How rehearsals are goin'

Rehearsals are coming along beauuuutifully.

I have finished choreographing the dance and I'm super happy with how its turned out.

We began rehearsals by literally just getting to know each others bodies and boundaries with touch and movement. The first two rehearsals I simply asked the dancers to just move together around the space, taking note of how heavy they walked, how they moved their arms, their heads. I then developed this into us taking into consideration other bodies in the space, how we may interact with each other, mirror each others movements, walk in opposite directions etc. That’s when we finally started to think about actual spaces in Coventry that we felt safe in or perhaps un safe in. To help this inform the movement, I would give the movement a context, for example: If we felt unsafe there, I would ask us to move like sediments that have been swept up and re distributed to a place that we didn't really want to be. This helped inform so much of the movement you will see in the piece. 

I really wanted the piece to focus on the way we can play with weight being exchanged across the group. This idea originated from a piece in the collection called ‘Sisters Supporting Eachother’. It made me think of a time when I have been upset about something and my friends have ran to fight the battle with me and cushion my fall. There is a really unique piece in the dance which explores this concept! It took at least two hours of rehearsal to develop about 5 seconds of choreography. I wanted us to play with how we could transfer each other’s weight across the space. It was really challenged to conceptualise. 

About half way through rehearsals I got completely lost in the creative process, especially because I was performing and directing the piece, it was super easy for me to loose track of the process. I decided to run a workshop at the University of Warwick with other female identifying students that were interested in the women’s bodies in the City to learn more. I had the pleasure of meeting a masters student Alisha Ibkar. Alisha spoke about a political movement in India that she was familiar of called ‘Why Loiter’. It was created by women to reclaim spaces in India that they weren't “allowed” to go. Alisha described them as “no women zones”. They would reclaim the space by doing something as simple as just eating there, breathing there, standing there. Interacting with the spaces by just being physically present. My eyes were suddenly open again and I could feel so much. The second Alisha stopped speaking I just asked Alisha to move with me as if we were first entering those no women zones, how would we interact and move in the space. Soon after we had created some beautiful movement pieces. Alisha, you are a boss and I am so thankful to have met you at this point in the process! 

For the last rehearsal we will be focusing on polishing the choreo and really connecting again with the message of the piece. Every single small movement you see has been carefully curated from something someone has said in the space, or something we have learnt over the process. I really hope the audiences connect to the piece and read deeper than initial movements that they see.