Saturday 23 March 2013

Dancing my heart out


Wow, a busy few weeks by all accounts! Finished writing my PhD thesis (now just the viva to go before I can officially call myself Dr. Southall!), went to Tribal Massive for 8 days of training, and Infusion Emporium just over with... lots to tell you about, so grab a cup of tea and find a comfy chair! First Tribal Massive – I won’t bore you with the details of my 28 hours of travel to actually get to Las Vegas, so I’ll just cut to the chase!


Tribal Massive

We began the first day with 6 hours back to back with Kami Liddle. Kami has recently studied Bartenieff method and was incorporating these ideas into her warm up and dance practice. She led us through a series of exercises and finished with a choreography, which we continued learning the following day. I found this very interesting and the different ways of moving were something I will definitely incorporate into my own dancing. I loved the choreography, it was so powerful and full of contrast and space. I was glad that we continued to work on it the following day. Following the workshop I went back to the hotel to Skype with Dan as it was his birthday, and I was selfishly missing it to be in Las Vegas! After this was the hafla, which I performed at – an improvised piece that I think went ok. The hafla was full of lovely dance pieces, but it was a pretty long night and after 28 hours of travel the previous day I was feeling too destroyed to really give the performers all my energy like I usually do.

Day 2 was our first day with Zoe. Five hours of bellydance flow drills, musicality, crazy layering, combos and finger cymbals. We learned a bunch of combos that were new and exciting, but the brain was so overwhelmed with information that I can no longer remember them. I wish that I had the propensity to store more information than I actually do! Despite taking notes, there was not much time to write down the combinations, and so they have disappeared into the ether. However, the combos are not the important thing, rather the technique and concepts behind them are the important things to remember, and I came away with pages of information to work with.

Following this was Kami again – we did tons of footwork with layering, which I absolutely loved, followed by continuing with the choreography. Last year I enjoyed Kami’s workshops and took things away to work with, but I felt that this year she has really developed a new body of material with fresh ideas and I’m excited by her new workshops. I felt like I came away with so much to work on from this class and the previous one.

Day 3 was again Zoe – flow drills, dancing slowly and musicality was the name of the game. As always she offered useful insights into making dances, interpreting the music and training. Following this was Sharon Kihara’s first workshop ‘Digging for Gold’. After some welcomed yoga, she discussed the need to be flexible as a dancer, and by that she meant being able to not be you, and sometimes having to be a character you don’t identify with, referring specifically to her current role in Jillina’s BDE show.  She followed this with some contemporary dance movement, which was a stark contrast to a lot of the movement we were introduced to the rest of the week. It made my desire to return to contemporary dance stronger – I have wanted to take classes again for a while now but the only class that’s in a reasonable travelling distance for me is the same night I teach – so annoying! After getting us to move across the floor, we got into groups and played that game we used to play at school – Consequences – though the game I remember at school always turned out significantly cruder than the stories each group produced! We then had to create tableaux that represented different points in our story and then fill the gaps with movement – the purpose being to dig inspiration for a piece from this silly game and produce a group choreography from it that had a story and could be easily portrayed. The exercise produced surprisingly good results! I was rather sceptical at first, I always am with these kinds of games in dance class, but I was really impressed with how it sparked the creativity of each group and made us thing differently on how to make a choreography.

The next day was our final day with Zoe, where we covered more zill patterns while dancing, drilling and working with musicality. Zoe is an inspirational creative force that continues to inspire me on my dance journey to be a better dancer, a more exciting choreographer and to train hard. She has changed the way I think about dance and has heavily influenced how I approach using a piece of music from a musicality perspective. There are few other teachers that currently feed my soul and my spirit in the way she does, and I had the great pleasure of getting to spend time having conversations with her this year instead of just seeing her in class, which was a great experience.

