JASMIN VARDIMON (Marilena Dara)

31|01|20

I recently met a dancer for Jasmin Vardimon Company at an audition for another UK physical theatre company. We ended up getting a drink after the audition, and managed to have a good chat about the culture of companies and how they can impact you as a performer – in particular Jasmin Vardimon Company, of course.
She mentioned she was actually in the process of finding other work so she could leave the company, as it wasn’t an environment she wanted to work in anymore. She enjoyed the work, she like the performances, but she found that the way Jasmin structured the company, and the priorities, were not aligned with what she wanted. She said there was always a sense of competition to be Jasmin’s favourite, so you could get as much stage time as possible, which goes without saying, is very toxic.

It really reinforced to me just how important creating a culture that is positive for all participants is, especially when you’re working in such intensive conditions. Especially considering we will be working in intensive groups to make a show soon, this is something to pay attention to. To be honest, it’s a thing to be aware of for the course in general – what culture do we want to develop in order for us to be enthusiastic about coming in day to day, because the opportunities are not necessarily enough.
On the other hand, Gecko seems to have developed a wonderful culture. Figures that a lot of their company have stuck around for ~+10 years.

8|11|19

Whether it’s simply because I’m on break, or whether I’m exhausted creatively, or because I’m not currently engaging in any major creative processes – or maybe a combination of all 3 – I’m finding it remarkably difficult to find motivation or creative impulse within the solo making process. Looking back on the Jasmin Vardimon methodology we were exposed to with Marilena, I’ve attempted to re-contextualise it for my own work, and I arrive at a situation of the chicken and the egg. Which came first?
In this situation, the egg is the choreography of the mind: the state of mind, the feeling or sensation, the qualities, and/or the intention. The chicken would be the literal physical choreography itself.
I’m stuck in a quandary where I would love to know the inner choreography before I begin working on the outside choreography, but I’m unable to find something that motivates me enough to put this in action. The other option for me right now is to find time in a studio and work on some outside choreography and see what that lends itself to in regards to influencing an inner choreography. I don’t think my mind works like this though, and it’s finding it extremely tough to get this going. So much of my past work is borne conceptually, before it’s materialised. I think I find my best creativity comes with finding solutions to bring to life this materiality. Right now, I don’t have a concept, and I find it tremendously difficult to move without one.

It reminds me a little of Rayner’s theory of “to do, to act, to perform.” I find it difficult to work on just doing. I need to be acting, and maybe this is when the Jasmin Vardimon work could come in handy. Picking an abstract inner choreo that relates to some of the themes I’m looking at and then physicalising it.

Reading this back, it’s really just a whine about my lack of motivation right now. I think I’m also making a lot of excuses for myself. On the other hand, I’m also revealing to myself a lot of the flaws in my personal creative process, thing that I now have the chance to work on in earnest. I have some ideas, but I need to be generous with myself, and stop looking for this divine final performance before I’ve even constructed it.

Extending on this, I just got back from a show that really sparked some ideas and images for a piece. Not because I thought it was particularly impactful or successful, but I think just being around creativity brings around my own creative side. I begin to think more creatively, almost like I’m engaging in the creative response process Stacey Makishi introduced to us. Maybe I need to watch some theatre recordings.

I’ve been thinking a lot on Jasmin Vardimon’s concept of inner choreography. In some ways I think it is remarkably helpful in generating basic movement or intention, but after watching some of the Jasmin Vardimon works, it doesn’t seem to progress further beyond this surface level. The reason this is interesting to me is that it relates to a recent Anne Bogart blog post that speaks about curiosity and mystery in the work, and how the audience needs to be engaged in seeking understanding of a piece. I think I become hesitant when works are exactly what they are intending to be. Too simple. Not enough mystery.
On the other hand, this inner choreography does to a degree emulate the intention/objective/action/beat formula for acting, although eschewing it slightly. Having said that, it’s totally a useful and productive way to bring this inner life to dance practice. Currently I’m working with a group of young dancers, and technically they’re wonderful, but they lack anything that is driving their movement. I think I’m going to be introducing this concept for them, to see if it’s useful enough for them to build as a foundation to grow later on.

