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Charlotte Vincent on ‘Straight Talking’What was your starting point? How do you like to work with your performers?
Working on a solo you get the chance to work much closer with the performer.I started by asking dancer Robert Clarke some questions, via email, about theprivileges and disadvantages of being a straight man working in the danceworld, which is an environment that I sense to be predominantly gay, andoften male dominated. We talked about gender in the dance world, sexualityin performance and the conventions and codes that choreographers oftenwork with.Once we got into the studio we began by creating a movement vocabulary,looking for a language that wasn’t conventional, that was ‘extra’ ordinary andnot usual to the image of a strong ‘straight male dancer’. We played with theidea of ‘anti-dance’ creating contortion in place of beauty, ugliness instead of line, howling without sound – an attempt to rage against convention.We tried containing space and containing movement. We tried disablingmovement by limiting the capacity for the dancer to move, restricting hischoices. So the language became twisted, contorted, painful, difficult,constricting, sharp and impulsive. We engaged facial expression as a way of making effort visible. All part of this anti-dance statement. Revealing the effortbehind movement and highlighting the possibility of failure is not a usualaesthetic in the dance world.Here’s to making outHere’s to the first timeHere’s to losing itHere’s to scars and wounds and big mistakesHere’s to comfortto sweet dreamsto taking the first stepHere’s to laughter to neat endingsAnd better futuresHere’s to sweatto passionto drawn out kissesHere’s to missed flightsTo one-night stands.To trustHere’s to the here and nowHere’s to fluxHere’s to checking in and checking out.Here’s to peaceAnd here’s stillnessand here’s to wild rageand silence
 
Here’s to the final moment.We wrote text and lists, we wrote about what Rob, the dancer and the person,‘can’t’ do. The movement language we developed together came out of anattempt by Rob to ‘not’ do what he usually does. Writing helped to form thestructure of the solo (text-dance-text), a ‘what am I going to do for you, thenan attempt to do it followed by a kind of apology for it failure to achieve Rob’s‘Big Ideas’.I cannot feel you.I cannot see youI cannot hear youI cannot touch youI cannot smell youI cannot meet you half wayI cannot talk to youI cannot think like youI am like you on the inside.Quiet. Still. Sitting in the dark.I am like you, looking for the answers.I am like you in ways you cant see yet.I am like you, filled up with choices and chance.I am like you, bloated and full of hot air.I am like you, floating face down, with no more breath.I am like you warm, fed and captive.I am like you.Dancers need a structure to help them pin down what they are doing. A goodstructure holds the concept in place and makes it clear. I directed andconceived the idea, and really the dancer devises the movement. My makingprocesses are always collaborative and personal to the people I am workingwith. We try to choose themes that we are both interested in and this is mademore intense in solo form.
Can you explain your costume choice?
A £3 pair of underpants? Rob has just escaped from the dressing room, he isescaping the group to try something different, branching out into solo work,but it doesn’t quite go to plan. I guess the costume offers an implied narrativeas well as a sense of vulnerability. Like the lighting, we wanted a bareaesthetic.
How did you select your music or sound? How would you explain therelationship between music and dance?
I have wanted to use a piece of solo by Coco Rosie for a while. Their music ishaunting and knowingly naïve. Their child-like music reflects our concept thatRob is trying to ‘do something different’ which is really hard to achieve indance terms. In this particular track, Candy Land, from Coco Rosie’s AlbumLa Maison de Mon Reve (The House of My Dream) there are sound of toyfarm animals howling alongside a kind of ‘music box’ sound. Rob positions
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