Contemporary dance is often open to interpretation and as such may leave viewers mystified, but a new show pulls back the curtains on that.
Footnote dancers and choreographers Josie Archer and Kosta Bogoievski are inviting the audience behind the scenes of the weird and wonderful world of creative contemporary live dance.
Together they've created a unique show Dance Danced Dancing 2021.
Archer and Bogoievski aren’t performing in the show, but what they did was share with Footnote their choreographic practice of working with performance scores via “some instructions or written invitations of which the dancer/performer can then improvise to, to try and fulfil.”
“So we came in and worked with them [Footnote] for four weeks, and shared our practice and this work has come out of that so it’s very much our process,” Archer told Nine to Noon.
This practice highlights the “weird” and “alien” skillset of dancers, Bogoievski says.
“Josie’s cousin went to the show last night and she just couldn’t imagine how the dancers could improvise together.
“I think that’s something we’ve learnt with full-time training and also a thing we’ve been working in the studios with the dancers four weeks is just how to improvise together using principles from contact improvisation and other techniques.”
Audiences get to see the dancers make decisions and work with their bodies in wonderful ways, the pair says.
There are even times where no music is added, because the dancing communicates so much on its own, Archer says.
“There’s so much to read, and so much meaning to place on it, and so much that’s being communicated, that when you see five people, that are not trying to portray a character, but five people at work doing a job, using their knowledge and understanding to make it through.
“You see all those relationships, you feel time passing, you feel the tension, you feel physicality, breath, kinaesthetic empathy, you really go through it with these dancers.”
Bogoievski says they liked to work in silence so that the music doesn’t inform the audience and performers’ state or tension or feelings.
“It’s how we get the dancers and their movement to conjure up a feeling in itself.”
“There’s room in this work for the viewer to place what they want and get what they want from the work,” Archer adds.
“But at the same time it is very held, and it is clearly communicated that although they are improvising, they know what they are doing, and they’ve got a script they’re following. It’s just that the content within that can vary, and how they explore with that each evening.”
There have been some ‘what the f---’ moments and laughter as the instructions upon which the performers were acting are revealed throughout the show, Bogoievski says.
“Because contemporary dance is so weird and we’re working with that but also kind of playing with its strangeness to the point where it’s enjoyable again.
“Not that contemporary dance wasn’t enjoyable before, but [we’re] really pushing the strangeness.”
The next Dance Danced Dancing shows are in Christchurch/Ōtautahi at Te Matatiki Toi Ora on 10 and 11 August, and in Hawke’s Bay/Te Matau a Māui at Toitoi Hawke’s Bay Arts Centre on 16 and 17 August.
Photo: Footnote
