Choreographed by Siobhan Davies
Contextual Information/ Key Details:
Choreographer Siobhan Davies
Movement Material Siobhan Davies and Company Dancers
Sound Score and Design Andy Pink
Visual Artist David Ward
Production Design Sam Collins
Lighting Design Adrian Plaut
Costume Design Genevieve Bennett
Dancers 8 5 Female and 3 Male
Type of Stage In the round
World Premier Northern Ireland April 2004
London Premier October 2004
A pebble effect, starting from the middle and moving out. The central Bird Song Solo was the first section choreographed and then it mirrors as it grows (except no second diagonal)
The Order of Bird Song
Infinite Monkeys
Four …show more content…
ACTION:
• Pedestrian movements/ gestures; isolations of joints; idiosyncratic action linked to particular dancers
• Action has a focus on the body; initiated form the joints or around the joints; drawing attention to the anatomy, body surfaces and body parts
SPACE:
• Proximity and distance (near and far) to the audience and to other dancers
• Small detailed action and larger more extended movement
• A multi-centred, Cunninghamesque approach to facings and directions
• Unprojected intimacy, task-like presentation and more expansive focus
• Confined and expansive; complex pathways – linear and curved
DYNAMICS:
• Slow motion/stillness contrasts with speed
• Complex energy flow: fluidly successive or jerkily through and across joints or body surfaces; melting, ricocheting, arresting, recoiling, dispersing, flowing and regenerating
• Transitions between movements can be sudden; body parts flicking to a new facing or focus
• Contrasting dynamics: relaxed, soft, heavy, gentle, gliding, sharp, driving, playful, buoyant, wriggling, twitching, fluid, rippling
CHOREOGRAPHIC DEVICES:
• Repetition, recycling, variation, recombination, accumulation
• Short phrases grouped together rather than traditional motif …show more content…
But the piece starts on a note that is much too frenetic for any bird to be noticed, and half the work has to pass before we, or the eight dancers, get to hear the song of the title.
During the whole of the opening section, Andy Pink's score fills the stage with waves of clashing, grinding noise. The sound is a deliberate assault on the dancers, who appear to be flung around by its force - catapulted into flailing, staggered lines, or dashed, twisting, to the floor. For the audience, seated on all four sides of the stage, the combination of driven energy and savage pattern making is overwhelming; it comes as a relief when Pink's music and David Ward's lighting begin to calm the frenzy. The dancers start to become aware of wider horizons, and of each other: arms that were raised as barriers make tentative contact, and snatches of piano music mould their bodies into a graceful, more coordinated