Postcard from the Studio – Week 6

We are just over half way through our 10 week creation process with Dan Daw and Stef O’Driscoll, and the studio is getting busier with other members of the creative team starting to drop in more frequently: Froud our brilliant Production Manager is the kind of ‘yes’ person that will make things work if it is humanly possible! And Erin, our set designer and costume designer is in conversation with the dancers to create costumes they feel magnificent and comfortable in (no mean feat!). 

PJ and Crip Practice

This week I’d like to introduce you to Maiya’s wheelchair, PJ. PJ is almost a sixth cast member, who elevates Maiya’s movement. Maiya describes PJ as sassy, and I’d agree she is. I was struck by something Maiya said this week about the many practices she has as a dancer and how she engages differently with PJ in each of these: Maiya described having a seated practice engaging with PJ in a more traditional way, a floor practice where their partnership becomes more acrobatic and then many different practices with PJ depending on who she is dancing with that are specific and dependant on who she is dancing with. The company is spending time getting to know PJ and understanding how to work with PJ as an anchor for Maiya, as opposed to moving PJ around for the fun of moving wheels around – because it is fun, but Maiya’s practices go far deeper than that. Having the time to work with Maiya and PJ to explore the partnership, and explore what working with weight might mean, specific to each trio, is something the dancers have found useful and is pushing their practice: 

“This feels like new territory and a new world. It’s a very generous way of working. I’m outside of my comfort zone.”
– Anna Seymour, Candoco’s company dancer

“I loved the robust communication, the chance to discuss things and work through things.”
– Anna Seymour

“I’m  a giver and I like to give people what they need: so if Maiya needs to be elevated in a certain way, or if Maiya needs to be anchored in a certain way. We found that push on Maiya’s left shoulder is key to elevating Maiya.”
– Anna Seymour

This detailed work and naming the different practices each dancer holds is an important part of Crip practice for me: it’s important to articulate the knowledge(s) that can be invisible unless we shine a light on them. Which I guess is what I am trying to do in this Postcard From the Studio. 

Sticky and necessary

Articulating that every duet or trio is different, leads us to acknowledge that we don’t get the same thing from people and that if we want to dance in a certain way, on a certain day, we might need to dance with a particular person. Asking for what you need is a big part of this process and an idea underpinning the whole endeavour: if we can ask for what we need and get what we need, can we get free? We talked about how being clear and explicit that we get different things from different people isn’t excluding, it’s the messy, sticky, necessary part of Crip Justice that allows us to be honest and real, to be fluid, for our needs to change. This means we have to stay in the ever morphing place rather than pinning things down. We can pin down the basic scaffolding of access: we know the basics of what we will need on most days, but the detail, the rest has to stay fluid. 

More thoughts next week, 

Raquel

With the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels.

This commission was also supported by Arts Council England, and Cockayne Grants for the Arts, held at The London Community Foundation.

Please head to our Over and Over (and over again) page for more information about this work, the confirm dates and for the full list of credits.