Postcards from the Studio – Week 8

Crip practice and Temporalities 

This week I wanted to offer a portal into some of the experiments and discoveries, or rather the articulations and evolutions, the company members are making in their own inclusive dance approach and practice. 

Anna Seymour

The last week we were in the studio, Anna Seymour led a class using BSL (British Sign Language) without interpreter voiceover. Instead, Anna experimented with the other dancers experiencing a class delivered in a language not familiar to them. A couple of the company members are able to converse in British Sign Language, but Anna was experimenting with “noticing the gaps in your understanding and noticing how you navigate these gaps”. 

I could see an analogy between this and the navigations D/deaf dancers make when participating in class, especially when a class begins with everyone lying on their back or with somatic exercises that involve sensing inwardly, often with eyes closed. In the former the D/deaf dancer won’t have the teacher’s information within their visual field (unless the SLI stands over the dancer, which can be awkward) and in the latter the D/deaf dancer won’t be able to surrender into sensing inwardly. As another D/deaf dancer shared: 

“When a class starts with lying on the floor on my back, I just think this is ‘my time’ to do my own thing as it’s hard to see lying on your back”.

“I am so used to looking for eye contact (to get the information) that I’m not fully in the dancing.”

In Anna’s own words: 

“I decided to lead class without voiceover from interpreters. Something I have never done before. I had been reflecting on my dance history, and my earlier experiences of dance classes and learning dance. It wasn’t till I studied dance at university that I had interpreters. Prior to that, I had no interpreters in dance class, and all of my learnings were from visual information and watching movement. There were many gaps. I missed a lot of information. 

Even when I had interpreters later, I realised I had a whole new language (dance language) to learn, and interpreters had to learn too. I had to figure out how I needed my interpreters to be in the space E.g. being in my visual field, knowing how to convey information to me in a way that doesn’t feel jarring or pulling me too far out of my embodiment. 

I was curious to lead class without the interpreters voicing for me just to share a glimpse in my dance history/experience not to make people feel excluded, but to invite the ‘gaps’ into the space and see how they feel, notice how they feel about the gaps and notice what they do to ‘fill the gaps’ or ‘connect the dots’. And also to invite how fixed points of visual field can affect the body, alignment, movement. I also wanted to ease the burden on me to prepare the interpreters before class, the specific language to use, tones to use which can take up a lot of time, and sometimes I feel the information or intention of my class can get diluted in a multi-layered translation process.”

Anna was also playing with how to reverse the ’time lag’ or temporality D/deaf dancers experience, in which they receive information later than the non D/deaf dancers, because of the time translation takes. Instead, she was waiting to have eye contact with the other D/deaf dancer to convey information, so they were the first to get the information and so as to avoid the ‘interrupt’ moment. The ‘interrupt’ moment, when the teacher tries to get a D/deaf dancer’s attention, or teaches a class with a lot of verbal information while moving simultaneously can be jarring and take the D/deaf dancer out of their groove. Anna also shared that her thinking was around how to facilitate an immersive experience for dancers who are D/deaf or rely on sign language interpreters to receive and communicate information. 

“I’m on constant alert all the time, for different reasons: Who’s talking? What are they saying? I’m always having to be aware of people. I wanted to see how I can give information in a soft way and not an intrusive way.”

Feedback from the other dancers included:

“I loved entering your world and experiencing it. I realised that I love lots of chat through class (info and images) but it’s a lot of information. I felt really settled in your class. Other classes with text all the way through, I find I’m really exhausted afterwards, trying to take it in, trying to be a good girl.” 

“I was excited to have a new offer of teaching. Sometimes in class I don’t understand all the [spoken] info. I’m at capacity and feel confused. So I go into myself instead. It’s nice not to feel lost.”  

Maiya Leeke

We’ve had more time to explore and articulate the principles of dancing with Maiya and PJ (PJ is Maiya’s wheelchair).

The principles include: 

• Elongation of time by allowing the movement’s full length, in the same way Maiya rides the full length of an impulse through her and through PJ’s wheels. 
• Opening your heart to allow the sun to shine through. 
• Turning back on yourself / over your shoulder rather than forwards (this takes longer to complete the full movement). 
• The momentum of floating / ice skating to allow yourself space at the peak of the movement – to feel the freedom.

The practices include:

• Own body as anchor (solo practice)

Hand connects to a body part to initiate the action; movement happens as a result.

The pressure of the hand is what causes the body part to move. Most likely connecting to body parts such as thighs, hips, knees and shoulders to initiate the movement.

• Sternum sunshine – solo practice.

Allowing the connections of shoulder to knee / wrist to ankle to find space and opening through the sternum. 

The connections in the body are about opening your heart towards the sun. 

The feeling of floating / gliding that wheels effortlessly find. 

Time begins to elongate because you take the time to feel the sun from above. 

The result of these principles and practices is an elongation of time and of possible ways to  connect with each other. In Maiya’s words: “Stretching time so we can fit together.” 

Feedback from the dancers included:

“[the practice] challenges you not to finish the movement before the impulse is over – like it’s not quite over, and you don’t know where it’s going to end.” 

“To get the length, the long suspension is quite muscular… what was lovely was I could come in on the tail end of other people’s moves – there was more time – more time to catch – it felt like going down the river bend and I knew it would go somewhere.” 

Temporalities 

I’m really enjoying the nuanced temporalities that we are understanding and articulating. Crip time is not a shorthand for ‘being late’ or ‘things taking longer’ (although sometimes it is that), it’s a shorthand for a myriad of nuanced and fascinating experiences of time in terms of how disabled folk experience the world, navigate the world, and make art together. 

More 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. Scroll down for updates about the previous weeks of rehearsals.