Marguerite Galizia – Dance Artist / Choreographer
A series of ‘ideas’ explored during a one week residency at LICA in Lancaster with video artist Marina Tsartsara. This is documentation of work in progress, looking at the idea of framing, perspective and real illusion. The project was funded by dancedigital and the Arts Council England and received further support through Chisenhale’s Refine residency in 2014.
I don’t mean to get all gushy about it being the end of the year blah blah. My inbox and news feeds are crammed with “looking back”, “taking stock” followed by…. wait for it… “what’s next?”
But… sometimes punctuations like year ends are a good opportunity to raise the poignant moments out of the avalanche that is general life. This one is an important one, so I’m saying it again here because I’m worried that many people missed it. The most poignant moment of 2015 for me was a performance of “Celebration Florida” by Greg Wohead. People think that because I’m an artist, therefore I always get what artwork is about. That’s not at all the case. I’m never really sure. I think this work was something about saying goodbye, about surrogacy…about using people as a surrogate for someone else… I think. Whatever it was about, it had nothing at all to do with Celebration Florida. Maybe it wasn’t so much its aboutness that gripped me. It was its honesty, it’s realness. Two performers stand in for the artist himself. They’re instructed via headphones to perform the piece he created. They are surrogates for him in a piece about loneliness and saying goodbye (sorry if I got that wrong), but by the end they are real surrogates for us, the audience. Audience members walk up to them to give them a hug, they hug them like they were hugging someone they lost, someone they may never see again.
The work had such a deep impact on me it caused a surge of feelings that changed my life a little. That night did actually become a good bye for me. It crossed into reality in a way that could not have been more elegantly crafted.
I’m never sure who, if anyone, reads my blogs. Some of you know me as a Pilates teacher, some as a colleague, some as an artist or friend. There’s a reason I combine both my teaching and artistic work and that’s because my motivation as a teacher is just as much fed by my artistic endeavours as my artistic work is fed by my teaching. (Though, perhaps the latter is more literal.) And, something I’d really like for 2016 is to encourage more of the people I teach to see some of the amazing work that I get to see. Who knows, it might just change you.
As many of you know, I’m currently a trainee on the Pilates Bridging course. After teaching Pilates for 8 years I finally took the long overdue step towards upgrading my certification so that I could begin to teach on the Pilates equipment. As necessary and obvious as this step has been to my career, learning how to be a ‘trainee’ in a field in which I already consider myself to be a ‘professional’, has been a hard pill to swallow.
Ofcourse I know that I do have a lot to learn, as does anyone in this field. The body and movement are an ever emerging landscape, people change, ideas evolve. We’ll never fully ‘know’, we can only keep on searching and developing and no doubt at some point we’ll all get stuck on one idea or another. We’ll all do something that we look back at 10 years later and wonder how on earth we ever considered that to be safe. (At least so the teachers who have been teaching long enough to experience this, have told us.)
The problem is that this appreciation of the unknown seems a little at odds with the way in which we have to stand up each day in front of classes full of people, facing clients who pay us to know, and attempt to inspire confidence in what we teach. Afterall what we do involves putting ourselves out there all the time. We need to practice what we preach, we need to be clear about what we teach and we need to be confident and to some degree, authoritative in our work. Because without establishing our voice, we’ll never get anywhere.
What I have realised over the last twelve months is that that ‘voice’ can very easily be confused with having an ‘ego’. I include myself in this too. I walked onto the course knowing what I knew. And knowing what I knew made me want to seek recognition for this. Unfortunately this little monkey of an ego encountered everyone else’s ego’s too. I guess I realised that Pilates teaching is quite an ego-centric profession and it has to be because we all work, mostly, quite independently, and so we all get used to our ‘way’ of doing things. Another thing I noticed is: we’re not very good at taking criticism, because that undermines the notion that we ‘know’ which can be very de-stabilizing for a self-employed teacher whose ‘know-how’ is the source of their livelihood.
I think that it’s one area in which the dance world has a lot to teach the Pilates world. Being an artist requires an equal amount of ‘putting yourself out there’. We often have to put work in a public domain before it’s even clear in our own heads, and we have to accept that it will be judged. We compete with each other for the very small pots of funding that exist these days, and for the recognition that we need from the big institutions in order to allow us to continue to make new work. But here’s the key: we don’t have all out war on online discussion forums. We agree and disagree with each other about lots of things, we like and dislike each other’s work, we get frustrated at times when we see the same old people being recognised. Yes, all true. But when we walk into each other’s rehearsals, watch each other’s works in progress or pay to see each other’s performances, we don’t blatantly try to put each other down. We don’t lie and say we loved it when we didn’t. We know how to provide constructive feedback, we know how to give a sense of what we thought without compromising our position and still we have the graciousness to accept that none of us create amazing work all the time.
The reason for this is that debate, feedback and discussion are built in to the practice of making right from the outset. I remember early on in my dance training, sitting in a group in a composition class, where we were all struggling with how polite we needed to be about someone’s work that we all felt had fallen a bit short. The lecturer stood up and said that the ground zero of any contructive peer feedback has to be that we’re all amazing, we’re all talented, we’ve all got a huge amount of potential. But we can’t grow unless we learn how to question, and how to receive questions.
Feedback is a perspective. It can come from someone you respect and who is years ahead of you. Unfortunately it can also come from someone you do not respect and who has no appreciation of you. And it doesn’t always come from a place of genuine contribution. Giving and receiving feedback is a skill that we need to learn and nurture. The giver needs to detach from jealousy or any other emotion that may be hi-jacking their perspective. The receiver has to recognise where that offering is coming from and be strong enough to either accept or shelf it. When both the giver and the receiver do it well it’s a reminder to both to question what we have forgotten to question.
