The Fall Lab Review: Dance & Play, since the field is empty!

The fall Lab in Bern, held in October 2015, was first and foremost a lot of fun. A playground. 

To play means to be open to accept the rules of a given game, and to go all the way within them. Our rule was clear: every choreographer had two hours and a half to guide a lab in her own way, trying out ideas for future projects with the other choreographers and the dancers that had enrolled. Without too much information beforehand, the experiment was allowed to succeed thanks to the combination of this ‘not knowing’ and the openness of all the participants to generously engage with each proposal.

The choreographer had to have the ability and knowledge to manage her own expectations and lead the session with what happened on the way, and the participants had to have the patience and understanding of the fact that this was a first tryout of every idea. Let go of expectation and just jump into the semi-guided void to see what happened.

This shared responsibility tested the professional attitude of dancers and choreographers alike, in the sense that they had to be able to engage and to improvise, to give themselves to the hand, mind and body of a complete stranger (be it the choreographer in charge or the other dancers sharing the same arena).  All made equals in every lab, with a clear and repeated ‘no mistakes’ policy, this allowed us to experience the freedom and quasi-fear of going out of our comfort zone. That was a clear learning opportunity at all times: to really dive into the guidelines of what each choreographer asked, and therefore be forced to go out of what one is used to, out of how one is used to find a given movement, etc.

At Choreolab Europe 1, in Bern, four choreographers and a lecturer presented a tryout of their creative questions at an early stage of each one’s process. The participating dancers experienced, therefore, four different ways of approaching a creative process, of turning ideas into physicality. Some were more dramatic, others relied on a concept or an image, yet others had to do with motors for movement. The material the dancers offered was used in turn by the choreographers to adapt their questions on the go. This way the dancers also were able to see their own ideas being modified and groomed into a given direction, allowing for the discovery of new and unexpected  possibilities.

The mutual benefits of such an exchange of generosity are as many and diverse as people who participate in it. Everyone has his or her own questions, wishes, expectations. But the will and wish for playing is shared and crucial: When the field is empty and there is this wish, the space will be filled with possibility. When the vulnerability of the not knowing is shared, it is much more likely that a jump into the void turns out to be a continued bouncing.

In following articles, we will explain a little bit more about each specific labsession, to give some insights about the projects and idea’s each maker had before they started, and how Choreolab helped them to move forward.

Stay engaged!