Katie
guides the dancers and performers through physical exercises that
highlight how the eyes and ears affect movement choices. She extends
the workshop toward improvisation sessions by setting a fictional
front in the studio space and then declaring this as a platform to
choose pause, flow or exit. This platform highlights how the limit of
these three choices can already provide the frame for a composition
to take place, and that misunderstanding, coincidence, live time,
interactivity, messiness, emotions, intuition and inspiration are
basic materials in a creative process. These raw materials are
integrated with the combined fact that everyone in the workshop group
can choose.
The
improvisation sessions are given a delegated time frame with an
option for the workshop group to shift, drop or lift the space at
will. This shifting, dropping and lifting of the performance space
places each individual in a position where they need to be to be
fully awake or they will recognizably loose the thread of creative
activity in play.
Choice
is introduced to the workshop group as a compositional reality but
also as a means for individuals to choose to participate in the
performative, musical or as a viewer and yet remain involved in the
process. These experimental physical activities gathers the workshop
group to recognize that in a creative process time is passing at
different perceived speeds and that space is shifting in several
dimensions at once. This awareness creates a presence in the space.
This sustained presence of space is eventually placed in the hands of
the workshop group in improvisation sessions.
“The
combination of moving, seeing, hearing, feeling and deliberately
volunteering to expose myself in front of an audience alters my
perception of time, space and emotions. What I do for a living is an
induced neuron madness”
Katie
Duck
“I
am not interested in the moment even though it does feel good. I am
interested in movement and the fact that time is passing. It is a
kind of hippie hype to encourage someone to be in the moment.”
Katie
Duck
“A
fully awake body is rarely pedestrian. The body awake needs to be
discovered and demands a discipline beyond everyday tasks. And yet
when I see movement that does not respect the beauty of the body as
pedestrian I become uncomfortable. How the body works and how I see a
body is not so different an activity in how I feel. To not respect
the body as an already perfect place of motion is like watching a dog
trying to learn ballet.”
Katie
Duck
Katie’s
collaboration with Alfredo Genovesi began in 2008 when they discovered that
they shared a deep interest in the creative process that
improvisation implies. Alongside the workshop description with
Katie Duck’s workshop,
Alfredo
Genovesi
provides his experience with instrumental technique and improvisation
music and dance performances.
Alfredo
explores ways of extending the sonic palette and musical choices
available guiding the musicians toward Improvisations that range from
completely open to structured games and strategies. Katie and Alfredo
guide the workshop group as a whole to experience degrees of
real-time dialog and equally contribute feedback for the dancers,
performers and musicians out of their unique musical and performing
arts history and knowledge.
“In
my experience it is best to remain open to change and the flow of new
ideas during the creation and performance of music for dance. Often
the emphasis is on the emergence of simple musical ideas, the choices
made about when and how to develop and evolve these ideas, and the
confidence to let go and move on into new musical territory at any
moment”.
Alfredo
Genovesi
“I
do not approach the work as a master of improvisation and
music/dance. Hierarchy, or an assumption of such, helps neither the
practice nor the music itself. I have learnt that my tendency/mode of
approach is to explore ways of sticking to and evolving material
always allowing for shift with an emphasis on the development of
simple cellular ideas & material”.
Alfredo
Genovesi