You start to have kind of an implicit knowledge, you know this might do this but this might
take you off there but that's the kind of strangeness that you might want. It is, it
is, a bit knowing and a bit not knowing and it will require some time, yeah.
I know in my own choreographic practice the things that are the most difficult, the things
where you feel that you've come to the end of something with, the things that if you
push them hard enough are the things that yield you the most expert, interesting, and
rich newness. I really felt that with the Becoming process.
This piece, Becoming, has a creature-like form that decides how to modify its body and
then plays out the consequences of that modification. So it has bones, it has nodes, it has muscles
and it responds to gravity, so it will under the circumstances, tend to fall down because
gravity pulled it down. It knows about the edge of the screen and in fact the edge of
the screen has friction so in certain circumstances it will actually jam itself against the edge
of the screen and kind of get stuck there. We've moved away from providing a tool for
Wayne or his dancers to use and instead provided, in a sense, something like an eleventh dancer.
It doesn't take orders very well but a presence in the studio that will be there whenever,
ambiently that Wayne and the dancers can respond to.
So we've tried to make an object in Becoming that actually elicits a kinaesthetic response
that is something compelling to be with, that compels you not just aesthetically but actually
kinaesthetically as well. If it works, it should work by making you move or at least
being aware of a desire to move, a desire to respond because it is like a body in a
space. Even just the fact that the screen has a kind
of like, bodily dimensions and it's actually in a space where you feel it is another body
and that's something we've worked a lot with James Leach in trying to understand what is
a body and what could a body be and how could we, ehm, make sure that the transaction of
energy actually works with bodies in that space and I think the Becoming instrument
is really allowing us to do that. It's also a phenomenon you can actually see it in 3D
and so all of a sudden, now you have a relation like you can with a dancer in the studio,
of a relation of this dancer that in some way extrudes backwards and forwards and you
feel connected to it energetically and dynamically. And what I have understood through my research
around the company and with the choreographer is that he is working with this kind of kinaesthetic
intelligence with the way those bodies elicit a response from other bodies. That there is
an inevitable responsiveness to a body in a space with another body. If we could capture
just something of that in a choreographic object, then we would in fact be revealing
something, not about the techniques of making movement but about the substance, about the
material that the choreographer is working with when he has these techniques in play.
I think the first time I experienced working with Becoming, it was more of an intuitive,
so it was just like a play, which was great because I think it's something kind of just
new as a presence, something that is moving, it has colour, it's 3D, we're wearing glasses.
So there's a lot of information, it's very rich and stimulating which is great. I thought
it was good just to start with - ok, let's see what happens; we're just playing with
it. What I do notice, it makes me physically want
to move differently. And I know myself when I've done some improvisations with it I'm
inventing things that I wouldn't normally invent because I'm seeing things kinetically
expressed that I've never seen before in a real human being.
And perhaps also because it's 3 dimensional and it operates with colours and layers and
so that gives you a feeling that it exists as an object in a space and it moves as an
object in a space so it has a sense of being a live creature.
It provides in some way a mirror to the work and to their own body but also, at the same
time, it reflects back something that is totally alien and it's the alien aspect of it that
I think is going to be super resourceful as we move forward.