SHA(R)P(EN)ING THE TOOLS:

The process of creating a Toolkit for dance educational purposes.

Origins:

As part of the 20th anniversary celebration of the collaboration between choreographers Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten (EG/PC), ICKamsterdam is preparing, under the coordination of Annet Huizing, a series of 7 publications appearing in the course of the anniversary year. From a book to an online magazine to a documentary, the publications, relating to the trajectory of their collaboration, will appear in very different forms of expression.

One of those publications is in the form of a toolkit inspired by the work of EG/PC with the aim to introduce dance to children with no dance training between the ages 10-12.

The first step was to find a partner with experience in the education field, and Amsterdam School of the Arts (AHK), in particular its teachers department, became the ideal choice due not only to its knowledge in the field but as well to the ongoing relationship between both institutions.

The team for the development of the toolkit is formed, then, by: from ICKamsterdam, Bárbara Meneses (artistic coordinator Academy Pillar), Annet Huizing (Coordinator artistic archive and anniversary publication EG | PC) and Jesús de Vega (Choreographer, performer and teacher) and from the AHK Lot Siebe (senior lecturer and researcher) and Susanne Marx (researcher and teacher at the dance teacher department at Theaterschool Amsterdam/Choreographer)

The interest from the side of the AHK was in the ideas of Transculturality and the collective body. How to develop a tool that would also promote those ideas and what would/could be distilled from the work of EG/PC in relation to them? Were those ideas ingrained in their work?

The first practical step was in the shape of a workshop given by ICKamsterdam in October 2014 to some of the students of the teachers department at the AHK, where existing material from the work of EG/PC was presented to them.

That material included the Double skin/Double mind (DS/DM) workshop developed by EG/PC (which is used by the company to prepare their dancers and which was given every morning to the participants of the workshop) and 2 of the outcomes of the research projects conducted by Bertha Bermudez Pascual between 2005 and 2014, which documented and analyzed the work of EG/PC: The Pre-choreographic Elements and the DoubleSkin/Double Mind Interactive DVDRom.

The “Pre-Choreographic elements” refers to the pre-phase of choreography, where the content is being created, shaped and tested but not yet part of the selection and ordering process of choreography. The research has shifted from preparation of the body– mind state for creation to the generation of movement material that might later become part of a performance. The focus is on ideas or concepts that generate movement material and that keep appearing consistently throughout the work. It is a lexical collection of Greco and Scholten’s creative principles, developing a new methodology for their work

The material was presented to the students throughout the week, and discussions were opened on possible interests, ways of usage, creative openings based in them, etc. It was a first step to start selecting possible entry points and interests for the development of the toolkit.

The collective nature of some “parts” of the DS/DM (for example the jumping, or the way that it encourages not only the discovery of the body of the individual participant but its relation to the others and the outside) gave way to the realization that some of its principles could be added to the toolkit.

That first workshop was followed by a second one in January 2015 were some of the material presented to the participants for the Teachers Department appeared in a more concrete form as a tool: the information appeared as images on their own (inspired by selected Pre-choreographic elements), notions distilled from the DS/DM in text form, and images with a text that complemented and gave depth and more specific directions to the inspiring quality of those images.

Some tasks were given to the participants to see if the tools could inspire them to develop simple exercises or come up with physical qualities/material. There was an open discussion afterwards and both Susanne and Lot presented their research on Transculturality and on the particularities of the development of children in that age bracket (10-12).

Susanne Marx, inspired by the outcome of those workshops, began a research on a possible way to develop a live class inspired by Double skin/double mind and the basic tools used in those first 2 workshops. Joske Daamen and Ingeborg NijBoer were the teachers imparting the classes to students of 2 schools in different districts of Amsterdam.

Jesus de Vega provided some material to the teachers: a description of DS/DM sections and ways of imparting it (based in his experience as teacher of DS/DM), images and texts inspired by Pre-choreographic elements, sounds inspired as well by those pre-choreographic elements and a list of textures to be given to the kids.

There were 2 meetings between the teachers and the teams of ICKamsterdam and the AHK (documented both in video and in writing form) about the process of the teachers, their experiences with the kids as well as our experience as observers of the classes.

