CoLab 2013 Day 4

This final day of our CoLab project was obviously very different to the others. The Brighton teenagers were all coming down to London for the day for the performance at Laban, but there was no time for much rehearsal or hanging around. We met at Laban and quickly ran through our performance in the Studio Theatre. The atmosphere was particularly different to how it had been previously: whereas before it had been creative, now it was more about perfectionism and fine tuning. Tony was keen for us to adapt quickly to the different space, which some of the dancers but mostly the musicians were not used to. The concept of front and different "spots" around the room was alien to a lot of us musicians and we had a very short amount of time to learn it! We also learnt that we would be doing two performances - one at 1.30pm and the other at 2.00pm in Studio 10.
Before long an audience was filtering in ready for our first performance. It was just as we had done it yesterday and the overall consensus was that it went well. I was not ever so pleased with my improvisation, but I felt it was a one-off and thought I could do better in the next performance.

Performing at Laban

Performing at Laban

Following our first performance, Joe Townsend led a little feedback session where both musicians and dancers were asked what they had learnt from working with each other. All responses were positive and it was clear that these Brighton teenagers had really enjoyed the experience - as had I! 

Feedback

Our second performance was in yet another different space and after a very quick changeover, we were performing again. As a musician I am used to adapting to different spaces in terms of acoustic, but much less in terms of spatial layout! It was actually quite confusing trying to relate the strange layout of Laban Studio 10 back to the dance studio at BHASVIC where we had rehearsed! This is yet another thing I learnt as a result of collaboration with dancers. I feel the second performance was slightly better than the first, at least in terms of my improvisation! My friends Dave and Katie also came along too, which was great of them - in fact, I was a little disappointed more people didn't come, as neither performance had a particularly large audience. Nevertheless, I was pleased with both performances and thought we ended the project on a high. We had a round of thank-yous to all those involved in leading, and we all received cards signed by the teenagers, which was a really nice touch. It was clear they all benefited from the project, and it's a great feeling to know I helped! I also gained a huge amount from the experience, especially the rare opportunity to collaborate on equal terms with dancers. I was thrilled to be part of the whole process and really loved every bit.