The dancers went to Istanbul Modern last week and brought with them to rehearsal images from the gallery that resonate with what they had experienced so far in the improvisation journeys.  Their responses are so rich and profound. An installation of a structure layered with different elements. A body of white frames suspended in a red room. An installation of feathers and spirals creating an atmosphere like the room of one of the dancers. The installation -like her room- was hard to enter into, and she could imagine herself living in there but it is not the place she normally live in. A red globe, hanging full of colour, with mirrors, You could see the potential of the work only by moving around it. It looked still but a lot was happening. The word homogenous. The idea of an atmosphere. The work 'Beruit' came up, a series of windows in a run down building in Beruit, each window had a curtain hanging in it which was being blown up by the breeze. Each curtain moving in a different way. It all looks the same but when you look closer you notice the differences. This reminded the dancer of the house they all live in together, each occupeying one room within that house. There was one work of art that was chosen by 2 dancers. The image of a bare tree growing in a room which was covered in snow. The explanation of what resonated was for one dancer that from within the coldness there was the growth of an organism. For the other dancer the growing tree was the representation of something that could be felt but not seen, new life growing from within. Some words from the gallery that the dancer's collected ''cause I am caught between yes and no'' and
"Can we live together like a melody?"
These are all thoughts and words spoken by the dancers themselves. I am impressed to see the world I am creating take form within each of them.
The guided improvisation was centered around the idea of finding the room within their room. Discovering the dark and the light parts of their rooms. Searching within their room for what is not immediately visible. Exploring the untold stories.
Indeed, this guidance led to something deeper and more complex then what had come up before. It was like new bodies where coming out of these dancers. New movement material which had not come before.  A fist being formed. The slow shift from kneeling to sitting on one's side. The voluptuous movement from lying on one side to rolling over to the other-the limbs and head being lifted and floating through the air to get there- like the whole energy of the world was moving this body. Movement with certainty and persistence like an elephant walking along.  Wrists exposed, arms extended out long, the torso in a deep contraction, the clavicle and chest open, the face open and the head free, the heals on the floor, feet flexed, balancing on the sitz bones, movement being created as the deep spinal contraction is slightly released and tightened. Beautiful. There is a sense of the feminine coming into life. The waiting woman, the lying woman, the sacrificial woman.
I introduced the idea of the grid (a structure) on which 3 or 4 images are draped. This is an idea bring in from Rosemary Butcher. It helps the dancers chose important moments from the richness and complexity of the worlds they are exploring and to have those moments form their work. I asked them that the images they chose to drap be ideas which they draw from their explorations and not somatic experiences. This way I hope to help them find come clarity and structure. Also ideas allow the possibility of constant change and of bringing in new things whereas memories of somatic experiences are slippery and we can get stuck in trying to recreated the somatic experience which may close down the image and fix it into something which already exists (existed as a memory). The dancers will be working on creating their own grid over the next 2 weeks.

"There is no universally accepted definition (for the word art), and for some cultures the very concept does not exist. The definition I suggest is based on the way in which humans distance themselves from and reconstruct the world around them"  Clottes, J. Cave art (Phaidon. 2008) p.11 (italics are my addition)

A dancer lying sideways in the studio holding her shoulder. She pulls at her shoulder and it moves her. She holds her knee. She pulls at her knee and it moves her.  Manipulating body parts to tie and untie herself.
Another dancer takes little steps forward rubbing her eye softly, tenderly.
Someone steps on her own foot, holds her arm and tries to balance.


Some cues I gave during the dancer's movement explorations in rehearsal that triggered these intimate moments:
- Feel the movement within stillness.
- The body imprints itself in the space.
- Becoming aware of the traces you are leaving (the traces you make with your 3-dimentional body in the 3-dimentional space).
- What do you reveal as you move.
- Recognising elements from the past threading into the present.
- Richness of the inner world. Choosing what you listen to.
- Becoming aware of what you are looking at, which part of yourself you are listening too and experiencing.
- Reducing everything to very little.
- Finding the blank canvas. The empty body.
- Noticing what remains. The flavour, the sensations of the experience you have been building.
- Finding your predicament as you move between past and present.

'It's not about choreography but it is choreographic." Rosemary Butcher (class notes April 2012)

I've been watching the BBC series Human Planet and every frame is so poetic. In the episode on desserts the barren backgrounds with figures marking the space reminds me of my own work. The minimalism of the frames allows the stories of the characters to be revealed by simply the position of their bodies in the space.

