Welcome to the National Gallery in VR180. You can watch this using a VR
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this incredible space. Enjoy!
Hi, I'm Emma McFarland, and I'm Innovation Lab manager
here at the National Gallery. Now you're watching the first of four videos in
which to explore how dance, a 3D art form, can be used to interpret, animate and
tell the stories of a painting, and a space here at the Gallery. Now we've
worked with Tony Adigun, a choreographer from East London on this
project, and I chose him because he's a brilliant storyteller. He creates dance
which really emotionally connects with audiences, and he choreographs across a
really exciting fusion of dance styles - from hip hop to contemporary. That's
quite enough from me. I'm going to hand you over now to Emily, our curator, and Tony
our choreographer, so they can tell you more about the artworks and the process
of creating the dance.
Hello, I'm Emily Burns, Vivmar Curatorial Fellow at the
National Gallery. We're here in Room 34 in front of Joseph Wright of Derby's
painting, 'An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump' of 1768. It's the focus of a dance
video choreographed by Tony. Hi Tony!
Hi Emily! How are you doing? Hi guys, my name is
Tony Adigun, I'm a choreographer from East London. I'm working on this really
exciting project with the National Gallery, working with VR 180 and I've
been here looking for some sources of inspiration. One of them is behind us.
Here, this painting - Emily, could you give me a bit more insight into this painting,
and what's actually happening. What am I seeing?
Sure.
So we're witnessing an experiment done by this probably touring lecturer. He's
come to a domestic setting, probably a house to a family, who've invited friends
to observe him demonstrate how when you take air out of a space and create a
vacuum, this bird can therefore not breathe anymore, and will die. You can't
show that, you can't demonstrate that if you don't have the bird in the vacuum
because you can't see a vacuum, it's invisible, so it's a dramatic way of
proving quite sort of simple science of pumping air out of a space, and it's
actually super interesting because it's a very contemporary
opening. You know, during the Enlightenment there was a great interest
in science and progress. Time of industrial industrial revolution, so
industry, there's just lots of curiosity about these sorts of things, and so
rather than doing a painting of a historic subject or a religious subject,
he's made something grand out of a scientific experiment. And it's
appropriate that you're doing a contemporary dance response to this,
because this would have been super cutting-edge in its day, and talking
about cutting edge, so why did you pick this picture ?
There was something special about it, having stood out for me anyway walking around in
in the gallery space, probably in terms of the amount of people that are in the
painting as well. And a different take on what's going on when I first looked at
my first thing was, okay, what's actually happening here?
And what am I seeing? And I guess the main character, I call him the commander,
shall we say, really stood out in terms of how he's inviting or trying to
provoke us to enter into the space itself. So there's something about gaze.
I like the idea of what they're actually watching. Who's actually
watching, and why they actually are watching. And who's not watching,
he's not watching it luckily.
Because we're invited into this
space right now, there's a space at the table that's left for us, and even the
the lecturer is pointing at us with his hand and giving us quite a challenging
look, as if to say, you know, you join the table, you watch, I dare you to see this
happen, I'm going to do it, and what is your response going to be. You know, are
you going to be like these really scared girls, being reassured by, with one hand,
by their father, but with the other hand being told, no you must watch this, is life.
Or are you going to be like this couple over here who are not -
they're in love, aren't they, they're not looking at at the experiment at all,
they're not interested. It's like they're totally in their own world, away from
everyone else. They're paired up in the corner.
Tony: I have a question // Emily: Okay
Light light light light light light, where's the light coming from? I think
I was looking at the painting I was quite curious about how lights been used
and also, where it's coming from in terms of sources being at the window and also
coming from the table help me out here.
So it's clear that there's two different types
of light in this picture and the first is candlelight which we can see going
through this sort of watery vitrine which seems to have some sort of
interesting specimen. Scholar sort of disagree, it might
be a brain, it might be a skull, it decomposing, or it might be a lung, which
would be appropriate to the theme of breathing, and you know and life and
death, and that is sort of shining out on the people surrounding us, and of course
casting shadows across the room, so it really brings you into the scene.