Following Zoe we had our second class with Sharon Kihara, Infinite Inner Space, which was a Butoh inspired workshop. I took this workshop in Bristol a couple of years ago, and while I felt I got something out of it then, it didn’t inspire me on a deeper level. This year it was much better – we went through several exercises where I really felt like I was engaging with the material more deeply. One exercise consisted of half of the class being ‘placed inside a glass box, about 3 feet wide, tall and deep’, with the trigger ‘lost child’. I was in this group and I really felt that I was embodying the assignment. I recalled how I felt when I was a child that lost my mother – panicked, frightened, like the world had ended. And, I don’t really do well with small spaces, so being in this ‘box’ also really freaked me out. I couldn’t breathe for about 10 minutes afterwards. I usually don’t engage with ‘theatricality’ workshops well, but I made a conscious effort to open up more to it for this week. These kinds of workshops bring up all sorts of emotions – when people have dealt with illness, death, depression, fear... this stirs up a lot emotionally, and there were several dancers that cried in class, myself included. If I see someone crying I will also start crying, I’m that kind of person!  Sharon did a great job of grounding everyone before class was over and having us return to a state that meant we weren’t dwelling on the emotions from the class.

The following three workshops were with Mira Betz. Anyone that knows me knows that last year I said I was done with Mira. I’d had a bad workshop experience with her in 2011, and at the 2012 Massive I didn’t really enjoy any of the workshops that were not dance based. I went into day one of Mira with this negative perception of her, and by day 3 my opinion had turned around completely. She was like a different person this year. Day one was lots of across the floor movement drills followed by a fast choreography (and I’m talking UNMATA fast!) with a contemporary twist, which I really enjoyed learning. Day 2 was ‘the talky day’, but actually it was unlike any Mira lectures I’ve taken, where I felt that the information was relevant to dance and didn’t involve as much talking as last year! It was essentially a theatricality workshop, but I have to say was the best one I’ve taken. There were no ‘imagine your father just died’ exercises which I have heard in countless theatricality workshops and think is really inappropriate. All the exercises related directly to dance movement rather than just being theatre for the sake of it. I really felt like there was stuff from this I could take away and apply to my dance to make the messages I want to portray more clearly in my body.

After day one with Mira was an afternoon off for the show rehearsals so I took the opportunity to Skype with Dan, get some formatting of my PhD document done and relax. In the evening Antonella, Sunci and I went to Cirque du Soleil’s show Mystere at Treasure Island. It was an amazing show with impressive feats of all kinds – trapeze, silks, body balancing and more. It was a really great show, but I actually preferred Ka, the show I saw last year, as I liked having the storyline to follow. We paid $60 for the tickets, but got moved to the expensive seats because there were some spare, so all in all a great experience!

On the evening of our second day with Mira was the show, which I cannot even begin to tell you about because every act was amazing in its own right. It was even better than last year, and it’s really difficult to pick highlights because it was just so good. Of course, I really enjoyed Zoe’s performances, and UNMATA closed with the set that they did at Tribal Umrah which never fails to get me shedding a tear. I performed in the show, albeit for about 60 seconds! I danced a combo on the end of Sundari’s performance, as I had done in Split last year. It was fun to dance on the Massive stage, though of course I would have loved to have performed one of my own pieces there! It did feel strange to be the only dancer in costume that didn’t go up to take a bow. And it was very bittersweet, as sometime that night the brooch I had pinned to my belt fell off, and it was a brooch that really meant a lot to me. I checked with Security the following day and they let me scour the venue, but I couldn’t find it. I’m really very upset that it has gone missing, heartbroken in fact as it was a very meaningful gift from a friend. Now it’s gone for good. I just hope that someone picked it up and will treasure it as much as I did, because it would be so much worse if it has been cleaned up with the trash. By the time it was all over we were starving and had to wait a long time for food! It was 3AM by the time we got to bed.

The next day was more Mira – this time I had to sit out because the turns in the combo she was teaching were making me so dizzy I thought I would be sick. 4 hours sleep is not a good amount to go to a dance class on. I’m afraid I wasn’t able to stick it out! The class was again very interesting, different way to look at group choreography using a combo and improvisation. It was actually cool to be an observer than a participant – I think I actually learned more this way from this particular class.

