February 2009
3 posts
Adrian Heathfield on "Being in relation" →
“I wanted to do one piece about human beings, and their struggle in life with each other. I find being tied together is a very clear idea because I feel that to survive we are all tied up … we cannot go in life alone without people. Because everybody is individual, we each have our own idea of something we want to do. But we are together so we become each other’s cage.” -...
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Ocean without a shore
In the latter part of today Helen and I went and saw Bill Viola’s Ocean without a shore at NGV. It was breathtaking. Utterly.
postedbysimon
Image of Ocean without a shore from the Bill Viola website.
November 2008
1 post
WatchMaterials from “Conversations with the dead - by Bagryana Popov”, performed by Simon Ellis, shot by Dianne Reid. 30 October 2008
October 2008
42 posts
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showing it
After two runs of the material for videographer Dianne Reid in the morning Bagryana and I invited a small group of people in to watch a run in the afternoon (this was the final day of the development): Peter Eckersal, Kath Papas, Jordan Vincent, Helen Herbertson, Michael Carmody, and Angela Campbell.
I wrote a few notes of some of the things they talked about after they’d watched...
images of letters
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Shannon
Choreographer/dancer Shannon Bott called in today to watch a ‘run’ of the material. Afterwards, she asked, “Who am I in this?” She described a “flattening” of the work at the moment I started describing/listing my injuries at the end of the run … a flattening “into here and now”.
She asked questions about this person gk: “Is this what...
“Hopelessness leads to an absence of dishonesty because there is no longer...”
– Shalamov (well, I’ve reworded it, but this is the gist)
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timezones
What is the logic of time in this material?
• of him then
• of him remembering
• of Bagryana now and remembering
• of me remembering in performing
• of me now
postedbysimon
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what happens to bodies?
We’ve been asking question about what happens to bodies over time - whether through events that are beyond the control of the person, or that are done by choice (and in so doing, finding a bridge between gk’s absence and my presence).
My spine has bore the brunt of this time dancing; of 22 years of finding out where the edges are, and where I might be safe.
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Late on Friday night
But within the work, what I am learning about presence? Am I just revisiting well tilled soil - the same state over and over? -Simon
This is the problem, isn’t it-
once a mode of performing is established, where to go, how to continue the conversation?
Do we now need an audience? in order to take it further out, to have some movement?
Simon is now.
GK is no longer here. He disappeared...
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“A conversation is a messy thing.”
– Bagryana Popov, 23 October 2008
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representation
We talked a lot more about questions of representation … of the tension between Bagryana’s personal history, my physical presence (as performer) and gk’s memory.
It is difficult to imagine how I can be viewed (by an audience) as anything but some form of representation of the states that gk might have experienced whilst incarcerated (and after).
How can such a simple...
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Images from rehearsals with Bagryana →
Working at Napier St Theatre, Wednesday 22 October 2008. Photographs taken by Bagryana Popov. (biggish download).
postedbysimon
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open
We worked with an open improvisation for the work guided primarily by time (20 minutes). What might it be to not order or frame these various states at all … to provide space for the searching, the questioning and investigation of the expressive, psychological and physical terrain?
It was difficult, in part because (I think) the psychological impact of the working is high … it makes...
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A poem.
postedbybagryana
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recapturing
We spent part of the day looking at recapturing material from Sofia (from they just took it text). Looking at improvisations (on video) from last December, and then seeking ways back into those states. It was surprisingly simple! I suspect this has something to do with my recognising/remembering the experience of the states, and then going back to the physical postures, physical ideas, that led to...
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audience part 2
Who is this for?
How many people?
Why would someone see this?
postedbysimon
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“Death enables us to connect to the world in a more mature way.”
– Bagryana Popov, 20 October 2008
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bleakness
We keep talking about the need for ‘lightness’ of colour in this material. But, I wondered, how bleak could we make this? How far might we go? At the same time, I am not sure I have the resources for this.
postedbysimon
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“All this had to be forgotten … he forced himself to forget”
– Red Hot
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power
What it is. How it occurs. What you feel about it.
postedbysimon
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“A consideration of what our bodies can be, and what can be done to them … ...”
