Workdance - Rehearsal
Created for the Norwegian National Ballet Summer School 2021.
Beginning with the idea to reflect the call and response structure of the music through movement, the choreographic material was created in two different ways. The call material came from adjusted improvisation from each dancer, whereas the response material was set and taught. This made the call material more eclectic and individual whilst giving the response material a greater sense of stylistic and group cohesion.
The learning focus for the dancers was to expand their repertoire of movement to include a more grounded quality with explosive entry into motion and controlled falling. The dancers also played with varying degrees of awkwardness within groove steps by disturbing their vertical axes, making veering, leaning movements. The work song lyrics of the music gave the choreography a context, within which the physicality and heaviness of the movement also reflects the strain and fatigue of manual labour, deliberately revealing the work within dance and characterising the dancers as labourers of movement.