The beginning of a journey

 1st Day, Claire, Claire Cunningham  No Responses »
Feb 222016
 

Glasgow-based performer and choreographer Claire Cunningham is Artist in Residence at PIAF 2016.

Questions to self

What do I want the participants to get from the time?
Connection – to each other. Friendships. Trust. Possible collaborations and allies for the future. Realization they are not alone. New ideas to try, ways of thinking about performing, noticing and language.

What do I bring?
Time. Taking time. Permission to take time. Permission to look and be looked at.
Permission to be listened to. Giving them permission to speak, to give voice, to say ‘that’s enough’, to communicate.
Permission to do less.
Permission to ask.
Permission to try things

What is my offering to the group?
A space to share knowledge and experience, to learn about each other and each others work.
To share the things I love, the tasks that have made me think, made me squirm, made me know that I needed to do them again because they made me uncomfortable. The exercises that made me notice – my habits, the way I move, the way I think about moving, the way I think about my body, the language I use, the importance of language.
Connections to others who have shaped me
Bill Shannon/ Jess Curtis/Sara Shelton Mann/ Gail Sneddon/Richard Layzell, Meg Stuart/Luke Pell
Tools they have given me

What are they looking for? (based on their cover letters)
New methods/tools/concepts for creating and devising
Different ways to work. To work with difference
Connection to other artists/time with each other
Conversations and questioning of what it is to perform
Ways to investigate own and others individuality

Identity Game

 1st Day, Claire, Claire Cunningham  No Responses »
Feb 232016
 

CCTues-am - 2  CCTues-am - 6 CCTues-am - 4 CCTues-am - 13 CCTues-am - 14 CCTues-am - 3

Identity Game
Take a space in the room and make a statement. If you can relate to that statement then go stand with the person. Take a moment to look at the group you are in/not in. the constellations….the differences…the similarities. The unexpected allies….

Examples today:

  • I am not from Perth
  • I have one brother
  • I don’t know what else to do
  • I feel lost
  • Somedays I feel more like a boy than a girl
  • I’m hungry
  • I have a twin
  • I am disabled
  • I am single
  • I worry about my sister
  • I overthink things

Tell me something you love

 1st Day, Claire Cunningham  No Responses »
Feb 232016
 

From Jess Curtis, after Sara Shelton-Mann

Peripheral fluctuation

 1st Day, Claire, Claire Cunningham  No Responses »
Feb 232016
 

CCTues-pm - 123 CCTues-pm - 135 CCTues-pm - 133CCTues-pm - 144 CCTues-pm - 137

Peripheral Fluctuation. To notice how we see/ what we notice – hierarchy of sight, range of periphery and of movement. Pick a person in the room and try to keep them only in your peripheral vision and not in your fauvial vision (central).

(Score explored by Claire and Jess Curtis, from term created by Bill Shannon relating to the fluctuation of attention/staring from people on his visual periphery)

Tina: Parallelavision, movement and listening

 1st Day, Claire Cunningham, Tina  No Responses »
Feb 232016
 

Today I learned to use parallelavision and movement.

I have fun to meet new people I would like to know better during in this week and in the future.

I never listen but today I did.

First time for me and to Claire Cuningham…thank you for this biggest opportunity to see all new faces I haven’t seen so thank you.

1stDay - 1 (2)

Daisy: Free writing

 1st Day, Claire Cunningham, Daisy  No Responses »
Feb 232016
 

We are doing free writing for five minutes but all I have are drawing pens, I am not sure how vulnerable I feel and maybe this means I need to go to classes more or figure out a medium of which I can interrogate myself genuinely but I also feel unartistic and strange out of body quite uncomfy in my own skin. Maybe I don’t feel too awful but I think this might not be right for me right now or it could be perfect but I can’t be sure either way to be honest. Not sure how I feel, existential loss and worry that my life will be over someday is terrifying.

Laura: Time and Space

 1st Day, Claire Cunningham, Laura  No Responses »
Feb 232016
 

Kellee: Vulnerability

 1st Day, Claire Cunningham, Kellee  No Responses »
Feb 232016
 

I guess I didn’t know what to expect today on our first day of workshops with Claire. To be honest, I was a little nervous…and taken aback by the range of people in the room. All different names of people I had heard of but never worked or met with. Claire put us at ease, giving us calm and comforting words which I guess I could sum up into three specific words:

Connection

Time

Space

These were three things Claire wanted us to achieve or make (there were a lot more details surrounding those three things – questions, routines and ideas that I won’t go into today).

DayOne - 1 (1)

But to achieve those three things of connection, time and space this week I know that I have to commit to being vulnerable in the rehearsal/workshop space. By being vulnerable I open myself up to making connection with Claire and the other participants to the space and to the works. By being vulnerable, I can take the time needed for whatever we are doing, and finally, by being vulnerable, I can create, play, manipulate and use the space (with and without others) to be inspired, upskilled and ready to roll, no matter what the next four days may bring.

Philip: Day One

 1st Day, Claire Cunningham, Philip  No Responses »
Feb 232016
 

I looked around and felt out of the moment, out of myself and out of tune, but in an instant of refocused commitment to the task I was brought back to myself.

1stDay - 1 (1)

I’ve had a difficult time just being me lately, remembering who I am, what makes me me and why I do what I do. Have I lost my purpose, my way of connecting to myself, to other people around me, to the people I love and trust and I wonder…is it that I’ve stopped trusting myself, trusting as I have done for most of my adult life that everything is on track and everything is totally okay or… have I just taken a back seat in what I feel I’ve been put on this place to do, what I’m meant to do, how I’m meant to give to and connect with other people?

Rachael: Questions

 1st Day, Claire Cunningham, Rachael  No Responses »
Feb 232016
 

Today was simple but hard and surprisingly challenging. I went home thinking “Why does my head hurt so much?”

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I have been taught some beautiful exercises which I will carry with me and I know I will use again. Things that make me think, made me react, made me discover. Exercises that taught me to leave time and space as well as the idea of self reflection in a group (a paradox I know, but a good one).

The question that stuck with me the most after today was when Claire asked “Do YOU – you not anyone else – identify as disabled”. And even though I have been asked that question before I don’t think I have ever thought about it properly, with there being no consequence for my answer. Normally you are asked that question when you fill out a form, are ticking boxes, doing an application, you answer it to get a specific response from another person. To genuinely just be asked the question “do you identify as disabled?” was difficult and I still don’t know the answer, but will be something I ponder in the week.

Cinzia: Reflections on Day One

 1st Day, Cinzia, Claire Cunningham  No Responses »
Feb 232016
 

Is identity forever? Can I identify with something one moment and let it go the other? Am I ok with others potentially judging that association?

360° vision. Perspective.
360° offers a whole possibility of coming out and going in. It creates space.

Repetition, repetition, exhaustion, find the limit.. that is where the stuff is.

That’s enough.