Day Intensive #2

The second of this season’s dance intensive days took place at Paddington Arts on Thursday 21^st April, and calling it an intensive was an understatement. Bawren worked the participants hard, starting with floor exercises to work on flexibility and breathing, working to standing exercises for tendues and plies, accompanied by Bawren’s heart beat rhythms on his djembe. The warm up moved quickly into a fast paced travelling sequence. Moves for the sequence were taught first so they could grasp the idea and then the arms added in later. Bawren reminded the dancers to be less wild with their arms and think about their placings as well as ‘feeling the beat’. The sequence was danced to a CD of what can only be described as ‘funky African beats’, allowing the dancers to get rhythm in their bodies.

Bawren taught the dancers some new rep he had been working on from his research and development. The themes for this include the relationships between man and woman and the process in which a boy turns into a man. This meant that the duets had intricate placings of the feet and hands and fast lifts where the moves flowed one into another with enveloping hugs and close contact. Every pair had a different quality to their movement and performed the duet with different intentions, some pausing at points to look at one another and others with ferocity to their moves.

The last part of the day was a creative session, which was the first in any workshop that I had observed. Bawren told the dancers to go over the material they had learnt during the morning session and then, with different partners they had to break it up and think of ways to aid their partner to come to the next move by travelling with them, pushing their limbs etc, creating a dialogue with the vocabulary. Bawren told the dancers not to add anything fancy or extra to the movement, to keep it clean but still interesting. The second part of the creative session involved the pairs coming up with two counts of eight movements which had to be punchy, quick and vulgar as it was to be about selling your body on the street. What proceeded was a montage of inward, awkward moves which Bawren loved and I could see the light bulb turning on in his head. I think just from these initial ideas; his new piece of work is going to be very in-depth and thought provoking.  

The final part of the day was a mix of all the different sections. In their pairs, Bawren taught the dancers a section of his own travelling material that would get them onto the stage from the side. The dancers then performed their own two counts of eight, followed by their interpretation of the mornings’ sequence mixed in with lifts and the guided sequence. What emerged was a fast paced five minute piece that could be performed in a loop; it was interesting to see how everybody interpreted the given instructions differently, making the end product varied and very interesting to watch.

The day ended with a much needed cool down with slow stretches and breathing exercises. The Tavaziva intensives get more interesting and in depth the more that take place, so watch this space for the next one!

In other news:

Our application to the National Portfolio Funding programme has been successful and we are over the moon! We have received funding up until 2015, so we can progress with our wonderful portfolio of work!