When Davida approached me about this piece she wanted to present the body mostly hidden behind panels of taut fabric that she could manipulate with her chest, forearms, knees and hips. She talked about the movement being fluid, subtle, rocking and advancing like a tall ship and sent me a sketch of the general idea.
I was intrigued by the floating, drifting, tipping, bobbing of a tall ship, its mass a tiny dot on an infinite sea, its impending and prolonged arrival, a drama reduced to its most minimal, in movement, in time and space. I began work on SWW 15 in the fall of 2023. However, it became clear that prior to any choreographic exploration, I would need the costume. Fall 2023 trials with Costume Designer Angela Dale, Lighting Designer Steve Isom and Rehearsal Director Helen Husak, made it clear that the costume would need time and many stages of trial and error. I therefore moved my work on SWW 15 to the spring of 2024.
Once I had all costume parts, inevitable questions arose. The challenge presented was multiple:
These studio trials show a few stages of the development: With Toru Takemitsu’s music: 1. Experiments with light and movement with a first costume draft, 2. Exploring moving pieces with hands, and the relationship to pieces on the floor, 3. Integrating the placement of the headpiece into the opening of the dance…., 4. Opening trial where even the walking felt awkward.
The dance that arose was in time – an adagio flow punctuated by a short series of hesitations; in space – a shifting, revolving and trailing; and in imagery – a constant transformation culminating in a shedding.
I began my music search with R. Murray Schafer’s Snowforms, a largely smooth flowing acapella piece for female voices. While the flow of Snowforms connected to the originating image of a tall ship the varied number of incidents in Schafer’s work, as well as the female voices, pulled the dance away from itself. I then spent many rehearsals with Toru Takemitsu’s The Dorian Horizon which in its spareness and effects spoke of a nautical world. However, as with the Schafer piece, The Dorian Horizon, in spite of its spareness still presented dramatic challenges, suggesting the development of significant tensions. I finally settled on a very simple work by Allan Gordon Bell, Bowls, which had been composed for a previous dance scenario/experiment. Bowls consists of the ringing tones of crystal, singing bowls as well as tingshas and bells. The overall feeling is meditative, quiet, smooth and uncomplicated albeit with many incidents of shift and change. With Bowls I could explore the intrinsic complexity of the costume and the dance could unfold along the stream of incidents without haste.
The performance of this work demands a refined spatial awareness to manage the complex costume as well as an assured groundedness to smoothly float shifts of weight and changes of level. Most important for the performer though is the slow, deep, even breath that connects the flow of the dance to the music score, helps to control and flow through costume manipulations and serves to subtlety animate the form in stillness.
The most observable challenge in SWW 15, was working within the restrictive qualities of the costume. We quickly discovered the importance of a minimalist approach to the creation and execution of movement vocabulary. The firm texture, unique shapes and varied placement of the “sails” on the performers’ body dictated how the performer would move her head, arms, legs and torso. The tempo and dynamic of every move asked for a heightened sensitivity, awareness and intentionality. If the sails happened to rub against one another; or move abruptly and accidentally, it interrupted the flow that the performer was establishing. In the development of this piece, the choreographer/ performer would explore movement within a loose structure. As rehearsal director, I would assist in identifying the facings, transforming shapes and movements that evoked strong sculptural form and organic imagery.
Helen Husak
The first discussions for SWW 15 opened a seemingly endless list of ideas about how light could interact with the costume. I took some LED colour mixing lights into the rehearsal hall to see how the trial green costume material would respond to colour. I also moved lights around to see how shadows and highlights looked from different angles while Davida moved with the costume. As a result of that, Angela’s costume evolved into being white and I had no fixed idea yet of what I would end up doing to light it.
I decided that once in the theatre I would need to pick one colour and work with that from different directions. Since the choreography and costume had evolved into suggesting leaves, I started with green light. The colour was working well in the camera so I built 2 cues that changed the direction of light part way through the dance. After watching the first take, the idea of photosynthesis was introduced by Jared Herring the videographer, so I changed the colour of the 2nd cue to be Red and it seems to have worked out pretty well. The possibilities of how to light the piece still seem to be endless. The costume could become so many things.
Steve Isom
When Davida approached me about this piece she wanted to present the body mostly hidden behind panels of taut fabric that she could manipulate with her chest, forearms, knees and hips. She talked about the movement being fluid, subtle, rocking and advancing like a tall ship and sent me a sketch of the general idea.
This all sounded very exciting and I could sort of picture it in my head but how to translate it all into a visually aesthetic and workable costume piece?
There was a lot of back and forth and trial and error working on this piece. I started by creating some prototypes of the sails and we went from there. I have condensed the whole process into bullet points to illustrate how things unfolded.
Prototyping
Fitting/rehearsal
Followup
Fitting/Rehearsal
Followup
Fitting/Rehearsal
Followup
My assistant Natasha helping with sail creation
Headpiece in progress
Sails in progress – mannequin with elastic corset and sails
Fitting
Followup
Fitting
Followup
Fitting
Final comments
This was an interesting, challenging and truly evolutionary project. We created the costume over a series of months with lots of time for reflection, evaluation and adjustments in between get togethers for fittings and rehearsals.
I don’t often get to work on something like this where one has the time and resources for true experimentation and exploration and I am extremely grateful that I got to be part of this project. It has helped me grow as an artist and opened
my eyes to new ways of working.
The final outcome was truly greater than the sum of the parts!
0 – Strike crystal bowl 1
‘30 – Strike crystal bowl 2
1’09 – Strike crystal bowl 3
1’25 – rimming the singing bowl
Gentle taps on top
1’50 – rimming returns
1’57 – pulsing tone
2’07 – 2’18 decay
2’19 – strike crystal bowl 4
2’30 – low tone hum w metal singing bowl
2’50 – strike low chime, w metal bowl
3’00 – very low hum reverberation
3’20 – low hum and metal bowl
3’33 – layers w pulsing begins
4’40, 5’10, 5’50 – strike chime
5’20 – higher metal bowl, metal bowl play
5’58 – 6’20 higher still drone/tone, decay to pulsing
6’25 – higher drone tone and decay
6’38, 6’45 strike distant bell
6’55 tingsha
7’00 – strike crystal bowl 5, w two tingshas
7’13 – humming high bowl decay
7’30 – strike crystal bowl 6
7’37 – metal singing bowl w hum & high pulsing
7’58 – 8’30 low bowls w high pulsing layers
8’31 – 7’57 Very low hum w layers
9’08 – metal singing bowl w hum + pulsing
9’55 – loud hum dominates
10:15 – tingsha
