The teenagers who we were to be working with arrived at 11.00am. There were roughly 10 dancers and 6 musicians. After an icebreaker "game" organised by Joe Townsend (who was in Brighton with us for the first morning of our project), we all began doing basic dance warm-ups led by Tony Thatcher. Every morning of our project began in the same way, with dance warm-ups for dancers and musicians. This meant that musicians who perhaps had not danced before (I certainly had not done) were able to experience, in a basic way, what it is like to be part of a dance group. This experience proved useful for later on in the project. Unfortunately one member of the group fainted during these warm-ups on the first day. We were all shocked by this, as it happened so suddenly. Thankfully he was alright (after a hospital visit he returned the next day, eager not to be missing out!) and the shared experience of shock actually probably aided group bonding somewhat.
After warm-ups, Tony introduced to us one of the ideas he was keen to explore throughout the project: the concept of duration. In particular, one minute. He was keen for both dancers and musicians to get a sense of how a minute "feels" - without looking at a clock or having someone count out seconds for you!
Explaining the duration concept |
Once this had been explained, dancers and musicians split into separate groups: dancers stayed in the studio and worked on minute-long solo dances, while musicians moved downstairs into a separate room with the task of working on four minute-long pieces of music. While Sarah and I had quite extensively planned what we might do should we be left in charge of leading music sessions, we actually found that our task was clear in this instance, and our plans were not required. However, some of the concepts we had discussed did come in useful. We had an ensemble of four flutes, one saxophone, one clarinet, one horn, one double bass and one djembe. With this non-conventional ensemble we agreed that all of our pieces should be non-notated and learnt by ear. To begin with, the group dynamic was very much "leaders" (the four Trinity students) and "students" (the others), but as the session went on the Brighton musicians gained confidence to make suggestions and even challenge some of our ideas. By the end of the session we had together devised four minute-long part-improvised pieces in contrasting styles:
- One atmospheric "long note" piece with a tonal centre of G.
- One groove-based jazz piece.
- One atonal depictive work based on the idea of "cityscape".
- One "wildcard" where we all improvised over a bass riff.
The next stage in the project was a sort of role reversal: while previously the dancers had adapted and partly-improvised their dances to match the music, this time the musicians were given the opportunity to improvise along with the dancers. Each musician was matched with a dancer to make a pair, which was then joined up with another pair so that each group had two dancers and two musicians. The idea behind this exercise was for the musicians to play along and improvise/compose music which reflects each dancer's solo. To enable us to familiarise ourselves with the dance we "shadowed" the dancers - actually following their steps and attempting to copy closely their every move in the one-minute dance. This was a particular challenge for me! I had never danced before and suddenly I had been thrown in at the deep end. While this exercise helped me understand the dance I would be writing music for, I felt a little embarrassed dancing in front of these people I didn't know very well! Once I had become familiar enough with the dance, I began to improvise along on my horn as my partner, Sophia, danced. As we were in groups made up of two pairs, the dancers would dance their solos together, thus forming a "duo". Equally, the musicians would be playing along together. Part of the challenge, therefore, was to improvise music which not only matched what our respective dancers were doing, but which also fit with the other musician's improvisation. To help ourselves, we agreed that we would use the tonal centre of F major and agree certain parts of our compositions which complimented each other - for example, one of us holding a note while the other improvised a melody. The whole group dynamic as we performed was fascinating and something I've never experienced before: responding to another improvising musician while also trying to closely match a dancer's movement is an amazing experience!
As the day drew to a close we shared what we had been working on in our "duos" groups and ended with a brief feedback session. We still didn't really understand what our final performance on Thursday would involve, but I began to realise that actually, nor did Tony! The idea was to work together, not just those of us who were "leading" but every person in the group, just to explore new areas and see where it took us! This working method is fascinating and also a little scary at times! It's so different to what I'm used to as a classical musician, though, and after this first day of the project I was feeling excited at the prospect of exploring further this working idea.
We were staying in a B&B in Portslade, a few miles and a bus ride away from BHASVIC. It was a little tricky to get to and I would have preferred something a bit closer, but the shared experience of working out how to get there helped us bond as a group and we spent the evening hanging out and getting to know each other better. This certainly helped us work better together in the next few days.
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