cris- 

I hope you don't mind that I have forwarded your message to the
British poets list, because I would like to reply in that sphere.

Karlien

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 11:08:17 +0000
From: cris cheek <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Yvonne Rainer . . .

Thanks Layne, Yvonne's work is surely overdue a major reappraisal

>talk about the merging of poetry and dance....

i hope you'll forgive me being a bit autobiographical, it might spark some
bases for discussions  -  Working on a boundary between dance and poetry is
something i used to do more. To be brutally honest i found working in old
tea warehouses and veneer factories with dancers preferable to propping up
the bar with poets and musicians for quite a few years.

                    When 'jgjgjgjgjgjgjgj . . . (as long as you can say it
that's our name)  -  a trio with Lawrence Upton and Clive Fencott  -  was
performing 3 (sometimes more) voice writing, much along the lines of the
Four Horsemen, we began, individually and or collectively i can't remember
which, to lose interest in holding a 'score' (the page in the hand
approach). That necessitated memorised materials and memory strategies,
themselves particularising editorial performance tools. Of course gesture
became more consious as part of the performance. I'm reminded of David
Bromige's hilarious presentation on 'podium behaviour' at last year's
Assembling Alternatives Conference in New Hampshire. How a poet presents
themselves, how they stand, what they do with their hands, what is readable
and revealed  -  Bourdieu's 'habitus'?

                    We did some work incorporating deliberate gesture, then
drifted onto seperate paths. I'd got very interested in the interaction
between vocalising and movement. In fact i always had been. One of my first
things was a sonnet of invented signs, several of which repeated, which
necessitated variations on vocal gesture and physical mark-making (drawing
with the hand in space, body wriggle, constriction and release  -  simple
stuff, related to writing).

                    I was in Baltimore, working with CoAccident throughout
much of 1979/80, with Kirby Malone, Chris Mason, Marshall Reese, Nora
Ligora, Patty Karl, Svexner Labs and Lisa Land. We did a lot of work that
incorporated what i'd now refer to as physical theatre.

                    Back in London the prospect of supporting myself
through my poetry seemed slim. I had however seen a couple of independent
choreographers, from X6 Dance Collective, performing at the ICA  -  Fergus
Early and Jacky Lansley. My line of interest jumped across from Judson. I
got invoved with the emergence of what was called New Dance in the UK.
'Dance' was becoming porous to quotidian movement, sports and so on and i
thought "i could do that". There was a lot of Contact Jamming happening (i
danced with Nancy Stark-Smith, Mark Tompkins and Julyen Hamilton and so
on). I auditioned for a company Jacky and Fergus were putting together. As
i remember, it's one of only 2 auditions i've ever been to, i knew i had to
have a piece. So i prepared something during which I improvised a talk and
then threw 5 balls of different sizes and colors up into the air (like
going to juggle which is a pet no-no -  as my friend Sianed Jones says,
when i see someone starting to juggle, i goes to sleep) opened my arms in a
grand dramatic gesture and saying something like a bunch of non-sequitors
let them all simply fall to the floor without making an effort to catch
any. I got the job and was in a dance company performing regularly and
earning ok (for about the next year).

                    That experience brought me into contact with many
choreographers for whom i was commissioned to write. They opted for a
spoken text instead of music. These were some of the most satisfying
performance experiences i can remember. Michael Clark, Mary Prestidge,
Miranda Tufnell, Lisa Nelson, Kistie Simpson, Sue MacLennan and Patricia
Bardi were all collaborators at this time. I'd always be 'on stage', always
be working from memorised materials devised with the movement, frequently
move myself at times.

                    A few years back i got together a bunch of younger
choreographers and re-created Jackson MacLow's 'The Pronouns' with
shinkansen on London's South Bank. That worked really well. Initially they
looked at the writing and couldn't find ways into it. When however, they
began to actually try to work out, in a space, how to DO them, everything
rocked.

                    It's this DO thing that interests me. Basil Bunting
declared that 'Poetry must be read aloud'. How many do that. And when they
do, how aware are they of the subtle particularities of what Steve Paxton
calls the small dance , taking place in their bodies?

Any thoughts? I'm keen to hear on this

love and love
cris



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