I spent a couple of hours on a choreography with first year undergraduate dance students at Coventry University last week. Below are the notes I sent to the group after the session.
- Ideas. It’s the quantity of ideas, not the quality of ideas. Ideas have no value. They are neither good nor bad. The trick here is just to begin with your work/practice/writing/making and feed in more and more ideas. These, in turn, generate more ideas. Ideas are self-generating. See Johnson, S. (2010). Where Good Ideas Come From. London: Penguin Books.
- Imagination. What do you need to stimulate and nourish your imaginations? Films, books, conversations, music, observations, listening, seeing. What do you focus on and what do you notice in your periphery? See Casey, E. S. (2000). Imagining. Indiana University Press.
- Text and iteration. This session was not about manipulating text. It was using text as materials in order to understand the principle of iteration. Change the word text for movement and this should be clear. See Kelley, T. (2007). The Art of Innovation. Crown Business.
- Liveness. What is alive in what you are making? (Maybe it’s just a little bit). How do you know if something is alive? I don’t know the answer to this question (because in part it’s about taste). One answer could be: You will just know. Don’t kid yourselves when it isn’t alive. Don’t pretend it is. It’s hard to bring back something from the dead. Better to keep feeding and nourishing new versions (or iterations).
- Swearing. Don’t ever ever swear. Fuck yeah.
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