BLOCK showing at Contact Manchester - January 21st 2016

If you are able to come and see this short research and development piece, we would welcome feedback and thoughts.

BLOCK is a DDT research and development project. It is inspired and informed by engaged research into the effects of displacement and social loss on mental health and community: exploring a territory that comments on the modern day precipices that many individuals and communities balance upon.

DDT (Dance, Dramaturgy Turbulence) is an ongoing research project led by dance dramaturg Paul Sadot in collaboration with a scenographer, a poet, a blogger and hip hop dancers in the space of theatre

Studio 2

Contact Theatre, Oxford Road, Manchester.

January 21st 6pm

https://www.facebook.com/events/869997966450962/

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email paulsadot@icloud.com

BLOCK - Worse Things Happen At Sea

Worse Things Happen At Sea

Posted on NOVEMBER 28, 2015

A few months ago I went into the very first Block rehearsal.

I sat on a windowsill in the rehearsal room and watched the exploratory beginnings of the process. I watched the dancers warm up, and I watched as Paul set them tasks and investigate their responses. I also looked out of the window to watch people going about the tasks of their everyday Friday afternoons. I watched them in their vans and cars, or as they walked along the pavement alone or in groups. I watched them swig from bottles of Lucozade and fiddle with radios. I watched them stumble in potholes and stare at their phones, light menthol Superkings and ignore cat calls from leering men. I watched this corner of normal, boring, routines of life, and wondered what it would be like if all this was ripped away. I wondered what it does to a person when you are torn from what you know. When all the banal, tedious, traffic-light-shop-window-bin-man-bus-stop familiarity of daily existence just, goes away.

Now the audience sit on mattresses on four sides of the performance space at Cambridge Junction, waiting for the performance to start. They are squeezed together, and they look uncomfortable. Some have opted for the cross-legged position; others have pressed their knees together, clinging onto them in a bid to take up less space. My lower back twinges in sympathy. In the stage in the middle are three more mattresses, made up like proper beds.

The lights dim. A clock ticks loudly, interrupted periodically by an industrial-sounding crunch. The dancers move into the space in a tangle of arms and legs like one being, or like a machine. They keep nearly being separated but finding each other again, clinging on until, finally they are torn apart. Each of them is all alone.

They are whirled about the space. The violence of the movement looks like a shipwreck, like they’re lost underwater and at the mercy of the waves. Jordan, Josh and Christina are washed up onto the mattresses, while Lisa is still tumbling in the shallows.

For some reason The Tempest springs into my mind as I think of the shipwreck and the exile. Perhaps it is something about how small and vulnerable their humanity looks, each alone on their tiny island. The audience are small as well, crouching hopefully on their mattress rafts. The people on stage are performing exile and isolation, while the audience sit in a dark, unfamiliar room, squashed up with strangers, waiting to see what will happen next.

Throughout the performance the characters played by Jordan, Josh and Christina try to express their loneliness. They use language to bridge the gap between their lost selves and the onlookers, attempting to be reasonable, rational, even funny, but their anger and fear spills hopelessly over. Sometimes it spills over in words, like when Jordan is trying to talk about peaceful protest, setting a good example and writing letters to his MP, but then quietly (almost cheerfully) reveals that he would “top himself” if it wasn’t for his kids.

Sometimes, though, the movement belies the fury. Josh’s krumping is so powerful that the audience become almost totally still during it. Only during a pause do I see a man very slowly reach up to scratch his nose and woman carefully cover her mouth with her hands. When Christina speaks during her movement I can hardly hear her, and although I don’t know whether or not this is deliberate, it seems to me unbearably sad that a woman is trying to express her fear, but too quietly to be heard.

Lisa is silent but her presence is loud. She moves around the others. In my Tempest thoughts I wonder if she is Ariel, beleaguered spirit, or Caliban, detested monster, or whether perhaps she is somehow both. She seems as lost as the other performers, but her lack of voice makes her seem different, distinctly other. When she finally gets a mattress the music becomes gentler. She explores the bed like she has never seen one before, doing it all wrong but revelling in its softness. I’m reminded of stories of wild children, raised by animals in forests and emerging, languageless and unused to domesticity.

The others find this softness in one another, when they are allowed. They have moments of connection before being ripped away again, forced to be alone and away from the comforts of normal life.

Jordan’s jokes near the end of the show feel hollow and painful. The audience attempt to laugh at them, generously, but the jokes seem more full of anguish than humour and the laughs fade.

As the performance finishes they are each alone once again on their mattress islands. I can’t see Lisa but I imagine her curled in a tree root, away from any semblance of the softness she was fleetingly allowed.

They wait as the lights dim. The audience applauds, and when the lights come back up the performers have disappeared. Once again I am reminded of the Tempest:

…release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands:
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please.

