Download Lets Talk About Dis - Candoco Dance Company

 Teachers Notes and Resources for Candoco Dance Company “LET’S TALK ABOUT DIS” BY HETAIN PATEL Credits Premier: 02 October, artsdepot, London
Choreographer: Hetain Patel Original Cast: Andrew Graham, Tanja Erhart, Mirjam Gurtner, Rick Rodgers, Laura Patay, Toke Broni
Strandby, Adam Gain BIOGRAPHIES Hetain Patel – Choreographer Hetain Patel is a visual artist. Since 2004, his video, photography and live works have been shown
internationally to critical and popular acclaim within institutions from Tate Britan, London to the Ullens
Centre for Contemporary Art, Beijing. Within the last two years, Hetain has done Bruce Lee impersonations
on stage at the Royal Opera House, completed commissions for Tate Modern and Southbank Centre, made a
Transformer robo from an old Ford Fiesta (with his dad), toured his live performance of Ten internationally
(in English and French), and was invited to do a TED talk which has since been viewed globaly over two
million times. Hetain’s practice, exploring the subtle and often humourous complexities of identity
formation, is manifested in multiple forms, from work in galleris and theatre to the screen, the web and the
page. Over the course of 2014 Hetain is working on four new commissions each of which premieres in
London: his first animation work for his solo exhibition, At Home (Pump House Gallery); American Boy, his
first ever solo performance (Sadler’s Wells); a full company piece for Candoco Dance Company (artsdepot)
and a multiscreen video installation for Indian Classical Music festival Darbar (Southbank Centre).
Jackie Shemesh – Lighting Designer
Jackie Shemesh is a designer of lighting and space. He originally trained at the Jerusalem School of Visual
Theatre. Jackie has worked internationally in dance, theatre and music and his practice has extended into
collaborations with performance and visual artists. Jackie has designed the lighting for each of Hetain’s
previous live works. Other choreographers and dance companies he has worked with include: Luca
Silvestrini’s Protein, Ben Duke and Lost Dog, Alexander Whitley and Balletboyz, The Batsheva Ensemble,
Yasmeen Godder, Nigel Charnock and Scottish Dance Theatre.
Jackie has also designed for many theatre productions, including The Ramayana for Lyric Hammersmith
and Bristol Old Vic (Director: David Farr); Parallax for Almeida Theatre (Director: Natalie Abrahami); The
Beloved for The Young Vic, Bush Theatre and Shiber Hur (Director: Amir Nizar Zuabi); As You Like It for
Curve Leicester (Director: Time Supple). Other collaborations include the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and
a several projects with artists Phil Collins, Susanne Sachess and Yael Bartana.
1 Valentina Golfieri – Costume Design
Valentina is a London based performer, choreographer and designer. She is a member of Protein Dance
Company, for whom she works as performer and rehearsal director. She also works regularly with Arthur
Pita as performer and assistant director and has also performed for Frauke Requardt, Will Tuckett, Clod
Ensemble, David Rosenberg, Dam Van Huynh amongst others. Her choreographic work has been presented
at the Royal Opera House, The Place, Wilton’s Music Hall and London Graduate Fashion Week. Her interest
in fashion and design, coming from a family of haberdashers, is a key feature of her choreographic and
creative work. Valentina has designed costumes for Sally Marie’s Sweetshop Revolution production Tree,
Protein Dance’s Border Tales and XOXO, Frauke Requardt’s Dancing in Libraries and Night Time for
Northern School of Contemporary Dance’s Postgraduate Company Verve13, as well as Bell and Golfieri’s
productions That Was the Time I Stopped and I Just Close My Eyes: Here Are The Devils.
Eva Martinez – Dramaturgy
Born and educated in France, with Spanish hieritage, Eva has lived and worked in the UK since 2000. She
has been an ongoing collaborator of Hetain Patel across all his live work and performed alongside him as
his wife, together with Hetain’s dad at Tate Tank in 2012 (Me and me dad and me wife). She has recently
joined Sadler’s Wells as Associate Programmer and Producer. Prior to that she worked as Dance and
Performance programmer at Southbank Centre, London (2009-2011) working in the artistic team led by
Artistic Director Jude Kelly. She started her career in the UK at Trinity Laban (2002-2006), London’s leading
contemporary dance conservatoire and then joined Dance4, the Nottingham based national dance
development agency (2006-2009) co-curating nottudance, its internationally acclaimed festival. Eva has
recently worked as an independent curator, consultant and dramaturge as well as artistic mentor wit
several dance artists. She notably collaborated on Siobhan Davies Dance recent production Table of
Contents (2014). She is a member of the Royal Society of Arts, a board member for national dance
development agency SouthEast Dance (Brighton) and the chair of Independent Dance (London).
