Skills Workshop 4

 Skills Workshop 4: DV8

 


Physical Theatre- A performance that puts the emphasis on physical movement, rather than dialogue. (Rudolf von Laban, Pina Bausch)

DV8

  • 1986
  • Lloyd Newson
  • Contemporary Dance 
  • The company has been known to work with disabled actors.
  • Breaking barriers between dance, theatre and personal politics.
  • Communication of ideas and feelings unpretentiously.
  • Dance with meaning through formalised techniques.
  • Approach to performance is to take risks - challenging / taboo subjects, physically demanding movement, challenging the conventions and traditional forms of dance, reflects real human relationships
  • Enter Achilles (1996) - a funny, cruel exploration of the male psyche
  • Set in a stereotypical British pub, (football, pints, music, men)
  • To Be Straight With You (2009)- non fiction but verbatim based on 85 interviews , that examine tolerance, intolerance, religion and sexuality
  • Cost of Living ((2004) - film, uses dance, dialogue, physical theatre 
  • Fragmented - episodic 
  • Use of gestures , lifts, physically demanding, contradicts traditional norms of dance, unison, improvisation and experimentation
  • Use of each other 
  • Props, projection, soundscapes, lighting, stage, film 

The style of DV8 contains a main theme of physical theatre, which demonstrates the communication of ideas and feelings unpretentiously. The modern contemporary dance contradicts with the traditional norms within dance especially how the company clearly creates a use of risk taking. This is shown in the taboo topics and themes explored, the physical movements and the dancers they use,

DV8 combines the arts through the use of dance and theatre with physical theatre, with the influence of personal politics, The physically demanding movement contrasts the traditional forms of dance and helps reflect real human relationships. Like Pina Bausch, the productions are presented as quite fragmented especially within Cost of Living (2004), which helps the audience comprehend the challenging subjects with physical skills (gestures, lifts and unison).


This group workshop was inspired by DV8's Be Straight to you, produced in 2009. DV8 use a range of skills within their work including their use of unison, balance and control to ensure all of the actors are perfectly synchronised in time. For us to be able to correctly mimic their skills throughout our own piece of work we had to progress our movements and our voice so the audience could clearly understand what we were trying to express. The piece we created was produced to communicate knowledge on Rosa Parks and her momentous actions, which I believe helped with the delivery of our work as we were conveying real feelings on our intolerance of racism. An example of where we had to really intensify these skills was when during my original group (Zack, Dolly, Robyn and myself) decided to create a cannon where we had to shout the line "whites only!". I think the use of canon speech throughout the piece was greatly effective yet even more so within this line due to how it represented the thoughts of each white person on the bus back in 1955 , which almost allows it to become even more disturbing. Another area within our sequence where we illustrated skills influenced by DV8 was when we portrayed precision and co-ordination within our gestures. For instance, when we all had to point our leg to the right for the second groups sequence. We had to secure our legs were all the right way, straight/ pointed and all in time and then all run around our chairs in an anti-clockwise circle in the correct rhythm with each other. Also when we finished the performance by strutting in a circle around us all with particular groups joining subtly on the end. I think the majority of us performed this piece extremely well however for myself personally I would make sure I am projecting my voice clearly and I was definitely in time to improve my work. However, I think my group strongly exhibited our specific piece of information and were successful and creative with the motions and different speaking skills we included. 


Comments

  1. AnonymousDecember 10, 2021 at 4:36 AM

    Throughout the Workshops Jess, you have clearly worked hard on understanding the different skills needed to explore a range of practitioners styles, discussing both in the workshops and in your both how they techniques to combine arts. Throughout your practical workshops, I can clearly see your Research and description of historical ways art forms and styles have been combined in performance; this was very clear in your discussion of Matthew Bourne, Pina Bausch and DV8. I could clearly see how you had described how they used a range of techniques within their professional pieces. You have discussed and described effectively in detail the contemporary way’s DV8 combined styles as well as art forms, discussing how their work links to the historical work of Pina Bausch. You have also described in detail the effective ways Pina Bausch combines the different techniques and art forms to create interesting pieces of work. Your understanding of the stylistic conventions of these practitioners is apparent in your blog workshops for Task One

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