Gravity & Levity

Reading Lindsey’s last journal entry was a timely reminder of all the things to be done... argh, wood stain schnood stain. Here I am, looking at snowy hills, away from it all and nearing the end of my role with the show, which started with conversations between Lindsey and me as far back as 2005, while working on Taking Flight.

When we both lectured together at the University of Surrey on the nature of our collaboration for ‘Shift’ the students were mostly fixated by how incredibly hard the job sounded, and we kind of giggled as though we had a back-up plan. Lindsey and I have since come back to asking ourselves why exactly the job I was given was so difficult, because, believe me, the learning curve went vertical in the second day of R&D.

The brief was to design a set within which three choreographers could make individual work, but that would hang together as a conversant whole, journeying through the pieces by evolving, changing, shifting and emerging (no problem there then).

It seems no co-incidence that I became heavily influenced by Cornelia Parker’s images of a shed exploding in freeze frame, with fractured objects held in space as they disperse. The process has been like a slow, often painful explosion; slow enough to see each detail and point of contention in minutiae. The guilt of cut feet from my floor offerings hanging over me.

Phew. It is hard now to stand back and see clearly what emerged from serving three extremely different visions – Charlotte who searches for narrative truth to objects on stage, Charles who is abstract and minimal, vague and yet exacting and the Yes/No partnership who needed an instrumental tool kit.

I can’t wait now to see the first night (kind of avoiding the reality of pre-production duties in the meantime!) and stand back and see this weird creation under Mickey’s lights (if he finds somewhere to hang them), already I am intrigued by it, curious as to how Lindsey and Kevin will drive it to the finishing line, eager to hear the music, finally see some dancing, but mostly to see the audience follow our simple objects through their now carefully crafted and choreographed shift through a theatre space (hopefully).