Workshops
Rambert School, MA Dance Research - Online workshop
February 2023
This was a two hour workshop with a mixture of MA research students and staff members from the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, all of whom have an existing professional dance practice. It was hosted online, via Zoom, and all the participants were in their own spaces- mostly at home, some at work, and across two continents. There were six participants beside myself, and one observer, and we were all women, of a mixture of ages from late twenties upwards.
This was the first time I had attempted to replicate any of the live studio-based Clowndance material online and remotely. I was interested to see if we could build any of the same feeling of complicité and bonding that this work often generates when we do it live, and to explore how we can work with an audience and as an audience through the webcam lens.
Kitty Zoom grooving
This short session covered:
- Warm-up games designed to highlight connection, pleasure and enjoyment through the medium of Zoom
- Games to explore communication with the audience- in this case, a peer audience: The Applause Game and Preparation for Pirouette
- A provocation to work into an existing short phrase of movement- to have an opinion on what you are dancing
Moment 1- The Jumping Game:
We were attempting to play a version of John Wright’s The Jumping Game (Wright, 2006, p. 64) which I had adapted both for dancers and for playing over Zoom. We danced to a piece of music to give us a driver for movement, given that we couldn’t walk in the space, as is usual in this game. At any point, anyone could choose to stop and stand still, and when someone else stood still too, the pair attempted to jump at the same time as each other.
The resulting game was funny and chaotic, with Zoom’s time lag, and the uncertainty of who was attempting to make eye contact with whom. There was a moment when all but one of us had stopped at the same time, and then we jumped, but all at different moments. The effect was oddly pleasing, as if we had spontaneously created a choreographed canon, highlighted by the one dancer who continued to groove on, despite or perhaps oblivious to the rest of us.
We were attempting to play a version of John Wright’s The Jumping Game (Wright, 2006, p. 64) which I had adapted both for dancers and for playing over Zoom. We danced to a piece of music to give us a driver for movement, given that we couldn’t walk in the space, as is usual in this game. At any point, anyone could choose to stop and stand still, and when someone else stood still too, the pair attempted to jump at the same time as each other.
The resulting game was funny and chaotic, with Zoom’s time lag, and the uncertainty of who was attempting to make eye contact with whom. There was a moment when all but one of us had stopped at the same time, and then we jumped, but all at different moments. The effect was oddly pleasing, as if we had spontaneously created a choreographed canon, highlighted by the one dancer who continued to groove on, despite or perhaps oblivious to the rest of us.
There's the jumping, and there's the dancing, but it it's those kind of edges which are really delicious.
Student's verbal observation, transcribed from Zoom recording: 24/02/23
Student's verbal observation, transcribed from Zoom recording: 24/02/23
As we played this game, the music coming from my feed was interrupted at various points by people laughing. I described what I was hearing as hiccups of laughter, perhaps akin to Athene Saylor’s concept of bubbling with pleasure (Seyler and Haggard, 2013).
My face was out of the frame… There were so many times that I just jumped alone… everyone’s moving, and now I’m jumping- it doesn’t matter, it looks so ridiculous, but it was funny!
…there was feeling of real togetherness
Students' verbal observations and chat text, transcribed from Zoom recording: 24/02/23
…there was feeling of real togetherness
Students' verbal observations and chat text, transcribed from Zoom recording: 24/02/23
Moment 2- Saving the Show:
We played a version of Jon Davison’s Saving the Show game (Davison, 2015, p. 84) again adapted for dancers and then for Zoom. We all danced to a piece of music, at various points I would stop the music and spotlight someone, who then had to save the show by doing something, anything, to camera.
One participant found her microphone wasn’t working. When her turn came to save the show, she did so in the style of an early silent movie. She looked offscreen, reacted with melodramatic terror, and then slowly rolled a large black Pilates ball into the frame, which squashed her.
One of the others later reflected on this moment:
We played a version of Jon Davison’s Saving the Show game (Davison, 2015, p. 84) again adapted for dancers and then for Zoom. We all danced to a piece of music, at various points I would stop the music and spotlight someone, who then had to save the show by doing something, anything, to camera.
One participant found her microphone wasn’t working. When her turn came to save the show, she did so in the style of an early silent movie. She looked offscreen, reacted with melodramatic terror, and then slowly rolled a large black Pilates ball into the frame, which squashed her.
One of the others later reflected on this moment:
I saw a Charlie Chaplin today! A true beauty of tantalising movement (without any sound)
Student reflective observation: 24/02/23
Student reflective observation: 24/02/23
We recreated the reflective roll and personal post-its using Zoom’s whiteboard tool. This worked fairly well, and although it was a shame to lose the personal, embodied experience of writing by hand and doodling, it did mean the feedback was captured in a more transmittable format:
Zoom whiteboard, 24/02/23
Discussion flowed around the sometimes oppressive seriousness that occupies dance training, particularly ballet, and how we could recapture some of the joy of dancing that many people feel when they first start to learn ballet as a young child.
Interestingly, the concept of ‘dancing like nobody’s watching’ came up; one participant recalled a dance lecturer having stickers with the phrase on made up for colleagues and students in a university dance department. It’s an idea that I have explored before, questioning why we see dancing for your own enjoyment as something that should not be made public (see Summer Course and Blog).
Interestingly, the concept of ‘dancing like nobody’s watching’ came up; one participant recalled a dance lecturer having stickers with the phrase on made up for colleagues and students in a university dance department. It’s an idea that I have explored before, questioning why we see dancing for your own enjoyment as something that should not be made public (see Summer Course and Blog).
Ethical Research Statement
This practical research was carried out with ethical approval from the Doctoral College at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. Participants have all given explicit consent for their workshop activity and reflections (both verbal and written) to be included in the research write-up and on this research website. Where participants are students, not professional artists, I have used pseudonyms to protect their identities.