Dance
Solo Performance
Category
Solo performance in a contemporary context usually involves the creation of a performance or piece of theatre which involves only one actor or performer, often playing many different roles.
Video
Lisa Mayo of the Kuna and Rappahannock Nations was a founding member of the Native
American women’s feminist theatre group, Spiderwoman Theater. She was a singer,
actor, and playwright who wrote and performed with Spiderwoman Theater for 35
years.
Video
Part 1 of the 80th Year Retrospective. Includes the ‘Undressing and Dressing’ and ‘Paper Dance’ from the ground-breaking interdisciplinary performance Parades and Changes.
Video
Filmed in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo), Body Without a Brain is a
high-risk, physically demanding dance for camera. Rianto seems to be in a trance as
he creates an unpremeditated encounter with the elements. He describes the work as
like a tree without roots. The piece embodies anxiety as the natural world becomes
ever more threatened.
Video
Gavin Krastin is a choreographer and performance artist. He
describes himself as “a gay, white, South African of a certain privilege and
class in relation to other bodies.” He suggests that BODY/BAG deals with race
and is intended to “expose and speak to the larger politics that affect us
all.”
Video
Strindberg Laboratory’s “demonstration project” through California
Arts Council’s “Prison Project” involving people who are about to be released
back into society.
Video
Solo performance vocalizing a US State Department questionnaire, a woman’s response to being mugged, and a existential soliloquy.
Video
CoNCrEte (2009)
screendance reveals
how the environment affects our emotions and ever-changing lived
experience.
Video
Conquest and Prison is a two-part suite of site-specific dance films set
in Grahamstown, South Africa. The two oldest historical sites in Grahamstown are Ft.
Selwyn and the Old Gaol, which imprisoned thousands of black South Africans. The
choreography of Part I "Oscar's Journey" is Oscar Buthelezi's personal response to the
history of colonialism commemorated at Ft. Selwyn. Part II "Child's Play" is similar to
the approach in "Oscar's Journey." "Chorographers Lorin Sookool and Julia Wilson reflect
on the past as the sounds and images of the gaol continue to echo and resonate today.
Video
This video is documentation taken from a weekly contact jam session with the
actors in the MFA Actor-Training program at UC Irvine. Contact Improvisation is
a large part of the movement arc in the first year of actor training, and jam
sessions are held weekly, integrating all three years of MFA actors.
Someone happened to video this session, and I give a brief description of
our use of contact as a tool for actor training in the
voice-over.
Video
This video is documentation of an exercise with 3rd year graduate actors at
the UC Irvine Actor-Training program, speaking a monologue while contacting with
a silent partner. At a moment of heightened activity, the silent
partner is removed, and the resulting delivery of the monologue is focused and
intensely communicated.
The athleticism and sensitivity of the contact created a culture of
expressivity. Tenderness as well as rage and challenge emerged in the contact
session and remained present in the solo monologue. So, the complexities of
emotion that were embodied metaphorically and rhythmically in the extreme lifts
and rolls and balances of the partnering could be seen as an emotional
“rehearsal” for the solo performance. But once the partner was removed, the
speaker had to reach out to us, and address each deeply felt idea to the
audience in the room.
No longer in a contact with the literal “other,” we, the audience, now become
the necessary focus.
Video
This piece is an excerpt from a half-hour documentary shot in Grahamstown,
South Africa, during the annual National Arts Festival (https://www.nationalartsfestival.co.za/2016-festival/).
Interviews were conducted with a wide range of choreographers. This
selection focuses on up-and-coming artists Julia Wilson, Lorin Sookool,
Athena Mazarakis, and Kamogelo Molobye. The works are inspired
by challenges facing women, gays, and lesbians in contemporary South
Africa.
Video
A work that built on Baker’s experience of using autobiographical materials in performances such as My Cooking Competes, blending this with a commentary on domesticity, motherhood and art.
Video
This 1994 clip documents performance activist Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s work with his organisation, the international performance troupe La Pocha Nostra.
Video
Video
Walking Gusto Productions
explores the marginalised and disempowered female voices of South Africa by
using the body as a “site of resistance”
Video
From Starting to Cut the Wood translates the sounds of manual labor into
dance.
