Well… So it’s taken ages to write something about DDG’s time in Galicia, but here I am finally!
I did try and post a video, but it didn’t work our as well as I was expecting so… My idea now is to write three posts about what we were doing… First one is this, about the first week, second would be about the second and third weeks, and last one about the future of the project!
I also have very good news, Sara Accettura, co-director of DDG, just got funding to start a new, and very exciting youth dance project in Italy (in Bari). DDG will also be involved in the project somehow, we’re still working on it. In the meantime, I’ll try and convince her to post a bit more about the project as soon as she’s got the time for it!
So the first week…
I had the lovely Sara and Riccardo Vitello over for rehearsal and we were working in the domestic violence part of the piece. My idea for this was to create a duet with them in this period than then will be turn into a quartet (reversing the duet in another couple and then making them interlace and playing with time and speed).
I want to tell the same story twice, more or less, in one case (the one I was working with Sara and Riccardo) from the present to the past, in the other one (the new one with the same movement but reversed) with a normal storyline. My idea as of now, however, is that the two endings will be different to reflect different possibilities of these situations.
So I started working with Sara and Riccardo in a beautiful rehearsal space given in kind by the council of Oleiros, in A Coruna (they give it for free to choreographers in the mornings, can you imagine??! :)). And it went really well, in 5 mornings of rehearsals we finished creating the movement and even had time to polish some bits. It’s at the moment a bit longer than 8:30 minutes but I’m thinking that the whole piece once it’s put together with the other duet will be around 10min.
We also had one of the ladies from the choreographic centre coming to an open rehearsal and she said she liked what she saw, so 😀
A couple of problems I encountered…
The nice part: When the relatinoship was coming back to the nicer areas (the falling in love, the getting to know each other) I ran out of ideas… which comes back to my usual problem with choreographing nice feelings… I’m starting to think this is some kind of psychological blockage of some sort!
The impossible lift: I had a lift in my head before coming in to rehearsals, and it looked pretty cool in my head… But when trying to explain to the dancers how to make it it was basically impossible! Probably it was me not explaining very well, will have to try again! (NB: the one we did instead looks pretty cool too ;))
And to finish I leave you a couple of minutes of bits and pieces of the rehearsals, as always, any comments more than welcome! 😉
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKR_fyW3qKQ
UPDATE: the video now actually works 😉