Narelle Benjamin

I have received two responsive grants from Critical Path, which ended up informing and developing into two new works; In Glass, and the other Hiding in Plain Sight, which will be performed at Performance Space in August 2014 with performers Kristina Chan and Sara Black.

The time in the studio with the dancers was invaluable. We could concentrate on choreographic material without any pressures to produce. I felt I had the freedom to grow as a choreographer, staying true to the research and able to generate and explore choreographic material in different ways to my usual process. I had time to try new methods with the dancers and the luxury of having more than just my own body in a space to work with, exploring specific interests, without having to think of the bigger picture. This was liberating, and inevitably through this singular view, so many doors opened.

My first responsive grant, which formed the backbone of In Glass, was to work on my own choreographic vocabulary as specifically applied to partnering work. The opportunity to work on partnering material rarely materialized for me. Working alone in a studio is and was no problem, as I can always do as much preparation before a project as I want. However before this residency I did not have the opportunity and luxury to explore the possibilities with other dancers on a regular basis and therefore never really took the risk.

My second responsive grant was to evolve my choreographic vocabulary, with the focus on creating dance for an audience in the round, who were free to walk around the performers and space. This responsive grant informed my new work, Hiding in Plain Sight Drawing on Francesca Woodman’s photographs to inspire movement, give real motivation and life to the material, explore beginnings and endings, illusion, mortality and loss of identity. These photos suggest the subject reaches beyond the flat plane, abstracting the body into the suggestion of past and future, of one condition to another, of one vision to another.

I explored having the audience more intimately involved in viewing the choreography. When I had choreographed for film in the past. I was looking for a way that the live performance can capture this, and where the audience can experience being inside the performance in perhaps a more installation style event.

I felt having the audience’s gaze at potentially 360 degrees would shift or re-orientate my choreographic process dramatically, as I am usually very aware of the front when choreographing. I found though it didn’t really change my choreography as much as me being constantly conscious of the composition, with an acute awareness of what the audience would take in at any given time.

I always use a video camera to document the process which enables feedback when working in the studio by myself. In this new context, I set up a camera, in different areas of the space to where I was sitting and watching so I could read how the choreography would communicate from different angles of the space concurrently.

I used the footage that we shot during our showings at CP to then apply to the Australia Council. In Glass was picked up by Spring Dance and Dance Massive.