Rethinking Rehearsals - Sustainable Creation through Artistic Periodization (Erin Flynn)
Abstract:
The purpose of this presentation is to share tools for realizing choreographic goals, alongside supporting the wellbeing of dancers inside the choreographic process. The presentation aims to offer choreographers, dance educators, rehearsal directors and all those in charge of planning and realizing creation and production schedules, tools for facilitating the work of those embodying this live art form. Too often the time for recuperation, integration and dialogue is sacrificed to meet production goals, to the detriment of the work. By supporting dancers needs inside the creation process we can potentially elevate the ethical and artistic practice of dance, while minimizing the physical and mental fatigue and injury dancers often experience.
Background:
This presentation into artistic periodization draws on research conducted from 2016- 2021, for a master’s research-creation project developing specific practices that support the needs of dancers participating in an independent contemporary dance creative process. The research explores the integration of training periodization, project management and communication tools. The goal was to value the participants generating the creative process, rather than just the production of an artwork, by ensuring enough time and value be given to physical preparation, recovery and problem solving.
Specifically:
• Identifying choreographic and aesthetic goals
• Creating a cross-training program cultivating desired qualities of choreographic and aesthetic goals ex. conditioning exercises that build desired physical capacities, movement sequences that prepare choreographic language and state-based improvisation scores that practice
interpretive qualities and compositional choices.
• Incorporating recuperation into the rehearsal schedule at multiple levels:
§ Phases, week & day: by creating modulating schedules that include time for integration, rest,
dialogue, nutrition, as well as identifying and respecting the different phases for generating,
editing, refining, tapering and presenting the work
§ Using group praxis to prepare, video and tables to discuss work objectively, dialogue to
problem solve and debrief & a cool down to compensate for day’s activities.
Conclusion:
As dance artists we can adapt or methods to pursue choreographic goals in ways that build dancers’ potential from day one of the process and refine the work collectively without doing harm; by rethinking traditional methods such as: cleaning, repetition and notes; separating training from creation and ignoring dancers need to problem solve, eat, rest and discuss. Training dancers in progressive ways inside of rehearsals can potentially create more inclusive and accessible opportunities for emerging artists and dancers who have time or physical constraints such as chronic injuries, or responsibilities such as other jobs and/or parenthood. Adapting methods for choreographing and rehearsing can create agency and healthy conditions for dancers, while including choreographers in the physical research and democratizing the responsibility of realizing the work. This new way of creating has the potential to advance the healthy practice of dance creation, making it more sustainable, by considering the psychological and physical needs of those embodying the work.
The purpose of this presentation is to share tools for realizing choreographic goals, alongside supporting the wellbeing of dancers inside the choreographic process. The presentation aims to offer choreographers, dance educators, rehearsal directors and all those in charge of planning and realizing creation and production schedules, tools for facilitating the work of those embodying this live art form. Too often the time for recuperation, integration and dialogue is sacrificed to meet production goals, to the detriment of the work. By supporting dancers needs inside the creation process we can potentially elevate the ethical and artistic practice of dance, while minimizing the physical and mental fatigue and injury dancers often experience.
Background:
This presentation into artistic periodization draws on research conducted from 2016- 2021, for a master’s research-creation project developing specific practices that support the needs of dancers participating in an independent contemporary dance creative process. The research explores the integration of training periodization, project management and communication tools. The goal was to value the participants generating the creative process, rather than just the production of an artwork, by ensuring enough time and value be given to physical preparation, recovery and problem solving.
Specifically:
• Identifying choreographic and aesthetic goals
• Creating a cross-training program cultivating desired qualities of choreographic and aesthetic goals ex. conditioning exercises that build desired physical capacities, movement sequences that prepare choreographic language and state-based improvisation scores that practice
interpretive qualities and compositional choices.
• Incorporating recuperation into the rehearsal schedule at multiple levels:
§ Phases, week & day: by creating modulating schedules that include time for integration, rest,
dialogue, nutrition, as well as identifying and respecting the different phases for generating,
editing, refining, tapering and presenting the work
§ Using group praxis to prepare, video and tables to discuss work objectively, dialogue to
problem solve and debrief & a cool down to compensate for day’s activities.
Conclusion:
As dance artists we can adapt or methods to pursue choreographic goals in ways that build dancers’ potential from day one of the process and refine the work collectively without doing harm; by rethinking traditional methods such as: cleaning, repetition and notes; separating training from creation and ignoring dancers need to problem solve, eat, rest and discuss. Training dancers in progressive ways inside of rehearsals can potentially create more inclusive and accessible opportunities for emerging artists and dancers who have time or physical constraints such as chronic injuries, or responsibilities such as other jobs and/or parenthood. Adapting methods for choreographing and rehearsing can create agency and healthy conditions for dancers, while including choreographers in the physical research and democratizing the responsibility of realizing the work. This new way of creating has the potential to advance the healthy practice of dance creation, making it more sustainable, by considering the psychological and physical needs of those embodying the work.
Erin Flynn
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Erin Flynn is a professional Contemporary dance artist and teacher based in Montreal, QC. Interested by intersection of training and creation, Erin works with somatics, improvisation, contemporary and neo-classical technique and theatrical explorations. Erin currently teaches movement at the National Theatre School of Canada and technique at Concordia University, and has lead courses in interpretation, improvisation, creation and somatic education to students in professional training programs at UQAM and the Winnipeg School of Contemporary Dancers, as well as Pilates and Yoga to adult populations at EDCM, MAA, Kinatex and Studio Équilibre.
With her master's research at the Départment de danse d’UQÀM, she is developing strategies for supporting the physiological and psychological needs for recuperation and communication inside of the creative and production process. With an interest in making dance practice more sustainable for dancers and creators alike, Erin will be presenting at the Healthy Dancer Canada conference in Montreal in November. A member of the collective Pixel Projects with Mistaya Hemingway and Isabelle Poirier, she is also looking forward to the production of their new dance film Forward/Back in 2022, recently funded by the Canada Council for the Arts. Iterations – Shots in the Dark, her new choreographic work with Mairéad Filgate and Melina Stinson also be presented in 2022. As a dancer, Erin performed extensively with established companies and independent choreographers, notably Van Grimde Corps Secrets, Ruth Cansfield Dance, Public Recordings and Trip Dance. Her own choreographic works have been presented in Montreal by Tangente, Studio 303, le Gésu, les Maisons de la Culture and the festivals OFFTA and Vue sur la Relève, as well as in Halifax, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Tokyo and Seoul. Most recently, performing with the 5 on 5 improvisation collective at the Sala Rossa, in 'Do It in The Road', a series of dance shorts by Mistaya Hemingway for the City of Montréal and in Victoria May’s work at Quartiers Danses. A community-minded artist, Erin has produced podcasts for the web site, Territoires Partagés and organised workshops for the association, Ascendanse and produced the performance series, Pixel Projects. |