Dance
CHOREOGRAPHER OF THE MONTH WAYNE MCGREGOR What made you want to become a choreographer? Initially watching John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever and Grease! I was eight years old and ballet and contemporary dance were not on my horizon. I didn’t have any opportunity to do those styles of dance so I did ballroom, Latin American, disco. I think choreography is partly about wanting to surrender to the visceral thrill of moving, and hopefully having something to say to an audience.
What was the inspiration behind ENTITY? I wanted to make a piece about something ‘other’, something external that felt as though it had its own grammar, syntax and sense of identity. The idea emerged from our research with cognitive scientists exploring the connection between brain and body. Initially we wanted to build a totally artificially intelligent ENTITY that thought choreographically but could solve other types of problems. Almost a ‘mapping’ of physical thinking. What do you look for in a dancer? What I need is an open, imaginative and curious artist. I’m looking for dancers that I can collaborate with in generating movement material, who literally think with their bodies. It’s not all about physical propensity, although technique is important, but I always look for dancers with very personal physical signatures.
What do you hope audiences will take away from your work? I want them to be surprised at what the body can do. We have such a normalising, often limited view of the body’s potential and I would like to re-address that. I love to show audiences bodies misbehaving, partly because I think it engages your eye in a way that clarity of line doesn’t. I also want the audience to do some of the work in constructing meaning – to become engaged in the ideas as well as the movement material. Contemporary dance can be conceptually engaging. I hope the work provokes debate. ■ ENTITY, Tramway, Glasgow, Fri 27 & Sat 28 May.
130 THE LIST 26 May–23 Jun 2011
PREVIEW DANCE SHOW PILRIG PARK SCHOOL: TIME Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Wed 8 Jun It’s a fact of life that audiences at the average school show will be comprised solely of the performers’ nearest and dearest. Unless, that is, your reputation precedes you – which is exactly what has happened to Pilrig Park, a secondary school for 11-18-year-olds with moderate/complex learning needs. Since it took the bold step five years ago, of staging its annual dance show at the second largest theatre in Scotland, word has spread that Pilrig Park has something special to offer.
storyboarding to set building, performance to costume design, the entire school is involved in some capacity across a range of subjects. ‘It’s curriculum through the arts, rather than arts just being on your curriculum – and that’s the difference,’ explains Muir of her school’s ethos. She is also full of praise for the commitment shown by the venue, and the effect performing there has on the children.
‘The partnership with the Festival Theatre is phenomenal,’ she says. ‘It’s an amazing place to perform, and just being there demands a certain standard. Our children are really challenged to reach that standard – but they rise to it every year.’
‘Our ticket sales now are not just to mums, dads and The appreciation is mutual, with the Festival Theatre’s
grannies,’ says headteacher Ellen Muir. ‘We have quite a few members of the public buying them. One of them came up to me two years ago, when we did a big animal piece, and said that until the children took their masks off during the finale, he had no idea they had additional support needs. What the audience sees is a group of talented young performers.’ This year’s show is all about time, and from
chief executive John Stalker one of the show’s biggest fans. ‘Pilrig Park is not merely a school it is a community determined to live life to the full,’ he says. ‘The passion and enthusiasm of the staff is infectious and evident from the achievements of all the students. There can be no better way of demonstrating that the Festival Theatre exists for everyone, than the night each year that Pilrig Park takes command of our stage.’ (Kelly Apter)
PREVIEW COLLABORATIVE IMPROVISATION TOM PRITCHARD The Arches, Glasgow, Sat 28 May & Fri 24 Jun
For most performers it’s the stuff of nightmares – finding yourself centre stage with no knowledge of script or steps. For dancer and choreographer Tom Pritchard, however, it’s the ideal scenario. Currently associate artist at The Arches, Pritchard is exploring cross-artform improvisation, working alongside dancers, actors, musicians and visual artists. What is it about making work up as you go along that appeals to Prichard? ‘The fact that it’s such a vulnerable place to be,’ he says.
‘When you watch improvisation on stage, there’s nothing hidden because it’s all happening in front of you. You see the performers in their real place of creation, the panic and struggle, and for me that’s fascinating. It feels like much
more of a live event than to watch a set choreography – there’s a risk to it, and that’s beautiful.’
Having put out a call for other artists to join him, Pritchard was keen to ensure that dance didn’t become the dominant artform on stage. ‘It’s not about bringing people into a dance improvisation,’ he says, ‘it’s about taking dance improvisation into all the artforms, and how those different artforms can offer information to one another.’ Prichard’s residency at The Arches will run until August,
with a wide variety of artists joining him on stage for monthly performances. Time spent talking builds up a mutual trust, but no score, script or choreography is created. ‘The aim is that we step on stage with absolutely nothing,’ explains Pritchard, ‘and the first moment that anyone does anything defines the opening of the performance, and everything runs from there.’ (Kelly Apter)