... or on how to move air (slowly)
Photo by Dorina Köbele-Milas
About the sessions
Bad news first: In my one-to-one sessions with musicians so far, I have not recorded any video. I made a conscious decision to do so in order to create a stress-free situation where we could concentrate on each other and not on performing for the camera. And that was good. But certainly this made it more difficult to document the sessions afterwards and to capture what was important to me.
Until now I have worked with three different musicians – two fiddle players and a harp player who also sings. I planned each session in advance, thinking about which tasks reflected the theme and were suitable for music and dance. Of course, it was possible to deviate from this plan, which usually happened. Sometimes we stayed longer on a task, modified it or developed new ones from it.
What I remember most from the sessions are the moments when something didn't work, when friction or uncertainty arose, but also the moments when all questions and doubts seemed to be erased, when the improvisations were intense, one could even say magical, and a true connection could be made through the air between us. Even though the official end of my research scholarship is approaching, I would like to continue this practice and soon invite other dancers and musicians to improvise together in new constellations.
About moving the air
The following questions accompanied the sessions: What could be the slow and the airy of a Slow Air? What does air that flows slowly feel like? What is being transmitted through the air? What role does melody play in this?
In the following I would like to focus on my last two sessions, which took place with Bríd Ní Chatáin (harp and vocals) and Sorcha Thompson (violin). The overall theme of these sessions was more of a poetic one. After thinking about what might be interesting, especially in the interaction between harp, singing and dance, I came up with the idea of taking the term Slow Air literally. So the idea was to move the air between us, slowly at first. In the course of the sessions, we then worked with different tempi. The following questions accompanied the sessions: What could be the slow and the airy of a Slow Air? What does air that flows slowly feel like? What is being transmitted through the air? What role does melody play in this?
Here is a small selection of tasks we worked with in the sessions:
Move the air: Play and dance with the idea of moving the air. Push the air in one or more directions.
Variations:
a) The air gets "thicker". Play with resistance and effort.
b) Stir up the air. Find moving or musical associations to this picture (e.g. constant movement in space, (repetitive) circling movements).
c) Combine a) and b).
Get inspired by what the other person sends into the space/air. What is sent into the space/air between you and how long does it stay there?
Work with it by "grabbing" it, "pulling" it towards you, "moving" it somewhere else etc.
Take this idea further by "throwing" sounds or movements towards each other across the air with an accent. Receive, transform, "throw" and like this let an interplay or dialogue develop.
Melt: Allow yourself to be "melted" by the music/melodies played by the musician. For example, start from a standing position or pose and then melt continuously or step by step.
Variations:
Try out different ways to come back to standing.
"Deconstruct" individual body parts. On the way up or in the next round, body parts that have melted before are immobile like "dead flesh".
Imitate the movements of the musician: Watch the musician play and imitate the movements.
Variation:
Internalise the movement patterns of the musician and develop them further in your next dance improvisation.
Negate melody: Create a new approach to melodies by neglecting them. This means a conscious attempt to avoid or ignore melodies during improvisation.
Variation:
Improvise with single notes and intervals or, in dance, with separated and jagged movements that reveal the rudiments of melody
You can get an impression of what this might look like in the video below.
Slow Air: "Cuan Bheil Inse" by Conal O Grada
Observations
I could write so much more, but I will try to keep it short. It is clear that my approach is different from that of the musicians. This fact is certainly reflected in the tasks listed here. For this reason, I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their openness. No matter how abstract my ideas were, they understood them and tried them out with me. In the short time I learned a lot about melodies of/and Slow Airs from them. Again and again it became apparent how much the tradition of Slow Airs is interwoven with story telling, how the story behind a Slow Air influences its form, interpretation and perception. Another aspect that came up repeatedly is the interplay between Slow Airs and contemporary dance, or the question of why contemporary dance might be more suitable for Slow Airs than other dance styles? What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment or send me a private message.
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