‘The real issue is not how do you
find your voice, but how to get rid of it’ – Phillip Glass
Can this be the benefit of
creative collaboration? Not
according to Sally Potter. It’s ok to relinquish your voice if you have one, but
some of us don’t have had that privilege. If you’re lucky enough to have a
voice, own it and celebrate it! Collaboration is all too often an excuse to
mask the embarrassment of claiming authorship for something she argues. Mmm, now there's something to argue about…
This and other ideas on creative
collaboration were shared in a panel discussion at Central St Martins, an event
part of Dance Umbrella 2013 held earlier this month, where a number of speakers
working across film, theatre and dance talked about the subject from directed
collaboration to shared authorship. Working as I do in participatory settings,
this was of interest to me and not least because of my recent involvement in a
couple of projects with Entelechy Arts.
One of these is Ambient Jam, a
unique programme of movement and sensory-based work with adults and young
people who have profound and multiple disabilities. Many company members have
physical disabilities combined with learning disabilities preventing them from
expressing in words their experiences, interests and needs. In these sessions,
the body and its senses provide the ways and means for expression and
communication through improvisation, social dance and live movement. The
multi-sensory workshops and short term projects that arise from them lead to a
creative dialogue between all involved.
Contributing to these workshops,
primarily as a visual artist, has challenged my understanding of what
participation and creative collaboration is. In a situation where verbal communication cannot be relied
on, who facilitates what, who leads who, and whose creativity is explored isn’t
so clear anymore. You have to forget what you know, loose your ‘voice’ as it
were, and be completely in the ‘moment’ for the creative exchange to be
meaningful. The outcome is you do find your voice in unexpected places. As the
dancer and choreographer Akram Khan put it in the talk referred to above, to hear music we
sometime need to stop playing and simply hold the flute to the wind.
What have these pictures got to
do with any of the above you may ask? Well, images of Ambient Jam can be seen on this link, meanwhile I've illustrated here images taken while dismantling my installation at Nottingham Castle. Even when working
alone, we are collaborating with our memory and our acquired knowledge. The
dismantling of the work led to the production of objects that were the result
not only of a collaboration between myself, but also the material I worked with, the site and the
weather. The process was planned
and methodical, but they were also happy accidents that were embraced and
lead to what you see pictured here.
