Gravity & Levity

‘Bang…. Clonk…. Bang… Bang…. Clonk, Clonk! It’s as simple as that…’

Luke amd Steve are the geniuses behind the popular dance show ‘Stomp’… Well, they (and Lorraine also from 'Stomp') have been making a piece with us, which is, I must say, quite superb and rather clever!

The piece is an intriguing world of sexy time counting in 6’s. But don’t tell anyone - we want it to be a surprise from the usual humdrum world of 8’s that us dancers are all so used to. So… 6’s… Two of them in fact - two measures of 6 to one bar… in other words, bars of 12 beats… or four lots of triplets… or four trip-per-lets (123123123123, waltz like fashion). For example I’ll be on the 2 and the 5 whilst Scott plays a 6,1…3,4, which we’ll play twice in one bar and then loop for eight bars, or perhaps ten… depending how much Lorraine chooses to confuse us.

Anyway, the lovely Vanessa is on the ONE – the, oh so important ONE! (1!23456 - 1!23456; keeping everything together, really glad I didn’t pick that short straw). I’m on the lazy TWO, Lindsey is on the friendly FOUR (always impeccable), Jen on is the feisty FIVE (my partner in crime) and Scott (old faithful) is sitting on the SIX. His is a music mind, clever chap, so can make it look good too… (Check out the Banjo loops in the second section of the piece! Pure finger picking joy.)

Within this section of the piece: the ‘campanology’ section, the ‘musical’ section, or as Mish puts it, the Yes/No/Maybe/Actually/No section. You have to concentrate! And concentrate real hard! All the time! Don’t be getting anything wrong or you'll be letting everyone down! Especially yourself! (Which, of course, is the worst kind of letting down…)

Like many contemporary male dancers, my counting skill swere not, how you might say ‘especially developed’ at an early age (took me two years of teaching to count an eight in). There was no tap, jazz, ballet or modern classes for me from the age of three (no sir-ree! It was football for me! Football in the playground, every break time rain or shine, without fail, and not the rhythmical ‘Brazilian’ type either. No sir-ree, the English type of football, the grind it out and bleed from the knee a lot sort of football, Oh how I loved it - and I don’t mean that ironically, I really did love it; however and rather unfortunately, it's only really good for shortening your hamstrings and making you smelly, and not good for the finer accentual skills needed when playing percussion or dancing in time to the music.) Anyway, the peril and anxiety of being on the ONE would be a little bit too much to bear. I’m more a 1& - 4& sort of person (the off beats in between the main daddy beats) if you know what I mean – oh the pressure!

Exciting stuff though… I ask my self – “will we pull it off? Will we make sweet sweet music? Will our detonated set of rope steels and wood stay in one piece? Will we be victorious against all the odds…?” Yeah! Of course we will! And make it look amazing! But then again I’m an optimist. Saying that so is everybody else… I guess it’s a prerequisite working in this game. And what a game! Rehearsals have been a lot of fun, we’ve all learnt loads about counting and bars and beats, and under the keen eye of multi-talented Ms Butcher have learnt a lot about the cunning art of Aerial Dance.

I myself started this project as somewhat of an ‘aerial virgin’. I won’t deny my shortcomings and pains (which there is a lot of…) but working alongside such experienced dancers, it’s real easy to get really into it! Learning new tricks and jumping off walls is brilliant and I would recommend it to anyone who has a line of rope, ceiling mount and a wall. Unfortunately these are difficult things to come by, but thanks to the wonderful people who are rigging the piece: (‘Knot-Strong’ Jon - who is, as it happens very strong (see if you can spot him in the piece… he’s actually a proper actor, very talented) and ‘Pulley & Go’ Joe* (who rigged me a sweet pulley for my plank in the Yes/No section of the piece). *All ‘names’ are unofficial and made up by me… Where was I… oh yeah, try aerial (I want to do a washing powder joke, but I’m not going too).

It would be a damned shame if after reading all this gumpf that you couldn’t make it to one of our tour dates and see for yourselves! I’d be happy to chat to anyone after shows whilst we’re de-rigging (which there is a lot of… the set is huge and complicated!!)