– Bagryana Popov, 20 October 2008
Note - but why? Lest we forget?
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audience
What are we adding to their lives? Or taking away? Are we seeking recognition? Or an exercise in empathy?
postedbysimon
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“his magnificent energy, plus frayed trains of thought”
– Bagryana Popov, 20 October 2008
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“the image of someone else’s experience through you”
– Bagryana Popov, 20 October 2008
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grasping it
Working with rhythm of movement and attention. Disoriented in the actions. Who am I in this work? Shifting between stopping and starting. Speaking: “you”, “not sure”. Between full body actions and gesture, looking, thinking. I am not in control in this pre-charactered place.
But within the work, what I am learning about presence? Am I just revisiting well tilled soil - the...
“crimes of documentation”
– Bagryana Popov, 18 October 2008
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they simply took it
They didn’t even knock on the door, they just crashed it down. He was collecting his papers when they came, he was reading a letter regarding a case of a woman whose apartment had been taken from her, supposedly legally by a distant cousin who was on very good terms with the overweight school friend of the minister for agriculture. The woman had been forced to live in a nearby village with...
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exercise in empathy
This morning Bagryana and I were talking about this conversation between her and I, and Gheorghi. Because I don’t know him, I offered the idea that the performance and work was an “exercise in empathy”. To imagine, to put myself in an other’s place, to feel.
To be yet another body on the receiving end of power.
During the work, I “danced my week” … an...
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being a face
In one improvisation today we worked with a picture of Varlam Shalamov. His face - what is it? broken, resigned, warm.
I worked with imitating his posture, the angles of his body, the turn of his mouth, the eyes a long way back in his skull, his gaze. In these imitations, I found myself acquainted to Shalamov, registering his grief (it was mine). Deeper. It became a place from which I could...
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this is the conversation
Day 3 (15th Oct).
“What happens to a person who forgets more than they want to?”
This is the conversation. In this man, his absences, his presences.
“Oh, this is what can happen to a person” This is the conversation. This is the conversation.
“In the presence of a body that has experiences that suggest other experiences”
“You and I are having this...
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“I’ve been thinking about what you went through, and what they did to you.”
– Bagryana Popov, 14 October 2008
postedbysimon
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choreographic presence
We talked about presence (and absence) of Bagryana in this conversation. How to consider this? Is BP’s presence opaque? Foregrounded? This is so different from Gertrud - where I was both choreographer and performer, and my relationship with Gertrud was not problematised because of the single voice. But in ‘gk’ this is more tricky. Who am I in the conversation?
postedbysimon
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the bringer
Words being done to me. Splattered by words.
Improvising to speeches of former head of Bulgarian communist state Todor Zhivkov. Stimulating improvisation - playing with rhythm, tone, space, but not at all aware of what it was that was being said.
Bagryana talked of the physical work being “imbued with presences from the outside”. Later, she discussed the idea of how, in Bulgaria,...
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Hot Red
Yesterday (Monday), and today (Tuesday), Bagryana read a lot from Ivila Alexandrova’s Hot Red. It’s a big book, written in Bulgarian (and not yet translated to English). The content is ferocious, but in a more formal way, I was interested in the rhythm of Bagryana translating on the fly - the pauses, the uncertainty, the micro struggles for the most appropriate phrasing.
In the book:...
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compromise
We talked of instances of moral compromise. Of what happens “when you sign”.
postedbysimon
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Gheorghi
“He did nothing wrong, but it’s what he did.” - B.Popov
postedbysimon
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first day
A tough first day.
To continue our work from Sofia and Bitola, or to start afresh?
Bagryana talked about the impossibilities of her grandfather’s living (what felt for me to be a wonderful beginning of some text):
“it’s impossible to be good” “it’s impossible not to feel fear” “it’s impossible to be certain”
But here, in Australia, it...
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more
It hurts more to do less.
postedbysimon
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tomorrow
Bagryana and I start work on Conversations tomorrow, Monday 13th October. A blank slate filled with our shared choreographic/practice history.
postedbysimon
August 2008
1 post
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main website →
Main website for Conversations with the dead. This will be updated as production details are finalised.