Fly: video research extracts 2

• In the second short compilation of research clips, we begin by exploring movement initiating from the pelvis, and we give someone else responsibility for this initiation which (the dancers told me) enabled them to feel freer in their movement; this movement fluctuates endlessly as in the previous video, but also covers a great deal more space and has more unexpected, playful shifts
• We add in a third dancer, and now one dancer is responsible for initiating the pelvis (will-centre) and another for initiating the head (thought-centre); again, the movement becomes increasingly abandoned as the dancers give over more responsibility (and maybe trust each other a little more? the 'specifications' of this task were also getting clearer over time)
• Very quickly, at the end of the final research workshop, we tried to 'set' a version of this trio material (which, as soon as we set it, looks very different - ideally this process of setting would occur over a much longer period of time) and then we filmed the separate parts of this in different takes (each dancer performing their respective part because we didn't have time to learn each other's); in this instance, trying to put the pieces back together was really difficult when editing, and you can see that I've had to move the takes from side to side to try to make the different parts work together
• The idea is an interesting one, but this experiment shows just how much preparation has to go into working this way, in terms of the movement being performed in exactly the same way each time, and with exactly the same spatial arrangement (and this also applies to the way in which it is filmed). Weight-bearing is not impossible, but very challenging. There's definitely something to learn here about the types of movement that work well, which can inform the choreographic process going forward. Also, as in the first video, I can see the necessity for some simpler, more recognisable gestures (including use of focus which clarifies the relationship between the different figures) that help to anchor the image/scenario, and therefore the sense of what is going on.