Inertia

Inertia had it’s first trial at Pegasus Theatre as part of  Moving with the Times -1st and 2nd March  in Dancin’ Oxford Festival 2013.

The piece incorporates film, text, live camera effects, shadow play, movement and features a big green rug.

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photos by David Fischer

Here for review of Moving with The Times by Lizzy Spight for Oxford Dance Writers

Here for Oxford Times review by David Belan

 

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video of opening section (rehearsal.  Thanks Segolene.)

 

Diary of process.

I am currently gathering material and ideas around the topic of Inertia.  The inspiration for this came simply from feeling stuck.  Experiencing a lack of energy and creative drive and still struggling with the implications of not being able to trust my body in the way I use to I decided I would have to start from where I was.   I would like to investigate and express not only the causes of inertia but also the possibility that this state which is generally perceived negatively may turn out to have other dimensions.  I realised that Inertia can be explored through (and have implications in) physics, psychology, politics and philosophy.

So far I have interviewed  physicist Julian Barbour on Inertia and discovered lots of interesting facts from the dramatic, sometimes fatal reality of inertia as experienced in car accidents to the wonders of the universe as expressed in the movement of the planets and the changing of our seasons.

Next I would like to gather responses from a range of people about their perception and experience of Inertia.  ( So if you’re reading this and you have any thoughts you’d like to share , please do email me or comment below)

On a practical dance level.  I have now to turn some of these beginning concepts into a movement reality both through solo and hopefully group work.  Additionally I hope to employ my favourite elements of light, scale and film projection.  The studio time and mentor support I have been awarded through the homebed ‘germinator’ scheme has enabled me to embark on research of this topic.

photo: Naomi Morris      photo: Naomi Morris  First day in OFS studio with  Yael Karavan and Naomi Morris.

photo:Naomi Morris   

 

First public outing of some of the fragments emerging from my exploration of ‘Inertia’ at Joe Lott‘s scratch night ‘Flourish’ at Pegasus studio 3 Nov 2012.    The event attracted a full house.   Showing work were home bed artists: Jenny Parrot, Joe Lott, Emma Webb,  Marina Collard, myself and guest artists David Hudson and Ji-Eun Lee.

I showed elements I’d begun work on with Yael Karavan using the rug as well as new material created with fellow dance artist/videographer Naomi Morris.  Our presentation included, prop, text, live camera projection and shadow interaction. I also used the opportunity to ask the audience to think of and write down what gets them up in the morning, what motivates them in what they do.  The answers to these questions will be informing the development of  ‘ Inertia.’

 

Second outing of Inertia at Cafe  Reason’s Diamond Nights on November 24th 2012.  Taking some of the same elements we tried a different order and developed certain sections a little more.  Discovered you need to be clear about giving cue and ‘permission’ to audience if you want them to join in /intervene.  I had willing participants but they didn’t know when to make their contributions !

Currently working towards Moving with The Times for Dancin’ Oxford Festival.   Selection means I can develop one section of Inertia which will get a public outing.  On the way we will be presenting a small part at yet another scratch night coming up at Pegasus 25th Jan 2013.

Jan 17 – Quite excited by some of the effects and material we’ve been playing with in sessions at Pegasus and OFS this week.  It is all still very much in the air in terms of structure though.  Looking forward to finding a way through all the material and beginning more solid work on soundtrack to help create shape.  Which effects, images and movements relate strongest to which concepts, ideas, meanings?  and which little bit are we going to pick to show?
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Pegasus Scratch Jan 25th 2013. After a disastrous tech slot in which we did at least discover that certain video tricks are not possible without the right kind of stage light we managed to show 8 minutes. This seemed to go down quite well and I was relieved in the feedback that people thought the video effects were integral to the piece and its meaning rather than effects for effects sake.

I now have to work out how to draw the work together as what we showed varied quite a lot from the previous two scratch outings. I suspect , as usual I have too much material to show in the time allotted and will need to do some serious pruning.

review of the evening by Lizzie Spight –here

Appearance in Oxford Times  online March 6th with a photo taken in the tech slot.

Oxford Mail photo of rehearsal

 

 

photo. David Fisher

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