Somewhat overwhelmed. I came away from this first rehearsal quite numb - even slightly traumatised - and needed to wait a few days to revisit the video and make some sense of what we had achieved. The dancers were completely awesome and gave so much energy and support to my ideas. I didn't expect this so a massive thank you to you all.
I was a bit apprehensive, shy and not a very able communicator when it came to direction. Sally Marie spent a lot of time with me trying to understand what I am trying to achieve which is a complex task given I'm not even sure. But she teased out some meaningful themes and she guided the dancers to improvise around these ideas.
I have about 15 mins of video that I have edited back to 8 mins of great sequences that we can begin to develop next Sunday. On reflection - it all got a bit more angst ridden and violent than I imagined it would. We cut to the chase really quickly and that was weird. So next week I think we can work on calm and love! Perhaps explore that as a meaningful contrast and juxtaposition to the completely relevant and necessary structure of difficult themes around mental health for which the dancers have already created some amazing choreography that we can build on in future sessions.
Rachel made a great post on the DanceMovement blog that summed up the day perfectly... my video upload to follow later.
http://www.thedancemovement.co.uk/every-day-people1/rosie-edp-day-1
Thursday, 14 July 2016
Saturday, 9 July 2016
I've not got a lot of laughs in here!
Oh no - what to do about that???
Note to self: I need some humour to communicate a difficult subject!
Note to self: I need some humour to communicate a difficult subject!
First reheasal tomorrow
So not sure where I am going with this... but excited about the first rehearsal with the dancers tomorrow. I will need a lot of help from Sally Marie to translate all this into some kind of sense for the dancers but hoping I can show them this blog to start developing ideas.
Push and pull
Chaos and calm
Fast and slow
Big and small
Loud and quiet
Need to think about music...maybe examples
And about space... here are some plans of the Brislington Asylum near Bristol that maybe helpful for mapping out movement in imaginary spaces.
Push and pull
Chaos and calm
Fast and slow
Big and small
Loud and quiet
Need to think about music...maybe examples
And about space... here are some plans of the Brislington Asylum near Bristol that maybe helpful for mapping out movement in imaginary spaces.
Olive Wharry - Suffragette and Hunger Striker
Olive Wharry used several names; Joyce Locke, Phyllis North and possibly others. In 1913 she burnt down a tea kiosk in Kew Gardens believing to to be property of The Crown. The archive shows how she was moved around various prisons from Holloway, to Carnarvon, to Liverpool and so on. Medical records show how she was force-fed through a tube into the esophagus leading to a gradual deterioration in her mental and physical health.
My mother has always loved her food. Since entering a care home she has insisted that the food is poisoned and existed on a diet of jacket potatoes, cheese sandwiches and yogurt for most of the last six years. She self neglects in other ways too - for example she won't shower or wash her hair. Apparently there is little that the care home can do because any force is now seen as a violation of her human rights.
My mother has always loved her food. Since entering a care home she has insisted that the food is poisoned and existed on a diet of jacket potatoes, cheese sandwiches and yogurt for most of the last six years. She self neglects in other ways too - for example she won't shower or wash her hair. Apparently there is little that the care home can do because any force is now seen as a violation of her human rights.
Dance videos for reference
A film I found when searching for mental health and dance...
and this one which is perhaps a bit off piste but stunning nonetheless
and this one which is perhaps a bit off piste but stunning nonetheless
Sarah Petty - suicide attempt/murderer of her 2 year old son
On 24th October 1917 Sarah Petty left a suicide note and turned on the gas in her kitchen at 56 Wornington Road, London. In the note to her sister, she claimed that her husband who had returned from the war shellshocked and abusive was insane, not herself. Sadly her son died but her baby daughter survived. Despite the medical evidence that she was nursing her baby and was possibly not of sound mind (post natal depression?) at the time of the attempted suicide and the evidence of her sister that said she was bruised and battered by her husband, she was convicted of first degree murder. The archive contained all the transcripts of the murder trial.
My mother has tried to commit suicide a few times - mostly by overdose. Not aware of any notes she left but she has left notes and written letters at other times during her depression and psychotic episodes. I remember one incident when I was very young where I was pushed through a back door into the garden and next morning mum had been taken to hospital - possibly sectioned.
My mother has tried to commit suicide a few times - mostly by overdose. Not aware of any notes she left but she has left notes and written letters at other times during her depression and psychotic episodes. I remember one incident when I was very young where I was pushed through a back door into the garden and next morning mum had been taken to hospital - possibly sectioned.
S L Sassoon - 2nd Lt and Poet
There were lots of medical records stating that Siegfried Lorraine Sassoon was fit for military service in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers from 1914 onwards.
However it seems that on July 13th 1918 he had some poetry published in The Nation Vol XXIII No 15 and because of the controversial nature of his description of life as a soldier on the frontline he was deemed unfit to serve and be in in charge of men... it appears he was a Captain by this point.
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front,[1] he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's view, were responsible for a jingoism-fuelled war.[2] Sassoon became a focal point for dissent within the armed forces when he made a lone protest against the continuation of the war in his "Soldier's Declaration" of 1917, culminating in his admission to a military psychiatric hospital; this resulted in his forming a friendship with Wilfred Owen, who was greatly influenced by him. Sassoon later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the "Sherston trilogy".
My father was not allowed to sign up to service in the second world war as he was suffering from a mental breakdown after a doodlebug collapsed the ceiling of his bedroom in their house on Green Street in Forest Gate, London. During Dad's last months in a hospice he told me that around this time he had to give up his university place at Kings College where he was studying a Physics degree. He was a very clever man (and possibly Aspergers - recognising himself in Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night during his latter years!) and was always haunted by the fact that his two sisters both had degrees and he didn't. Sadly mental health issues in civilians weren't well supported as so many were coming back from the war with worse problems.
However it seems that on July 13th 1918 he had some poetry published in The Nation Vol XXIII No 15 and because of the controversial nature of his description of life as a soldier on the frontline he was deemed unfit to serve and be in in charge of men... it appears he was a Captain by this point.
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front,[1] he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches, and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's view, were responsible for a jingoism-fuelled war.[2] Sassoon became a focal point for dissent within the armed forces when he made a lone protest against the continuation of the war in his "Soldier's Declaration" of 1917, culminating in his admission to a military psychiatric hospital; this resulted in his forming a friendship with Wilfred Owen, who was greatly influenced by him. Sassoon later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the "Sherston trilogy".
My father was not allowed to sign up to service in the second world war as he was suffering from a mental breakdown after a doodlebug collapsed the ceiling of his bedroom in their house on Green Street in Forest Gate, London. During Dad's last months in a hospice he told me that around this time he had to give up his university place at Kings College where he was studying a Physics degree. He was a very clever man (and possibly Aspergers - recognising himself in Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night during his latter years!) and was always haunted by the fact that his two sisters both had degrees and he didn't. Sadly mental health issues in civilians weren't well supported as so many were coming back from the war with worse problems.
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