That's a very clever device, and also appropriate, because Joseph Wright of Derby
loved painting light effects he's very talented,
obviously, in painting them. This is the largest and most ambitious one of
what he called his candlelight pictures. But then we have another type of light, we have
the moonlight up here, sort of the cold steely silvery light that's being cast
through onto this man especially, and that might possibly also have another
level of meaning in that Joseph Wright of Derby was a member of lots of sort of
circles of intellectuals, and one of the societies he was a member of was a Lunar
Society, possibly this man might be a portrait of one of those people or and
he also knew lots of Freemasons, and one of their symbols was a moon.
Amazing and the young fellow by the window himself, we thought maybe he was
trying to hide the light maybe bring the blinds down, it might be a
private scenario. His face, his facial features and the way his mouth is
it gives us some sort of like, I don't know, some kind of question, in terms of
what his part is to play in this. He sort of, he looks like
he's in on the secret. We know that this man certainly knows what he's going to
do and he's sort of temptingly holding the top, the stopper and you think, is he
going to let the air out at the last second, and then this poor white cockatoo
(quite expensive, don't want to kill this bird) out into that cage, where this boy is
possibly either pulling up, or pulling down depending on the outcome. Or if
you're going to keep it stoppered and the bird is going to die, and we're going to
see the reality in the harshness of life, in which case you know the bird will not
return to the cage, so there's a dialogue going on here, and the different gazes
around the room sort of lead you through the story, but really it's about life and
death, and sort of momentum or even a task which is a really major theme in
history of art so he's also referring back to other historical pieces of
information. So what are you going to take away from this into your
dance? Are you inspired by anything particular?
Yep, definitely, the last point you made
about life and death, I think that's quite important to take that into the
room, from speaking to some of the dancers that I've been working with we all have
our different opinion of what's actually going on, and I think for every character
in the painting there's probably three different opinions of what's going
on, in that full process, so that as well is interesting to have a
conversation about. And also, just as I said, the commander, the lecturer, as you
said, for me he's quite a pivotal point, and his relationship with the bird in
terms of being in charge, being in control of life and death scenario.
He's playing God.
Definitely, this element of playing God there, so for me, in the studio, I
think I'll be playing with him as a main character, and his narrative. But also the
different narratives from everybody that's in in the painting around him as
well, and almost like a yeah he's almost you could say he's doing a duet with
everyone in the painting, as it were. Which I mean, this is me speaking as well
Yeah but don't hold me to, that don't hold me.
And then the second dance video
is going to be held in the Portico space.
Yes
It has mosaics by Boris Anrep
Mr Anrep, and they're showing personifications of different virtues
and different labours, so what, what inspired you to take
space for your next dance?
I think the space in general is quite an epic
opulent space, and for me it was I guess the challenge to try and like, match that
atmosphere with movement, and weave choosing the right amount of dancers and
the right dancers, in terms of their movement as well so strength is very
important, in terms of dancers that I hope to be using in terms of showing
elements of strong strength and delicates strength, just in terms of
the area as well is quite a strong robust space with different levels. Also
for me Anrep's mosaics and floor and and the words that are depicted I think
defiance.
Who's that?
That is Mr Churchill, or Mr. Winston Churchill
with his sidekick, of the demon behind him.
And Margot Fontayn, the dancer, is delectation.
Greta Garbo, I'm not sure which one she is.
But I think, just, I guess Boris Anrep's idea of being more contemporary in that
space and the way he challenged what was expected to be in
that space, I think I'm taking that element that small part, and kind of
blowing it up and really taking that in terms of my presentation in terms of
what's expected to be in space, and how I might challenge that with the
movement quality. So I'm really looking forward to working on both of them
hopefully both of them will be different from each other but really we'll take
inspiration from the painting and also the portico space as well.
Well, I'm looking forward to seeing the dances.
I'm looking forward to getting into the studio.
Check out the next video guys, coming up!