Susanne’s research resulted in a documentary of the experience and an essay with her observations, conclusions and further questions.

The experience of observing those classes set the path on how to continue developing the toolkit: the kids responded very well to those sensorial and sometimes intellectual stimulus, and were open to experiment and come up with their own physical propositions, instead of waiting to be “taught how to dance”.

Those two initial workshops and more particularly the classes with the kids clarified some important questions and brought up some new ones. It clarified the fact that the kids were prepared to tackle more abstract ideas, and able to (with the guidance of the teacher) discover and experiment with their bodies. It gave us a hint on how some artistic principles could be translated for educational purposes and it confirmed which material was necessary and important for the development of the toolkit and which ones were irrelevant.

The concept of the Toolkit:

One of the most inspiring things whilst observing the classes that were organized by Susanne Marx as part of her research was the fact that the kids seemed to enter in a “non judgmental” space. They were able to experiment with their bodies and at the same time to discuss not only “what you do” but as well “what you see”. They were curious, they were open.

 Presented with tools that ranged from inspiring pictures, texts, textures they needed to touch and sounds (so, in general, sensorial based inputs) the kids were able to find different qualities and physical proposals, whilst also being encouraged to talk about “what they saw” in others, engaging also in the activity of observing as well as the one of creating.

Somehow, those kids (which were from different cultural backgrounds) managed to transcend certain physical patterns ingrained in them (options related to certain styles of dance they are exposed to, for example, hip-hop) to arrive to more abstract propositions, were physicality was not developed from emotional or cultural responses, but from the actual abstraction to the sensorial impulses presented to them.

That idea of generating dialogue, a sort of artistic dialogue between kids that are exposed to dance for the first time in most cases, the curiosity observed and the challenge presented to them immediately connected Jesus’s focus to the 7 necessities of EG/PC.

The 7 necessities is an artistic Manifesto written by Emio Greco and Pieter C.Scholten during the creation of Bianco, their first artistic collaboration.

This ‘dogma’, of which the articles are stated in French - “because Il faut que…  so much more strongly expresses necessity”, is an attempt to capture dance in words. The manifest laid the basis for a dance language that goes back to the inner necessities of the dancing body, an inner awareness of time and space that is stored in the deep memory of the body. Today, the manifest has not been diminished in currency or relevance and it still serves as a source of inspiration for the continuous development and deepening understanding of the work.

Here is the transcription of the 7 Necessities:

1. Il faut que je vous dise que mon corps est curieux de tout et moi: je suis mon corps. (It is necessary for me to tell you that my body is curious about everything and I am my body.)

 (Curiosity)

2. Il faut que je vous dise que je ne suis pas seul
(It is necessary for me to tell you that I am not alone.)

 (Dialogue)

3. Il faut que je vous dise que je peux contrôler mon corps et en même temps jouer avec lui
(I have to tell you that I can control my body and play with it at the same time.)

 (Choice)

4. Il faut que je vous dise que mon corps m’échappe
(It is necessary for me to tell you that my body is escaping.)

 (Contradiction)

5. Il faut que je vous dise que je peux multiplier mon corps
(It is necessary for me to tell you that I can multiply my body.)

(Challenge)

6. Il faut que je vous dise qu’il faut que vous tourniez la tête
(It is necessary for me to tell you that you have to turn your head.)

 (Doubt)

7. Il faut que je vous dise que je vous abandonne et que je vous laisse ma statue
(It is necessary for me to tell you that I am leaving you and I am giving you my statue.)

 (Will)

Using the manifesto as a springboard, as well as their interest on discovering a new  “dramaturgy of the body” and their curiosity for the body and its inner motives, the toolkit aims to develop curiosity, dialogue, choice, contradiction, challenge, doubt and will.

-Curiosity: will be enhanced through the different tasks presented at them (in order to discover their body and its capabilities)

-Dialogue: will be encouraged in the “mission” of the toolkit to express to the teachers the interest on sharing the kid’s physical discoveries with the rest of the group as well as their thoughts and observations on what other participants show (proposing questions like: What do we see? What could it mean?)

