becomes a sited performance on the Isle of Canna.

Hanna’s vocal composition, ‘Guth an Eòin | Voice of the Bird’ is the heart of the project. Written for a female vocal ensemble, it reinterprets archival material, fragmenting and re-weaving extracts of Gaelic songs into an extended soundscape. The music emerges from, and responds to, island landscapes and lives. It explores the delicate equilibrium of Hebridean life, the co-existence of tradition and innovation, and suggests the ever-present inter-relationship between bird, human, and ecology.

“The piece is made from weaving together fragments of traditional songs and poems that imitate or emulate birdsong” Tuulikki explains. “Each of the five movements represents a different habitat and bird community – wader, sea-bird, wildfowl, corvid, and cuckoo. In August we will perform the concert in the historic harbour of the beautiful Isle of Canna, where the music reverberates with the bird-calls and the ebb of the tide. The setting is so important to the piece. The Small Isles are a magical place and, to me, the performance begins as soon as people climb on-board the ferry-boat to make the crossing: the richness of the experience is people sharing a journey.”

www.awaywiththebirds.co.uk

Wells & Mells

Cathedral Green at Wells, the eternal stone partnered with an inflated upstart. We arrived just in time for the Somerset Schools Folk Dance Festival, a ceilidh for more than 2,000 primary school children, all stepping and skipping and turning circles on the green. Continue reading “Wells & Mells”