TABLE OF CONTENTS - Siobhan Davies Dance at ICA
This is a sharing of my experience at this interesting performance by the Siobhan Davies Dance at the ICA London.
A table, whose position was constantly changed for every set of sequences, was the starting point of the sequences. The dancers would gather around it and trace on it in chalk their routine and the space in the room they would use for it. After that the audience would scatter around, sitting on the floor or on chairs wherever they wished around the room, merging with the performers and their respective sequences (solos, movement and theater based, some used texts, some used music, some used objects, some recollected their performances done years ago and re-performed it).
Being in their midst made me feel like a static performer myself, I had to keep turning myself around so that I could see all of them. I guess every audience is a kind of a performer, they 'perform' the act of viewing; but occupying the same space as the performer gives a sense of intimacy and immediacy.
The most intriguing thing for me was that everything was in constant change - the space, the table's position, the sequences (they changed every half an hour or so and the event went on for the whole day), the audience, and their position and their relation to the performers and their pieces. I wondered what the inner state of the performers would be in such constant flux - did they change? Did their sense of commitment, sense of nervousness/comfort change?
They answered me saying that it was different for each of them. They were also exploring the relation of memory to the physical body. Memory changes and alters, and so does our relation to it and our perception of the past, the present, and the future.
('This live performance and installation is co created by Siobhan Davies, Andrea Buckley, Helka Kaski, Rachel Krische, Charlie Morrissey, and Matthias Sperling, each using their own history as choreographers and performers to question how dance is archived and how different art forms build on their own history'.)
A table, whose position was constantly changed for every set of sequences, was the starting point of the sequences. The dancers would gather around it and trace on it in chalk their routine and the space in the room they would use for it. After that the audience would scatter around, sitting on the floor or on chairs wherever they wished around the room, merging with the performers and their respective sequences (solos, movement and theater based, some used texts, some used music, some used objects, some recollected their performances done years ago and re-performed it).
Being in their midst made me feel like a static performer myself, I had to keep turning myself around so that I could see all of them. I guess every audience is a kind of a performer, they 'perform' the act of viewing; but occupying the same space as the performer gives a sense of intimacy and immediacy.
The most intriguing thing for me was that everything was in constant change - the space, the table's position, the sequences (they changed every half an hour or so and the event went on for the whole day), the audience, and their position and their relation to the performers and their pieces. I wondered what the inner state of the performers would be in such constant flux - did they change? Did their sense of commitment, sense of nervousness/comfort change?
They answered me saying that it was different for each of them. They were also exploring the relation of memory to the physical body. Memory changes and alters, and so does our relation to it and our perception of the past, the present, and the future.
('This live performance and installation is co created by Siobhan Davies, Andrea Buckley, Helka Kaski, Rachel Krische, Charlie Morrissey, and Matthias Sperling, each using their own history as choreographers and performers to question how dance is archived and how different art forms build on their own history'.)
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