Sciahina & Alexis prepare for the Massive Spectacular
After Mira we had Amy Sigil, who took us on the Human Experience. She taught a variety of combos in her own unique way and we danced them all together at the end. She had us writing down things that we then inputted into a paper that she handed out to make a story of our human experience. If you’ve ever taken her STATIC workshop, it was a similar thing. It was a great class – Amy always has really different and intelligent ways of approaching learning, teaching and dance in general. She and Zoe are the teachers I feel are feeding me the most creatively right now. That night we all went to bed really early and slept for a long time!!

The next day was the final day. We started with Frederique – another theatricality workshop. Her material was also interesting and some parts were different to Sharon’s, others similar. I think by the time it got to her, we had already done two theatre workshops, and I for one was a little less receptive to doing a third. I enjoyed the class, but I think I’d have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t already done two workshops on a similar theme. I did really enjoy Fred’s warm up, though, which targeted the core. I’m always looking for new core exercises so I was pleased. 

After Fred, our final class was Amy, and was actually my favourite class of the week – ITS! We covered many of the basic stall movement of ITS and their associated big and little sisters, and it was really nice to be able to see the similarities and differences between Fat Chance format and Hot Pot format. It’s definitely something I want to do more of. I was grinning the whole way through, I loved it. We were split into a stagger formation to begin with, having learned the basic vocabulary she wanted us to work with, then moving onto circles in our groups. We then worked with large staggers, circles, chorus line and multiple circles and chorus lines that paved the way for passes and cascades. The format is so complicated and yet so intuitive. I just adored it, I can’t wait to do more. It was a great way to end the week, everyone dancing together, relying on each other. Perfect. I was sad to say goodbye to the teachers and friends of the week. It’s always hard to go back to reality and normality after such an intensive training experience and being away from home for so long. I, however, didn’t go back to normality, not in its entirety. My PhD is finished; I had April Rose with me for a whole week. So my reality wouldn’t hit for another seven days... somehow I think it’s worse this way!

For anyone considering a trip to the US for training, Tribal Massive is the best festival I have been to. You focus so much on dance, everything else is unimportant. I saw such a dramatic change in my dancing last year; I can’t wait to see how it affects everything this year. But I think it will change me in a different way this year.


Infusion Emporium

Somehow it would be replete of me to present a blog about Massive without including the event that occurred immediately afterwards – Infusion Emporium presents... April Rose. I won’t go on for too long because I’ve wittered on for long enough already. It was a real pleasure to host April Rose – so easy going and easy to get along with, unfussy. Really a great person to sponsor. Her workshops were inspirational, teaching Making Choreography (a favourite of mine from her workshops at Split a few years ago), and Making Choreography 2 for the first time ever - A UK exclusive! Sunday was technique and dancing day, where we learned combos and short choreography as well as steps from other dance forms for the Unapologetic Fusion class. April attended my weekly class earlier in the week which was a bit nerve-wracking; and we took a day trip to London taking in Camden market and the British Museum as well as seeing the Ballet Revolucion show.

The Infusion Emporium showcase went really well. We worked closely with the lighting team at the theatre so that we had better lighting than ever for the show, and we’re really pleased how it turned out. Below I’ll share my new solo and duet with Dawn O’Brien so you can get a feel of the venue and what’s in store for November.

And on that note – Friday 15th November is our next show, and workshops taking place all weekend. Our special guest instructors for November are former director of the Tribal BDSS and Beats Antique dancer, Tribal Fusion extraordinaire Kami Liddle; and three up and coming dancers on the international scene: German dancer Giuliana Angelini, Canadian dancer Heather Labonté, and me! So save the date! We’ll be putting all info online very soon, with booking opening at the end of May. We hope that you will join us once again!


Hope to see you somewhere on the road in 2013!

Alexis x


Alexis's Solo from Infusion Emporium - Til Enda



Alexis & Dawn's duet - Siren Song