At Meeting Points on Sunday 11 March, we explored our new ideas and interests in dance, including one using a bungee rope that Naomi had brought with her.
We had three dance activities at this Meeting Points, held at its regular venue of the Oxford Brookes Drama Studio.
Bungee Dance
You can see our bungee dance in the video below. It’s a huge cat’s cradle! Dance artist Naomi Morris is shown in the foreground as the film begins. Malcolm Atkins is the pianist and vocalist. Jenny Parrot was filming.
Trauma
Lizzy Spight holds a book about trauma, and instructs us in an exercise about it. Art therapy perhaps? Lizzy gives out large pieces of paper to us all and there are crayons – we are to draw childhood memories. But the paper can be drawn too – drawn through the hand – and I make a human figure like sculpture; I lay beside the paper sculpture on the floor mirroring its shape. Then we summarise the art work with a single drawing on a smaller piece of paper – an icon perhaps: I take a orange crayon and create a circle which with repetition becomes slightly woolly; retaining a sense of vibrancy. Finally, we dance the drawing: I walk in circles around other people who are mostly adopting friezes or solo dancing on the spot.
Welsh Valleys
Malcolm Atkins plays what sounds like a recording of Dylan Thomas, replete with crackles and hisses. The narrative includes washing clothing and a river. I roll down the centre of the room – the river flowing forth. Then I am the washing billowing on a washings line. It’s allegorical dance. I was reminded of a dance performance by the Sasha Waltz dance company where a standing figure is moved to the back of the stage, at their feet are numerous dancers rolling like waves against them, pushing them back.
Notes
Read about the Meeting Points in February 2018