Workshops
University of Derby - October 2022
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This was a two-hour workshop for twelve students from the BA and MA courses in Dance and Choreography at the University of Derby. The workshop was held in Studio One at Déda- a large dance and aerial studio with a sprung floor and mirrors along one wall. All the students were women in their early twenties. One student had joined the MA course that morning, having just arrived from China, and spoke very little English. She used a translation app on her phone, with support from her classmates. |
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This short session covered:
- Warm-up games designed to highlight connection, pleasure and enjoyment
- Three games to explore communication with the audience- in this case, a peer audience- The Applause Game, Saving the Show (Davison, 2015) and Preparation for Pirouette
- Discussions on people's misconceptions about dance and clown, freeing ourselves up from needing to be 'perfect' and what that meant to us in particular as women.
Moment 1- Saving the Show:
The rule of this game as we played it is to dance to a piece of music, and whenever it stops, do whatever you can to save the show and keep the audience entertained. One dancer found some extraordinarily inventive, funny and unexpected responses when her music stopped. She had set herself up at the start of the song with a yoga mat, and was doing some yoga moves to the music. When the music stopped, her attempts to save the show included:
She held the space and the audience beautifully with a mixture of honest vulnerability and weird inventiveness- it was pure clown. What made this particularly exciting was that I hadn’t introduced the idea of finding your inner idiot, or looking for the point of bafflement- she had reached this point purely by playing the game with the audience.
The rule of this game as we played it is to dance to a piece of music, and whenever it stops, do whatever you can to save the show and keep the audience entertained. One dancer found some extraordinarily inventive, funny and unexpected responses when her music stopped. She had set herself up at the start of the song with a yoga mat, and was doing some yoga moves to the music. When the music stopped, her attempts to save the show included:
- Rolling on the floor, attempting to hide under the yoga mat, which evolved into swimming on the floor, attempting several different strokes, in an apparent bid to get offstage.
- Putting a pair of tracksuit bottoms on her arms and head, and first waving them overhead and then putting her hands on the floor and walking them along. She then turned the tracksuit bottoms into a scarf, which she wrapped around her own neck with a coquettish flourish, then would round an audience member’s neck.
- Picking up a phone mounted on the wall of the studio and saying ‘help’ into it, in a quiet voice, then putting it down. She then repeated the action twice more, saying ‘please’ and ‘now’ with her voice rising in pitch to a squeak.
- Taking a slow bow to the audience, who did not applaud- as we knew this wasn’t the end of the song and therefore the game. As she bowed she looked imploringly at me, who had control of the sound system, and asked ‘is it over?’ before answering her own question. ‘it’s not over’, again in a tense high pitched squeak.
She held the space and the audience beautifully with a mixture of honest vulnerability and weird inventiveness- it was pure clown. What made this particularly exciting was that I hadn’t introduced the idea of finding your inner idiot, or looking for the point of bafflement- she had reached this point purely by playing the game with the audience.
(as a performer) …the stuff your brain or your body comes up with…
It was like an out of body experience.
(as an audience member) I saw panic - when she was swimming, she was laughing at herself, but nearly crying.
Journal extract, record of students' observations: 10/10/22
It was like an out of body experience.
(as an audience member) I saw panic - when she was swimming, she was laughing at herself, but nearly crying.
Journal extract, record of students' observations: 10/10/22
Afterwards, in the discussion and reflection, I told the student that I had seen what looked like a pretty clear clown persona coming out, and described some of the ideas around ‘birthing’ a clown. She wondered whether that ‘out of body’ state she experienced was her clown taking over.
The students enjoyed the format of the reflective roll- there was an ‘oooh’ as I unrolled the paper, and excitement at the twist-up crayons I has brought for them to write with. It felt like I was tapping into some enjoyable childhood memories for these very young dancers!
I wrote 'women laughing with women' on the roll, to which a student replied verbally 'instead of at each other'
Their reflections included:
I wrote 'women laughing with women' on the roll, to which a student replied verbally 'instead of at each other'
Their reflections included:
Dancing shouldn’t always be to get grades
When in doubt put trousers on your head - Let your inner clown rescue you
It’s okay to LAUGH
Perfection is fiction - Failure is funny
When in doubt put trousers on your head - Let your inner clown rescue you
It’s okay to LAUGH
Perfection is fiction - Failure is funny
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.