Duets

(Image sourced via Google search)

We used 60s style images a lot at the beginning of the process as a springboard for movement exploration. The above image featured during a task that led to creation of duets, and we played with deconstructing and reconstructing the image: the dancers always had to come back to this even after they had folded/ fallen/ moved away from it. The dancers movement had to evolve intuitively from this, the source, and were advised that if they hit a ‘block’ then to come back to the original iteration and see what other evolutions might occur.

For each group (the “faces”, “gloves” and “sunglasses”) a constraint was applied:

Faces: This group needed to be aware that their faces will be painted and therefore their face cold not come into contact with each other’s bodies.

Gloves: This group’s constraint was that they were unable to connect hand-to-hand.

Sunglasses: These dancers were unable to make eye contact with one another.

There were general guidelines for the construction of the duets, which included: no unison; dancers allowed to move in and out of contact; keep crafting.

From this, we started to select and refine material that would feature in the final work, alongside the runway walks, beach solos and quartets, and animalistic solos (more on these soon!)