for solo cello | 8′
music for live and screen dance devised with MeshDance
Premiere:
James Whittle, NSCD Community Dance Platform, Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Leeds, 16th March 2019
TELLTALE screenings:
21 Co., 29th March 2019
Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds Young Film Festival, 20th April 2019
Royal Opera House, U.Dance On Screen: Young Creatives, 30th June 2019
Expressions Festival, Northern Ballet, 11th July 2019
BFI, U.Dance On Screen Festival, 21st July 2019
Engage Film Festival, Gosforth Civic Theatre, 13th September 2019
One Dance UK, online screening, 21st February 2020
Yorkshire Dance, Encounters Festival, 29th February 2020
TELLTALE
Telling stories, telling secrets, telling tales. What can we say when we don’t communicate with words and how can we say it? Tell Tale is a screen dance set in the beautiful location of Leeds Central Library. Supported with funding from Leeds Inspired, part of Leeds City Council.
MeshDance Miniatures
In May 2018 I was invited to collaborate with MeshDance’s WeAre group as a composer-cellist, visiting half of their sessions each term. Our aim was to develop non-verbal communication with the group through exploring the use of music to aid movement memory, develop. In practice, I accompanied warm-ups, improvised for free movement improvisation, and set response games relating different aspects of sound to movement.
The WeAre project led first to making a dance film, TELLTALE, which was shot on location in Leeds Central Library and filmed and edited by Rad Miller, then to a live performance version, for which MeshDance Miniatures was completed.
When we first met, the group showed me a sequence of 14 actions they had choreographed in response to 14 ‘action’ words – pick, push, open, drop. I performed their actions on the cello to create 14 unique sound fragments. These are seen/heard at the beginning of the live performance version. Thereafter, the music explores up to 5 fragments in each section (these are the dance sections with my titles italicised):
introduction: taking action
group: opening
transition 1: brushes
duet 1: chops and locks
group: closing
transition 2: drops, whispers
duet 2 & 3: friends (mESHDAnCE)
group: reopening
While the group practised the full 14-action sequence and a select 5-action sequence choreographed by one group member, I improvised with the corresponding sound-fragments to see how they could work together. Rehearsal recordings allowed reflection and changes between sessions. Sections began to evolve, where freer improvisations gave a different perspective to developing the original material. Once a structure was settled, I composed/notated the score—fleshing out moments and writing in specific musical cues—then tweaked it in the rehearsal room.