The performers are released by the applause of the audience, away from their islands on the stage. The audience stand up from their mattresses, stretching and chatting. We are released as well, ready to go back to our lives. Our normal lives, full of the comforting realities of Lucozade bottles, car radios and potholes in the pavement.

Cambridge Junction - Views From The 'Bridge' (BLOCK)

http://www.junction.co.uk/views-from-the-bridge-autumn

November 16th 2015

An evening of work in progress including the BLOCK project. 

BLOCK 
A DDT (Dance Dramaturgy Turbulence) Project (Paul Sadot)

Displacement, balance, obsession, social loss, gentrification, hip hop dancers, disorder, in the space of theatre, imbalance, community, compulsion, beneath the modern day precipices, rubble and memory…Turbulence. 
Supported by Arts Council England.

Athens Institutions, Politics, Performance, Conference

Return from Athens today. It's been an experience on many levels...the location of the conference at Green Park, and seeing humanity on its knees each day in Victoria square: but also seeing humanity in small gestures of giving and tolerance rise in response. The academic conference and the 'performance' of the academic within the hierarchies that impose themselves in and on that. How the high art/low art paradigm also exists in the field of academic political discourse, with all its assumptions about and acceptance of stereotypes....Inspiring ideas, provocations, thoughts - much other stuff and more to contemplate..Thanks to Gigi and Hypatia for organising the event.

Full ensemble in place for BLOCK project

Feeling very inspired to have the full collaborative ensemble in place at last. 

Collaborating Artists
Dancer: Lisa Rowley (Tavaziva, Joss Arnott)
Dancer: Joseph Nash (Far From the Norm, The Company)
Dancer: Christina Dion (The Company)
Dancer: Jordan James Douglas (Far From the Norm, The Company)
Scenographer: Xristina Penna
Words and Sound: Martin Stannage (aka Visceral)
Blogger: Donald Hutera
Dramaturg: Paul Sadot

https://paul-sadot.squarespace.com/block/     

Shockout Arts Manchester

I am really pleased and excited to be joining Shockout Arts in Manchester as the new Programme Leader / Senior Lecturer for the  B.A. (honours) Professional and Commercial Dance Course.

Nurturing and developing creative and thinking dancers.

"Don't just do something: stand there and think about it."

BLOCK - DDT Project gets funded

A big thank you to The Arts Council who have awarded funding for my 'BLOCK' project: Hip hop dancers in the space of theatre, an agent of turbulence, gentrification, OCD, a blogger, two incredible scenographers and the one and only Martin Visceral on words and sound! Exploring an engaged dramaturgical methodology in the creation of new choreographic performance. Thanks to Daniel Pitt and Cambridge Junction for the support.

Watch this space.

Contemporary Negotiations: Presenting in Athens September 2015

I am really pleased and excited to have been invited to present my paper

Contemporary Negotiations: Dramaturgy, Turbulence and Breaking Conventions with UK Hip Hop Dancers in the Space of Theatre

at the 'Institutions, Politics, Performance' Conference in Athens September 24th-28th 2015

Many thanks to the artists who have been working with me on this research so far, sharing their practice and thoughts: Jonzi D, Benji Reid, Lee Griffiths, Botis Seva and Samriye Aden-Dirie

 

 

Botis Seva is auditioning for dancers

AUDITION NOTICE!!!!!!!!!!

Botis Seva is seeking dance artists to join him for a two week creation period in August for his Sadler’s Wells Wild Card evening ‘InNoForm’ on Thursday 24th September alongside his company Far From the Norm. 

The selected artist will be required to join Botis and Far From the Norm on a full time two week research and development period as part of the creation process for his upcoming night at The Lilian Baylis in September. 

Ideally the dance artist will have fundamental skills and knowledge within hip hop dance and an understanding of a contemporary practice. Also, the dance artist must have a strong ability in improvisation and experience with responding to creative tasks.

This is a paid position.

Audition will be by invitation only. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to a workshop on Thursday 23rd July 2-5pm. Recalls will be held on Monday 27th July 7-10pm. 

Please send a cover letter, current CV and showreel/footage to farfromthenorm@hotmail.co.uk

Dates:
Creation Period:
Monday 3rd August – Friday 7th August - 10-6pm 
Monday 10th August – Saturday 15th August - 10-6pm 
(Flexibility in August/September is preferred) 

Performance week commencing Monday 21st September

The Start of a Documentary

The start of a documentary:

I have been fortunate to spend time recently, interviewing Botis Seva (Far From the Norm), Lee Griffiths (The Company) and Benji Reid for my research. Having the time to talk in depth, to debate, and to discuss ideas and the process of making work in the UK with artists who evade and challenge categorisation has been a blessing.

More to come.....