Laura Hynes enjoys a varied career as a singer, scholar, educator, performance creator, Alexander Technique teacher trainee and embodiment enthusiast.
While she has performed music around the world from baroque opera to improvisations with professional bird callers, her heart belongs to contemporary chamber music, art song, and explorations in sonic storytelling. Her latest recording of John Corigliano’s song cycle, Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan with the Land’s End Ensemble and Karl Hirzer was recently released on Naxos International.
Nov. 23, 2024: Album release concert with the Land’s End Ensemble (Rosza Centre, Calgary)
These 14 video clips are outtakes of the material that was shot on the day that we created and recorded SWW 20 in the DJD Dance Centre Theatre. Scanning through these clips will give the viewer a sense of an intensely collaborative creative process. Rehearsal Director Helen Husak is captured in her role as coach, director, and consultant on all aspects of the work. There are clips of Musical Advisor Allan Bell directing the use of voice, Costume Designer Hannah Fisher experimenting with fabric pieces, Lighting Designer Steve Isom discussing and testing possibilities and Videographer Jared Herring moving amongst all of us with his hand-held camera. Many good ideas that surfaced during the day simply could not be realized in such a short period of time. As the entire process was recorded, I am grateful that I will be able to return to these ideas to develop SWW 20.
No pressue.
SWW 20 had a unique collaborative approach compared to the other processes. The choreographer encouraged the artistic team to be personally involved in constructing the piece, with most collaboration happening on the day of the video shoot. The choreographer invited me to join a few prior rehearsals to brainstorm and explore ideas involving voice and movement. Building on the choreographer and composer’s existing work with voice, I suggested focusing on a “system” in the body to inspire movement. The “organ system” of the body resonated most, and we explored initiating movement from the lungs, liver lobes, and heart. This approach allowed the choreographer to incorporate another art form, drawing from her Qi Gong practice to influence the movement vocabulary. I noticed that this influence helped to establish a strong base and launch pad for her vocal ideas.
An example of a different movement approach explored, is a section where the choreographer/performer vocalizes “a-e-i-o-u” while integrating intricate movements of the upper extremities. As the task became more refined, the movement was to happen in the “in-between” spaces of the vocals, with specific starts and stops. We soon realized that the complex coordination and the multilayering of this task for the performer made it even more compelling for the viewer.
On the day of the video shoot, some sections were more sketched out than others, and a priority was to bring together lights, sound, movement, and costume into a coherent structure within a finite amount of time. We had to come to terms with leaving certain sections more “raw/unpolished,” sacrificing some ideas for the greater whole, and allowing the present moment to dictate some outcomes. It was an exciting, invigorating, and intense way to work, but very rewarding for the experience and knowledge gained. This process produced a tangible work in progress with clear ideas, where sections can be further developed, and the structure refined.
Helen Husak
For this piece our jumping point was a color – eggplant – and an idea of a formal feeling jumpsuit. From there our conversations moved into the idea of tight pleats. As this piece was to be worked on live over the course of a day i wanted us to have a garment to work with and then evolve off of after seeing the first movements in it with lights. Our first round worked with this base garment in the tone, of a slightly textured fabric but without the pre pleated fabric. As we worked with it, it had a feeling of being a little more casual and too mono- tone. With that we started to add the pleating sections playing with it on the mannequin. As we all sectioned off to work on our individual developments i noticed the piece had a quirky side coming into one of the segments which i thought would be a nice evolution for the garment something formal but with a feeling of being a little off beat. Some pleat draping was added, woven in a bit and with in some more nuanced color. In our second round of testing out where collectively we were at the costume felt more unified with the rest of the piece. From there we continued tweaking slightly till the final filming.
Hannah Fisher
So the idea for this piece is to create everything from scratch on the last day in the theatre. While watching the choreographic ideas being developed, I took some notes of each section and came up with some looks that could support those ideas.
I fell into my process of lighting for a live audience and not so much for the camera. Once I had programmed 5 or 6 cues I look at them with the camera, made some adjustments and then had Jared shoot some short clips so we could look at them on a monitor. A few more adjustments where made. I was having problems seeing colour subtleties in the costume and having highlights burn out.We did the first full take and then looked at what we had. There was still a lot of problems seeing colour and dimension in the costume so I Increased the intensities and changed some angles. The costume looked better in the 2nd take, but I feel there was a loss in the lighting concept and not really what I would want for a live audience.
Steve Isom
Lighting Designer
