DOWNTIME - interviews with dance artists & arts leaders, talking about dance & the arts

The extraordinary Jo Verrent is my guest on downtime today. Jo is the senior producer for Unlimited - the world’s largest commissions programme for disabled artists, ensuring that work gets seen, discussed and embedded within the cultural fabric of the UK, and further afield, with partners such as ACE, Creative Scotland, Southbank Centre, and the British Council.

I joined Jo on July 7th via her laptop in her home in Yorkshire, England.

We talked about the work the disability arts community has been doing to try to capture the attention of the government via the WeShallNotBeRemoved movement, Jo’s belief that organisations that don’t have access and diversity at the heart of their practice should either sign up for voluntary redundancy or just be shut down – they had their chance. As ever Jo was full of brilliantly concrete ideas, proposals and projects for how we should change, who we should prioritise and how the sector can make itself more interesting, relevant and equal in the difficult but potentially exciting months and years ahead.

Lou talked with Italian choreographer and performer Silvia Gibraudi, sometimes referred to as ‘the prophet of the free body’, in December 2022.

Silvia talked about her journey of trying to find joy and grace, and bring them to people’s lives, to theatres and to people in the street.

She explained how her show Graces explores questions like ‘what is beauty?’ and ‘what does it mean to be perfect?’ in a playful, pleasurable but political way, by placing Silvia, her clown-like character and her ‘curved body’ alongside the bodies of young male virtuosic dancers.

They spoke of clowning and the importance of having no fourth wall, of shame, of the joys of working with older and younger dancers, and of how, in her next show, Silvia will be exploring how to bring the inclusive feeling of a fete in a square to her audiences.

Silvia also explained how in some ways she is tired of these conversations about the body, but that it seems there is still a need for it to be addressed, so address it she shall!
Silvia Gribaudi is an Italian choreographer who also specialises in performing arts in general.

Since 2004 she has focused her research on the social impact of bodies, having set at the centre of her choreographic language the comic element and the relationship between audience and performers.

Award-winner of the Premio Giovane Danza D’Autore with her piece “A CORPO LIBERO”(2009), finalist at the Premio UBU for best dance show and finalist at the Premio Rete Critica award with R.OSA (2017), winner of the Premio CollaborAction#4 2018-2019, finalist at the Premio Rete Critica 2019, winner of the Premio DANZA&DANZA 2019 for best Italian production with the piece GRACES and Premio Histryo Corpo a Corpo 2021.

She has taken part in several artistic research projects, including:

CHOREOROAM (2011), TRIPTYCH (2013), ACT YOUR AGE (2014) – an EU project about active ageing through the art of dance, which inspired the performance WHAT AGE ARE YOU ACTING?, as well as the community project OVER 60; PERFORMING GENDER (2015); CORPO LINKS CLUSTER (2019/2020), where the connection of dance, the mountains, and the mountain community gave life to the site specific project TREKKING COREOGRAFICO (choreographic trekking) and to the piece MONJOUR (2021), produced by Torinodanza Festival in collaboration with Teatro Stabile del Veneto and Brussels’s Les Halles de Schaerbeek.

In 2021 she has been a guest choreographer at “Danser Encore, 30 solos pour 30 danseurs”, a project for the Opéra de Lyon and in June 2023 her new production will be premiered: WHERE DOES A BALLET END? (provisional title) a coproduction by MM Contemporary Dance Company (IT), La Biennale de Lyon (FR), Théâtre de la Ville (FR), Rum för Dans (SE), Torinodanza Festival (IT), International Dance Festival TANEC PRAHA (CZ), Zodiak – Side Step Festival (FIN) and the international network Big Pulse Dance Alliance.

Her shows have been featured in a number of national and international festivals and are the result of a creative process that focuses on dialogue and on the poetic encounter with other artists, dance companies, and communities.

Lou talked with Movement Directors Ayse Tashkiran and Ingrid Mackinnon about how they approach the key relationships at the heart of their work - namely directors, individual and groups of actors and other collaborators; how they try to identify and develop the ‘feeling’ or ‘colour’ of a production and how they move between leading and observing.

They also shared their thoughts on how to ask for time to do the work they need to do, the practicalities that surround how often they are in the space, the visions they have for the role of movement direction in the future, and how important (and sometimes difficult) it is to bring one’s authentic self to work every day – no matter the context.
As someone who works mainly in dance, but whose background is in theatre, Lou has always been fascinated by those who crossed the line in the other direction – bringing movement training to theatre. Like dramaturgs, movement directors choose to work in the murky shade – rarely needing or getting public recognition for their work, but nevertheless being thoroughly committed to the development of the craft, the art form and the artists they work with. And of course, we are all engaged in thinking about the dramaturgy of movement.

Ayse Tashkiran is a movement director, teacher and researcher in the field of movement in theatre. Her work aims to free and empower the actor through motion, imagination and emotion. She act as an advocate for the field of movement direction and create links between directors, actors and movement directors.

Ayse has been at the helm of the MA MFA Movement: Directing and Teaching - at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama since 2004. She is an Associate Artist at the RSC (having worked on As You Like It, The Provoked Wife, Romeo and Juliet, The Duchess of Malfi, and many more), and she’s worked on productions at Donmar Warehouse, Shakepeare’s Globe, Birmingham Rep, Theatre Royal Stratford East, The Young Vic to name but a few. She is the co-founder of the Movement Directors’ Association, the first professional body advocating on behalf of movement direction practices and conditions.

Publications include her own book Movement Directors in Contemporary Theatre: Conversations on Craft – yes she literally wrote the book on it; and contributions to The Actor and His Body by Litz Pisk, and The Routledge Companion to Jacques Lecoq .

Ingrid Mackinnon is a London based movement director and choreographer.

Movement direction credits include work for the National Theatre of Scotland, Fuel, Kiln Theatre, Birmingham Rep; Theatre Royal Stratford East; Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre – on a production of Romeo and Juliet for which she won Black British Theatre Awards 2021 Best Choreography Award.

Other credits include:

Intimacy support for Antigone , 101 Dalmatians , Legally Blonde , Carousel (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre) and Intimacy Director for Girl on An Altar (Kiln Theatre), Enough of Him (National Theatre of Scotland).

Lou spoke to Julia in November 2022. They talked about how her journey and values underpin everything she does; how important it is for her to be part of a movement that advocates for the representation of people like her; how House of Absolute work as a collective, and how she approached the role of choreographer of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club .
Julia also spoke of how, in her early days of parenthood, she is trying to have conversations she might find uncomfortable, and approach them with the same honesty and mindfulness she values in all of her work.