Portraits

I’m working with some of the guys from the ensemble at Restless Dance Theatre and Tilda and Sam from 52 Tuesdays, to create a series of moving image portraits to hang at Carriageworks in 2015 as part of an exhibition called 24 Frames Per Second. 

Restless is Australia’s leading dance company working with young disabled and non disabled people to create dance theatre.  It’s an integrated dance company where the art is made by young people for a diverse audience and one of the great things is that it’s a place where dance is used as a mode of expression which allows people to speak eloquently to everyone.

Which is sometimes a challenge for me…cause i talk a lot…and when i’m directing i talk through a lot of things…

The first few sessions were a relief.  i remembered how good these guys are at creating.  They are a group of people who work every week to create movement and they do stunning shows.  I am always captivated by the mix the inhibition but also how the performers frailties and insecurities and individuality actually stand front and centre with them.  These are not “tools” or bodies that are trained to do very specific things, they are very much themselves, and from that comes movement and performance quality that i think is divine.  But they are also really skilled – they “make” all the time.

6 years ago we made a typtich of short dance films with them.  Necessary Games was a feat of collaboration working with the performers (who build much of the movement) alongside a choreographer/co-director for each one of the three films and a creative team across it, including Gaelle Mellis (the wonderful designer behind so many of the Restless shows) and Bryan Mason (cinematographer/editor) plus DJ TR!P for music.  I Love those pieces.  They continue to screen all over the world…happily.

Some of the performers from Necessary Games are still in the ensemble, but this time i am working with three people i haven’t worked with before.

Michael

Chris

Catherine

Working with us this time is Sam and Tilda from 52 Tuesdays.  I was very interested in messing with our process (all of us), so working with people that i spent a good long year creating really naturalistic scenes for a film with the Restless folk, who create dance theatre.  i wondered what the mix would bring.

Sam has been working in with us for the workshops, but Tilda is away acting in a new Australian TV show and doing that TVC as well…but she returns soon…

Our workshops consist of experimenting with non-movement stuff – like choosing favourite colour combinations and bringing in objects that help explain yourself- to movement tasks.  Michelle Ryan (Restless AD) and i generally ask the group to each work individually and create some movement to share.  Sometimes we have worked simply with words – frustration, joy, fear.  Sometimes each person has chosen an image to respond to.  Sometimes we have worked with other ideas – a caged lion for instance.  Last time we worked to recall a moment or feeling from their week and they turned those feelings into movement.  They are a really cool bunch – all very different – but so far, i’ve found it best when they are all there in a group.

So i am loving it, but i also just started to realise that i have to make some decisions and shoot these things at the beginning of the new year…

we are creating moving portraits  but our references are a lot of regal, traditional painted portraits like this of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha from the National Portrait Gallery in the UK.

and also some contemporary re-workings like this from the excellent Dorothee Golz 

But i’m not sure yet whether to create a set for everyone, or to film in locations but light it like a painting…or maybe there is another painterly way…

so the movement is coming along well.  Hopefully i can navigate this holiday period to still mean we can make these things in Jan