Video
A relentlessly monochrome solo performance inspired by avant garde grotesque dancer Valeska Gert, this defiant work explores female sexuality, mixing humour, absurdity, dignity and vulnerability.
Video
This 1994 clip documents performance activist Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s work with his organisation, the international performance troupe La Pocha Nostra.
Video
A performance piece which saw Baker open her kitchen to the public and display a set of live actions, making performance from everyday tasks which nevertheless require skill, dexterity and endurance.
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A solo performance boldly exploring female empowerment and resilience in the context of male behaviour.
Video
Pangaean Dreams is a multimedia piece which leads the audience on a shamanic journey back 250 million years to the time when the earth’s continents were all fused into one.
Video
POETRY LIVE(S) introduces us to the lively diversity
of practicing poets --- young, old, men, women,
novices and veterans, black and white.
Video
This 1994 clip documents performance activist Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s work with his organisation, the international performance troupe La Pocha Nostra.
Video
This 1994 clip documents performance activist Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s work with his organisation, the international performance troupe La Pocha Nostra.
Video
This 1994 clip documents performance activist Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s work with his organisation, the international performance troupe La Pocha Nostra.
Video
powder is a performance telling the story of
the pain, and pleasure, of dressing, and
undressing, the female body.
Video
The Soul of Dance is an introduction to the vibrant diversity of contemporary dance
in Indonesia. Rooted both in tradition and the idioms of modern movement this half
hour documentary introduces audiences to work ranging from site-specific solos to
multimedia musical theater.
Video
This 1994 clip documents performance activist Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s work with his organisation, the international performance troupe La Pocha Nostra.
Video
This 1994 clip documents performance activist Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s work with his organisation, the international performance troupe La Pocha Nostra.
Video
This piece, conceived and directed by Seyferth, is based on Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons: Objects, Food, Rooms.
Video
The Organs’ Presence in Voice, Movement and Expression Workshop, Patricia Bardi holds a workshop on combining somatic practice and improvisation in integrating voice and movement in a creative process.
Video
Malika Ndlovu excavates universal themes of
self-discovery, the claiming of voice for the silenced, personal and social
transformation and the continuous awakening of the human spirit.
Video
Inthis lively performance, Patricia Bardi shares some of her discoveries and insights that have developed over many years of independent research and performance practice of Vocal Dance. Performed at the SDNO, School for New Dance Development, Amsterdam, 1995.
Video
Malika Ndlovu excavates universal themes of
self-discovery, the claiming of voice for the silenced, personal and social
transformation and the continuous awakening of the human spirit.
Audio
In this episode, Susanna reflects upon her thinking and experiences working with movement and dance in community, education and interdisciplinary performance contexts. Through exploring her ways of working, she shares insight into her processes of identifying and dismantling access barriers she experiences in her professional practice. Underpinned by her question of “what is moving me in the space”, she considers ways of transforming access barriers; her Stimming performance research project, the dialogue of the body with the environment and her future research interests. Throughout the episode, Susanna highlights the importance of asking questions and acknowledging needs.
Audio
In this episode, Manisha discusses her interests in supporting dancers with their mental health and wider considerations of mental health within the dance sector, more generally. Through situating thinking around her current PhD research, Manisha shares her thinking around barriers around mental health in dance, the application of research findings to sport and dance settings and the importance of context when considering such application. She highlights the importance of cross-discipline research in widening awareness and learning around mental health and reflects upon her position as a researcher in being situated across disciplines. Throughout the episode, Manisha advocates the need for mental health to be a priority and for there to be greater emphasis on the role the dance sector can have on a dancer’s engagement with dance itself.
Commentary
by Annie Loui
Contact improvisation is a form of dance improvisation based on energy and weight
exchange, incorporating elements of aikido, jitterbugging, child’s play, and
tumbling
Commentary
by McPherson, Katrina
Commentary
by Freeman, Mark
Reflections on Poetry Lives by Mark Freeman.
Practitioner
Bobby Baker is a woman, and an artist. A performance career spanning four decades once saw her make a life-sized edible version of her own family. She is the Artistic Director of Daily Life Ltd.
