Also, within this week I did a lot with exploring movement quality and shapes and images from my solo trits. We did a lot of guided movement exercises. 

There wasn’t much time for this process, so I feel like everything got compacted. I tried my best with organising rehearsals and planning what would take place in each one. I basically had three weeks to make a piece. The first week was just for research, the next week and a half was for creating and the last day or two was doing the whole piece. And surprisingly I stuck quite well to this format. And surprisingly a piece has been created. 

I had the idea of using voice, so I had my dancers write a letter to their younger selves. I then chopped it up and made a dialogue. But in the end, I decided to go with a move non-verbal communication, I liked the cheekiness it gave. I think I need to have more time to research speech with other people. Three weeks is not enough for me personally. 

MY FIRST MANIFESTO

Kindness 

                 I will try to implement kindness into everything I do. To be kind to everyone around me and to be kind to myself. To be kind to the process and to be kind to the product. To be kind to my art. Kindness is rare so, kindness should be honoured. 

Protest 

               I believe that art is a protest. It’s not the fact if art should or should not be a protest. It’s the fact that it has been, and it will be again. Throughout history, collapses of societies, famines, nomadic migrations; art has always been there. From the passing down of stories, recording historic events, to secret trad sessions that would happen in the woods.

Just the fact that art keeps coming back and keeps staying relevant is a protest in itself. So, that’s why I make art. 

Indulgence 

                     Indulgence is something that I have recently started to appreciate about myself, it a quality that I have noticed in the past month or so. I love to indulge, to fully dive into every act that I go through in a day. To fully take a nap or to fully dance around my bedroom or to fully weep and rage in the ebony hours. Indulgence helps with understanding. Helps to understand what is going on in the outside world but, also to understand what is going on inside. Life is too short not to indulge. So, have that piece of cake and indulge in it. 

Appreciation 

                        I find appreciation towards myself very hard but, the more I become conscious about appreciating myself the easier it gets. I will appreciate the body I have; I will appreciate the art that I create, I will appreciate the woman that I am.

Give no fucks!

                          This is self-explanatory.

My goal with the research was to get my dancers to able to see their younger self in the other person while dancing. Or to treat the other dancers with the same intention as you would treat your younger self with if they were dancing with you 

During the first week of research, I carried out several exercises, the first one being 5 rhythms. I’ve been practicing 5 rhythms for a good 6 years or so now. Emotion, music, movement is what the practice is based on. And for this piece I really wanted to dive into music and creating music. I also saw it as a good warm up activity for my dancers 

I explore two halves of the same soul. Sometimes they are one sometimes they are not. It is the journey between nostalgia land and reality. Being able to comfort that child and to have fun with them and to say goodbye to them and then to say hello again.

I decided to start this research with a poem by sylvia Plath, “The moon and the yew tree”. I thought this poem could be relevant for a duet because it focuses on to separate entities having a relationship to one another. My exercise for the dancers was to pick out lines from the poem that they found interesting and write them down to share on the first rehearsal. I too picked out lines that intrigued me as well. Poetry has always been involved in my work so why not start from one and see where it takes me. 

I think this poem was also relevant because it made me create a concrete intention surrounding my intention of my tree inspired movement quality. And I wanted to keep exploring this within the duet. 

this quote was this first spark of my research. it comes from an old Irish song writer. And it inspired me to look at the idea of the younger self

Again, my duet is an extension of my solo trits. I decided to flow with the concept of dancing with your younger self. I am very aware that this is a huge concept but I’m just taking this short amount of time as an opportunity to explore this idea a little more deeply.