I’ve lately been editing and working through footage of our open classes, and I’ve really noticed that I, as a mover, am quite stiff and hesitant. Even when we’re engaging in our melting exercises, eg. To the ground, away from the ground – I can sense a real hesitation to allow my body to rest into gravity. On this matter I’m trying to remember what Marilena said: to try not to focus on the exact movement itself, but the breath that moves you. Gotta keep focussing on that breath.

31|10|19

So, it’s sure been a while since I wrote one of these, and undoubtedly my mind is going to be a lil’ bit shifted from where I was when actually in the process with Marilena – maybe though, this is a good thing. it’s given me time to think about some of the things we did outside of our excessive schedule and academic frame.

Since we finished the workshop with Mar, there’s a single piece of choreography that I keep going back to in my mind, so much as to even consider getting a group of the CPPM students together to rehearse it. The piece is the final rep we learnt: Domino. The piece requires each performer to line up, and, like the title may suggest, perform set choreography in a domino/canon form. The movement would shoot back and forth from the back of the line to the front and back again at ideally a lightning pace, requiring a huge amount of focus and awareness from each performer. This is another reason I want to keep working on it: we never got to a point where we performed the piece satisfactorily, and it drove me a little mad.
I thought about why this was, that I became so invested in this work as opposed to some of the other equally as challenging repertoires, and I think there’s a few reasons:

1)     I receive immense satisfaction from ensemble synergy. Some of my favourite moments in theatre come from when the performers are so thoroughly in sync with each-other, that you forget they are individuals. This also relates to the immense fascination and respect I have for hip-hop/street dance groups, as much of their choreography revolves around group synchronicity.

2)     The Domino choreography was almost wholly about the composition, and I’m beginning to realise I am all about composition. Whereas the other pieces we learnt largely involved us standing inconspicuously around the space, Domino had a specific compositional tool for us to follow, which I find so much more exciting than the individual performer. Maybe this is why I begin from a musical place in much of my work, and construct the piece through the literal composition of sounds.

I think this also highlights a glaring issue with my theatre-making process, and that is that I really don’t enjoy the generation of material as much as I enjoy the composition – therefore, I am entirely unmotivated to make the things I need to then compose into something.

20|09|19

Through the creative tasks in the afternoon we’ve repeatedly come up against the question of how visible you make this inner choreography. For instance, you could play the sensation of frustrated by walking around in a huff, or you could abstract it within your body to a point where it might no longer even be recognisable – but is that important?

This is honestly the question I am always grappling with my work. So far, I think I’ve leant on a base of literal-ness, from which I abstract movement from, but maybe this is a chance to explore the opposite entry point of abstract choreography that you insert a choreography of the mind into.

I think this is more significant to my work than I give it credit for – now that I think of it, I often find it hard to enjoy dance works that are too abstracted, while at the same time there’s nothing worse that super literal dancing (like lyrical). The best works for me are the ones that really nail the balance between the two ends of the spectrum – like one of my all-time favourite shows, Betroffenheit. You can recognise a vast amount of the movement and narrative, but still without being fed everything. There's engagement and mystery for the audience.

18|09|19

This week has been wildly different to almost every other week so far of the CPPM, simply because we’re working with two artists that use repertoire as a large part of their practice. You’d think this might make things “easier” but it’s actually been wild how difficult it’s been for myself and others to adapt. Maybe we’re just so used to making work, that learning someone else’s is a skill we could expand on – and I think that’s exactly what this rep learning is doing. It’s allowing us to push our skills to learn and adapt, especially when Marilena keeps throwing more layers at us, but it’s also a very good opportunity to explore the notion of finding ourselves in the work.

Marilena has been pretty explicit about this aspect of the work, even defining a separation of what she calls the physical choreography and the choreography of the mind. This already has strong ties to a lot of previous artists’ methods that highlight an outer and an inner of the work – for instance, Tadashi’s emphasis on the inner quality (soul, butoh flower etc.) leading the outer physicality. However, as Tadashi chose to leave the inner as abstract and immaterial, the Jasmin Vardimon work seems to want to point a laser right on what’s going on inside.

It’s even gone so far to categorise these choreographies of the mind into four overlapping categories: state of the mind, feelings/sensations, qualities, and intentions.