Fingersmiths: Jean St Clair and Jeni Draper – BSL Interpretation
Fingersmiths is a bi-lingual theatre company working in British Sign Language and English. Their multi
layered approach to language and physical expression allows for different perspectives to be presented,
adding depth and meaning to the stories being told. Their recent tour of Frozen by Bryony Lavery, a co
production with Birmingham Repertory Theatre was critically acclaimed and played to sold out houses. Jean
St Clair’s extensive acting career has involved working internationally and in the West End as well as on
film and TV. She was recently awarded Best Actress for her role in Louis Neethling’s film Still Here. She also
works as a creative BSL consultant in the arts. Jeni Draper has also worked nationally and internationally
as an actress. This year she has directed shows in London and Bristol. She is also a qualified sign
language interpreter specialising in working in the arts
This piece was co-commissioned by artsdepot
2 CONTEXTUAL MATERIAL ON “LET’S TALK ABOUT DIS” Activity 1: Research Task Ask students to research Hetain Patel and his work. www.hetainpatel.com
They might like to look at these Let’s Talk About Dis insight videos:
An Interview with Hetain Patel during the making process
Lets Talk About Dis – Insight into the making of the piece
Activity 2: Discussion Hetain’s work always starts from an autobiographical point of view.
Please consider what you feel is your identity and how this could form a starting point for theatrical
exploration.
- Where are you from?
- What languages do you speak?
- Where do you live?
- What are the three most important things you would say about yourself if you were to introduce
yourself to a stranger?
PRACTICAL WORK BASED ON ‘NOTTURNINO’ Creative Task 1: Storytelling
Think of your first memory of not understanding what someone else was saying because the spoke a
different language.
a) Write down the story, with details about the situation; where you were, who you were with, what you
did, how it made you feel, etc
b) Share the story with a partner, reading it out loud or recalling it from memory
c) Share the story again but without words, making gestures and movements that describe your story.
Find out from your partner how much they could understand and what they liked about your
movement interpretation. Do they have suggestions of how to make the movement even clearer and
more easily understood? How do you differentiate between different characters in your story?
d) Show your movement story to a different partner who didn’t hear your spoken version. Get feedback
on their understanding of your story. How much information is possible to pick up without words?
3 Creative Task 2: Making Meaning – practical and poetic descriptions
Take a movement phrase that you feel comfortable with, or make a phrase by choosing 5 everyday gestures
and then playing with them; adding size, speed, travel, turns, jumps, change of level.
a) Write down the ACTIONS of what you are doing. Look for details of actions in body parts as well as
more whole body action descriptions, e.g. Kick, cut, slice
b) Get a partner to read out your words, trying to fit them all to the movement, so sometimes you
might have to adjust your speaking speed to really fast, or really slow. Alternatively, use sounds
instead of words to describe the actions you are seeing.
c) Get your partner to write down their description of your movements from a poetic starting point,
looking for the images that the movement creates and the quality with which the movement is
done. Perform the movement with the poetic description as a sound-track, paying attention to the
rhythm of the words complementing the movement rather than matching it exactly.
d) Discuss the difference in how we interpret the movement when we have action words and poetic
description. Discuss how it influences our feeling of whether we understand the movement or not.
Creative Task 3: Rhythm
Introduce yourself and your peers with a few sentences, e.g. Hi, I’m Adam and we are Candoco. We are a
company of.... Decide on what you want to say and write it down.
a) As a group, clap/stamp/tap the rhythm of the words that one person is saying. Decide on the
details of the rhythm and make sure everyone agrees.
b) Find a simple vocal sound, e.g. Bah, that replaces the clap/stamp/tap. Try to find a common sound
that all finds comfortable, creating a sense of harmony by all sharing in the same sound.
While one person talks, the others do the sound, in exact rhythm with the speaker.
Afterwards, practice what it sounds like if the speaker speaks, but the rest of the group add their
sound in at different times and not in the same rhythm- almost so as to interrupt the speaker.
c) Set a sequence that involves all saying the sound, speaker saying the words with sound by
others, speaker only and speaker and sounds going out of rhythm.
Notice what it feels like to all do the same and not, to sense being a whole group with one voice,
and then a group with different voices.
c) Change configuration of the group while doing the sequence, e.g. Facing each other in a circle,
moving around the room, standing in line. Create a pattern that can be repeated.
4 FINAL DISCUSSION (for more advanced or older groups)
(include a final discussion, further research or ‘for more advanced students’ section if applicable)
Hetain uses auto-biography to create pieces about identity and how it is formed and perceived, so when
Candoco invited Hetain to make a piece, we were interested in how he would deal with issues regarding
disability and the perceptions around it. To our delight he looked at the identity of Candoco as a company,
not only of its individuals – the resulting piece is an unfurling of our identities told through many
languages and lenses. As the dancers try to define 'who they are' they command the stage – set the space,
create the music, move, and describe the movement through voice and British Sign Language (BSL).
And so original ‘access’ elements of BSL and audio description become a theatrical part of this tapestry of
understanding and misunderstanding, representation and misrepresentation. They are added to the texture
of spoken word, accent, singing, and dance. They are not to be fully understood by all, as different parts
become lost in translation. Each audience member will have a different experience.
If you were making a piece, consider how you ensure access for deaf and visually impaired audience
members. Could access form part of your creative process and what would it mean to consider this right
from the beginning?
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