Ana Sanchez-Colberg- Artistic Mentor

Puerto Rican choreographer, currently working in Europe and the USA.  Sanchez-Colberg established Theatre enCorps in 1989. Since then, and throughout over thirty years of non-stop activity, she has produced dance and performance work in over 40 cities, with a particular focus on collaborative practices including the award winning Alice, Alice , Alice...Are you a Child or a Teetotter (1989), En Viva Voz, winner of the Bonnie Bird Choreography Award (1997) and Mahler’s Fifths, winner of the PRS/British Council Award for Dance and Music in Collaboration. Other  commissioned works have been created for Ballet Concierto de Puerto Rico (PR), Ballets des Staattheater Cottbus (DE), Andanza (PR), Foreign Bodies (UK), and Compania Danza 21 (CoDa21, PR). She has been a regular teacher in many important dance schools and festivals including Tanzwochen/Impulstanz Wien, International Festival of Theatre in Bogota Colombia, Festival Barranquilla Nueva Danza, Helsinki Theatre Academy.  Her most recent work 1[-1] Materiality of Exile was produced with support from MAP Fund 2019 www.materialityofexile.blogspot.com.
Her full profile can be sen at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana_Sánchez-Colberg.
The company's website can be accessed at www.theatreencorpscollectif.com

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Monday 24th February 2020, DAY 1

First day.  Gathering of 21 artists who will be working together this week exploring notions of site-specific performance.  After a brief introduction I set a context for the work.  I can try recall everything,  I was elaborating a thinking-through from a series of not complete bullet points in my notebook.  As always, because I haven't written everything down, I know I shared some new thoughts, but I can't remember them...damn!

A brief summary:
  • Site-Specific work has evolved.  
  • We are no longer interest in site work which is mere outdoor location for what remains unquestioned theatrical narratives outside...
  • In our contemporary world, there is no site-specific work that is a-political as the dynamics of public and private, shared and private space is intricately bound by politics.
  • I do remember stopping to clarify what 'the political' is, in relation to the Greek 'polis' as well as Arendtian notions of 'appearance'.
  • I place site-specificity outside of the question of 'the audience' (as that concept in itself means a contamination of notions of the 'theatrical').
  • Rather, in what ways site-specificity opens up questions of lived experience in space and out, constant micro and macro negotiations within this, define trajectories of navigations.
Task 1- 
I invite the group to spend 30 minutes walking the site and doing a cartography of their journey.  Different registers appear, the aural and tactile acquire as much importance as the visual.  Sound in the urban landscape of MDC Lab is unavoidable. The group speaks of portals, negotiations, anxieties, ambiguities, notions of control and letting go of it...

Task 2- 
For the first time ever I lead them through the 'map of the senses' exercise outdoors.

Task 3-
Map of the senses given and received, the possibility of the final event including one-2-one performances on site opens up. 



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Tuesday 25th February, DAY 2

We begin today by sorting out the practicalities of the blog, archiving, etc.  Half an hour later, e are ready to go.  I introduce the focus of today, space in relation to tactility.  I begin by addressing the 'tactile', tact, touch is every where, it is one of the full 'whole body' sensory experience, there are no boundaries in the skin.  Skin is not outside, skin is the site of negotiation between exteriority and interiority. I invite them to consider how skin, rather than a boundary is in fact a portal (that word keeps popping) between outside and inside realm:  the skin of our ear lobe is the same skin as our inner ear, the nose and nostrils, lips, reproductive orifices... I introduce them to Sontag's definition of erotic, an overwhelming sensorial experience (which may or may not be sexual)....as a way to expand our notion of 'sensuality' in relation to space.  Of course Jean-Luc Nancy comes in..

The prompts for Task 1: (hear the discussion at:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZiKZsENMD55T04BbOCfrF7lplH0Gu68A/view?usp=sharing )
  • tactile is texture.
  • tact is not just hands
  • at some point it connects to movement, as a whole body act. 
  • what is being tactful? why is tactful connected to the 'well mannered' (negotiations of individuality individuations, me, other, negotiations).
  • skin is where we negotiate our inside and outside, ourselves and world. 
  • tact as connected to 'tacit', suspension at times described as a silent pause, but it has a suspension before the next impulse manifests itself.
  • tact is one of the most heightened senses, but also the most ambiguous.  
I ask them to explore the chromatic scale of 'being in space is touching and being touched'.  I ask them to find nuggets of experience of spatial tactility.

They come back and we take five minutes to write a quick impression of what took place...the poetics of practice of that which is only theirs.

The prompts for Task 2-
After the 'debrief'. I ask them to take 1-2 thoughts from the experience and turn into a 'task' to be given to another, in fact, we decide to create a shared score.  The tasks of this score ranged from long poetic statements or shorter factual ones...find a boundary and fill it with your body, the same touch in different places provide various degrees of danger and safety.....
Listen to the score at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_63ALus5hEPC4Nl5KuvdW4LQQQcgqdmA/view?usp=drivesdk

We take one hour to explore at least one, but it could be many..... the experience led to questions of the changing nature of personal focus, in and out, on and off, the sensation of texture as an impetus to movement, the role of memory in the task based exploration, notions of authenticity....

Grass Stains 25220 from Theatre enCorps on Vimeo.
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Wednesday 26th February 2020, DAY 3

I shifted and brought Bachelard and Lefebvre a day sooner, I thought best to do the final front loading  today, mid week so that we can unpack as the final days of exploration take place.

Here is is the audio file of the morning discussion before 'passing control' to the artists.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_uwJGbsTy_ktXogobNqh5OAg6IdvOws1/view?usp=sharing


Not so many videos and pictures, technology induced  brain meltdown, but at least one bit!  I hid in a corner, as if I was an 'unprepared audience' to see how the interventions would reach me through space...  find Aeon and Kayla's loop (with a cameo by Christopher).

Grass Stains Day 3 Lefebvre from Theatre enCorps on Vimeo.

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Thursday 27th February DAY 4

Today we focussed on a second exploration of the site as well as clarify 'nuggets' of material that are beginning to acquire form.  The focus of today was 'the audience', how do we shape the event so that they can enter the space?  How do we 'put them' inside an experiential realm?  what is agency fir the audience in site-specific work other than participation?
Here you can access the full audio record of the discussion:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a_YH1oclloa0nMT3b1gaz7ews4UksFY_/view?usp=sharing
The explorations were documented below:


We began to mind map ideas and concepts to design the shared ‘organising’ score that nonetheless allows individual navigations and open choice for both artists and public.