Solo on the Move #1 is under way,

with the support of Kulturamt Pankow and travelling towards the performances taking place 11th-13th June at Studio Börne 45, Berlin. Liz Erber, Meltem Nil, Jenny Haack and myself are already engaged in the project of weaving four instant-composition solos together. In parallel, the series of workshops, each led by one of us, has also started.

As a performer and, particularly in the field of instant composition, where the performer is also creator, I am interested in “the hallway”. That is, the hallway of my experience – inner and outer-, as if I were a house. By this I mean that I like to keep all doors open and be mobile between all the rooms. And keeps the windows open, so that there’s a draft and everything is blown around. The hallway is freedom to peep into a room, go and sit there for a while, run around between all of them or look into one from the other. In my training I dedicate time to conditioning each of the rooms and in my performance practice I focus on the hallway. I titled my workshop “In and out – and places in between”.

A couple of days ago, I came across an interesting essay by Cecilia Roos which gave me more ways of understanding this that I’m interested in. It’s part of  the “The Dancer as Agent Collection”, which I completely recommend, and it refers to performance practice and performative articulation. Roos brings to the fore how important the skill of method-making is for dancers and the very broad meaning that this expression can have in a crystal clear discussion which put words to some of the work all of us performers do.

And back to the Solo on the Move #1 process… it was great to have read this essay. Today, we experimented with a new possibility that was exciting and challenging at the same time. Much as I was engaged on one level, I was finding it difficult to access my material or to give it form without bumps and cuts. But Roos’s article came to my aid. The idea of method-making allowed me to see how the new parameters that we had introduced required me to find new paths and ways, as if the house now had a new room, or perhaps several, or even a garden or a heliport! To face new situations and new paradigms, new tools have to be invented – that’s the work.