-Choice and contradiction: They can select from a varied range of options, but some of the information given can “contradict” each other (e.g. volume/vertical length). How will they handle that situation?

-Challenge and doubt: Through being exposed to information and tasks that they’re not used to.

-Will/testament: what they will take away from it is beyond learning steps: it is about seeing themselves as creative individuals while developing a sense of community within the group.

After all the experiences of the workshops, the meetings between AHK and ICKamsterdam and Susanne’s research, Jesús de Vega has started making the concept for the toolkit more concrete: sensorial stimulus would generate the entry point for the physical discovery/development, where the body is conceived as something beyond gender, race or history. The goal is not to “produce”, but to discover, to experiment and to share; the toolkit should aim to encourage the discovery of the body and its creative possibilities.

Its key inspiring words are: freedom, responsibility, creativity, independency, sharing, discovery, no-judgment.

The Toolkit:

Needles to say, the Toolkit is still in development mode, so this following explanation relates to the actual moment were we are in the process, and not necessarily to what the final product will include.

The intention is to create a playful toolkit, in which the information can be layered by combining the different elements (sound and visual, or texture and intention, etc).

It should be concrete enough in what it provides, but also open enough for the teachers to be able to use it as they please. The toolkit should include a “mission” text: it should indicate possible ways of using it, maybe with some simple exercises to trigger the imagination of the teacher. The intention is not to impose on the teacher what to do or how to do it, but to give possibilities and new entry points to develop creativity.

The toolkit will/could present a diverse set of elements that are related to two main categories: Generators and modifiers.

Within the Generators we would encounter:

-Visual inputs: using the Pre-choreographic Elements as inspiration, an illustrator/animator (Pepón Meneses) will be in charge of presenting them in a visual way. The process of designing 1 of the images (for the element Needles) is already in its first stage.

The following pre-choreographic elements have been selected for the input they present: Around ball (creation and manipulation of volume in inner/outer space), Needles (direction of the inner path of movement), Imitation (observation/dissociation), Fireworks (generating sound by reacting to contact of the body), Leaving Aura (memory/precision/speed), Mapping (description of space/direction through the feet) and Cubism (square and sharp volumes to articulate the body)

- Sound: inspired by the soundtrack of the work of EG/PC (music and sound and their relation to the movement being an important part of their work), some sounds have been selected for the specific qualities they can provide. There will be a sound artist that will create specific sounds for the toolkit based in the following examples:

Whip (directed, clear end-sharp), Echo (memory that fades), Melting ice cubes (transformation), Breaking glass (multiplicity, fragility), Sand and wind (erosion), Undulating Sound (The body spreads the sound of the movement, its resonance and its frequency), Vacuum sound (remembering and recalling an iconic position)

-Textures: using tact as a way to enhance the sensitivity of the skin and as a way to discover certain qualities based on the feeling that the textures produce physically. The idea is not to represent the object given, but to be inspired by the physical sensation of their touch to develop a way of moving.

For example: silk, iron, wood, fur, sand paper, sponge, feather

-Smells: Another way to provoke a physical response and a new trigger for physical creation would be to include a set of small tubes, each with a specific smell. Still a very early idea, we are in the process of selecting what types of smells would be adequate. ICKamsterdam is already in contact with a possible collaborator and expert in this field.

In the category of modifiers, we would encounter:

 -Dynamics

-Spatial relation

-Intention: It should provide a certain input (like for example lengthening, releasing, crystallizing, etc) (Still to be decided what would be the format to present this element) In the work of EG/PC the intention behind the movement, and the way to capture it is a very important part of the researches that Bertha Bermudez has developed and hence why it should be included in the toolkit.

-Density

 This elements are still "under construction". Some ideas on how to tackle them are being generated, but they are still in very early stages.

The Future:

As it can be observed by reading the previous explanation, the Toolkit is still in a development phase. The next steps will be to start concretizing some of those elements, as well as continuing in a second research phase, testing the already developed materials with teachers and kids in a live situation, seeing their response but, most importantly, opening a dialogue with dance teachers that develop this type of work (with non dance trained kids) in order to see what type of feedback we get from them.