Each of the dancers brought an object into the studio that was somehow related to the journey they had been on in the guided improvisation last week. Each object reveals something about what it is that is important to the particular dancer about her experience. The emotional content, the sensorial experience, the somatic experience...The dancers are beginning to get to know their rooms (their worlds) in more detail. They are beginning to recognise elements from them tthat are distinctly theirs. Things are beginning to shape themselves and to repeat themselves. I see myself in each of these dancers' experience. I am thinking of how much they are me and how much they are them. I see myself in some moments of their movement explorations and the somatic memory of my journeys with Butcher comes to the foreground. It is these moments that stand out to me and attract me. These moments that I hold onto and want to push further. We are exploring areas that are familiar to me. I wonder when the moment will come when the work takes us somewhere new. I am afraid of this and excited about it too. I am afraid of losing my identity as a choreographer within a world which has been initiated by me but which no longer belongs to me. I know it will be a gift it this happens. If the work takes us on a journey of its own. :)
Already there was a moment where the familiarity of the exploration of the dancers glimpses towards something other, new, different. Already I think they experienced the fact that somewhere within their room there is another room.
Watching the dancers over these past 2 rehearsals I am beginning to find recurring elements in their choices that reveal to me who they are and what they are exploring.  I have identified a different exploration/world for each of them, and that is what we shall pursue (they have confirmed they feel an affinity to the titles I have given each of them)
- Suspended self
- Relationship of self to self (the listening self)
- Marking self in space

One of my concerns if how this rich material from the improvisations will make its way onto the stage. Will the dancers be able to revisit these moments? I am trying to find ways to enable them to access their emotional journeys on stage.

Some cues I gave in this week's journey:
Listening to yourself- recognising yourself
The object takes you back into the memory from the past
A room within a room
Finding the past in the present
Becoming familiar with your room. Trusting the way it feels
Allowing your choices to reveal to you more about yourself
Relating to the object in the present. Relating to what your object reveals about your room
Tracking the important moments from your experience today- in your mind- your body- or the space

I am becoming aware of which moments draw me from these movement explorations, what I am looking for, what feels right to me choreographically. I have started to notice what it is I search for. So far I have found I am drawn by movement that begins in stillness and then from that stillness one part of the body comes to life. I also love it when I see one thing relate to another. One dancer influenced and affected by another.

The dancers brought in material they had collected over the week. What struck me is how diverse the forms of the materials where. The collection ranged from visual art to an audio recording. We took these materials into the studio with us. The role of what the dancers found was not to initiate movement material but to paint the room in which they live. By making a selection to bring into the space they are carving their own environments. 
The materials that where brought in where:
-A video recording of waves on the Bosphorus crashing upwards as they roll towards the shore. The moment of suspension as their movement dynamic transitions from being thrown upward toward to sky to falling downward into themselves.
-A photo from the latest edition of 'Science and Technology'. Something falls into water. It causes a a drop  to be thrown upward. The photo is taken just before the drop falls back into itself. An image which holds within it the evidence of something that came before and that will come after it.
-A song. A melancholic female singer (Müzeyyen Senar) elongates her vowels in desperation and anguish.
-An image taken from the sea in the Marmaris. Three stumps washed over by the foam of the sea. As the waves come into the shore the middle, shorter stump is covered over by the sea froth, hidden. As the waves run away the stump is revealed afresh.
                                                  -An imagine of a section of an abstract painting by Barış Sarıbaş. The relationship between the shapes creating a feeling of suspension. The evidence of something hidden.

In the movement journey I guided the dancers on the bones where very alive. The movement pathways succeed in being skeletal which is what I aim for. 
It is difficult for me to find a balance between giving them cues I have already prepared and following them on their journeys and allowing what I see to guide me. How can I find the the balance between an environment I want to create and translate to them, and allow them to explore their own environment?
I find myself becoming conscious of the dancers getting bored. I need to allow for more silence. More stillness. I am afraid I will loose them in too much stillness. I need to have more trust and faith that they are exploring their rich inner worlds. 
I must remember Rosemary's words: 'You build up moments of restlessness. You don't have to be doing something all the time. Then from that restlessness three things might happen' (class notes)

One of the dancers who has already found her predicament from within a long stillness said she had a phrase in her head after the movement session : ' To fall into oneself'

Next week the dancers need to bring in an object that relates to the movement experience they had today.
The dancers need to find images, moments, experiences to hang in their rooms.