The problem is that none of us are perfect. That doesn’t mean that we should all give up and stay in bed. Does it matter if what you say today is not what you say tomorrow? Being challenged on what we know doesn’t mean that we’re wrong. It’s an opportunity to understand what we know further. Against the acceptance of never fully knowing, we still somehow have to decide on what we know today and teach that with full appreciation of the fact that we only know what we know today, perhaps tomorrow we’ll have to review it. As one choreography teacher once told me: each performance is a framing of one point in time, it doesn’t have to be the final picture. We can’t be afraid to say what we think. Putting it out there is brave because it invites discussion, and someone somewhere will disagree with you. When you know that and you put it out there anyway, you open yourself up to growth. But growth can be easily squashed when it’s met with agression and jealousy.
We’re lucky enough to be a part of a profession that I strongly believe is a force for real good in the world. Let’s be one that grows also.
Where am I? – A dancedigital commission conceived and directed by Marguerite Galizia; Developed in collaboration with Simon Katan and performed by Daniel Watson.
Inspired by Daniel Dennett’s philosophical experiment, this work is a ‘conversation’ between a performer (Dan Watson) and a ‘Speaking Space’ (created by the composer and coder, Simon Katan).
The work presents the impossible scenario of the protagonist’s brain being removed from his body and installed in a lab from where it continues to control and think as though it were sill inside his body.
A solo performer, (body and brain intact), wrestles with the space and with the concept of consciousness itself in an attempt to define, control and locate his self-ness. The work illuminates the issues of body/mind dualism, personal agency, free will and control that are highlighted in current research in the field of cognitive neuroscience and AI.
“A funny, cunning and technically subtle mind- bender with an adept and very engaging central performance from Dan Watson.” – Donald Hutera
watch the trailer here: https://vimeo.com/77220945
Conceived and directed by Margurerite Galizia, developed in collaboration with Simon Katan (sound and software) and performed by Daniel Watson. ‘Where am I?’ was commissioned by dancedigital and supported by National Lottery funding through the Arts Council England.26th April 6pm– University of Bedfordshire, Polhill Ave – MK41 9DU Bedford – United Kingdom Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/dancedigital-mobilities-festival-25-27-april-2014-tickets-10668233975
3rd May 7.30pm– The Weston Auditorium, de Havilland Campus, University of Hertfordshire AL10 9EU Tickets: http://www.herts.ac.uk/about-us/events/2014/may/dance-springs
16th May 7.30pm – Please note, due to the scratch nature of this event, the artist will only be able to show a 15 minute excerpt of the piece followed by a Q&A: Free To Fall, Richmix, 35-47 Richmix, Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA
Tickets: http://www.richmix.org.uk/whats-on/event/free-to-fall-16-may/
31st May 7.30pm– Chelsea Arts Collective, St Lukes’s Town Hall, Chelsea, London. Entrance is free. Donations accepted. Further details: http://run-riot.com/wild-card/donald-hutera-and-lilia-pegado-chelsea-arts-collective-st-luke%E2%80%99s-church-hall
3rd June 7.30pm– Go Live Extended, The Lion & Unicorn Theatre, 42-44 Gaisford Street, London NW5 2ED
Tickets: http://www.lionandunicorntheatre.com/goliveextended.php
The Case for Code by Marguerite Galizia and Kate Sicchio
Kate and I co-wrote this article about the need for dance artists to become more familiar with programming, to avoid simply falling into cliche.
In December 2013 I attended Sten Rudstrom’s 3-day workshop ‘Ta(l)king Your Head Off. Here’s my account of the work.
An eclectic mix of people gather at the Buddhist Art Centre in Bethnal Green. We take turns round the group answering the inevitable question: Why are you here? I’m reassured by the number of people who admit to being scared of using their voice in performance, or who feel self-conscious at the sound of their voice. This is what we’re here to work on: to learn the tools that might enable us to ‘vocalise’ or ‘talk’ in movement improvisation. Feeling at ease I settle into a warm up. And then… the group erupts into what sounds like a spontaneous collective orgiastic choir: sighs, moans, mouth wobbles, hums and growls begin to fill the room, so that anyone walking past outside might be forgiven for wondering what we were “up to” in there. It took all the concentration I could muster not to simply burst out laughing.
Sten begins by asking everyone to notice the point when one activity changes into another. We’re all improvising our own warm ups at this stage. He asks us to be clear about when one activity is over and another one starts. The intention is not to layer one activity with another. My critical voice disapproves of the task: surely warming the body up is a kind of layering. It’s all one activity. ‘Let it go’ I think to myself. I’ve been well and truly distracted from my task of warming up. Not only do I find it impossible to follow my body with this interruption of making complete shifts between activities, but now the room is humming like a monster on heat.
Sten brings me back: the moments when you are within an activity we call ‘frames’. The changes from one frame to another are called ‘shifts’. Semantics reassuringly ground me back in the present. Frame – Shift – Frame – Shift. Further clarification: Why shift? What are you responding to? Sten pins down the reasons for moving from one frame into another:
– A bodily sensation
– A feeling / emotional state
– An association of the mind / idea
I notice that I’m married to bodily sensation, the feeling state is fuzzy in my head (I barely remember his example) and I never have any good ideas! Even though I remain quite silent, the sounds around me feel less distracting. The only real nuisance is the internal chatter box that keeps worrying about whether I’m good enough.
Another pause. Sten asks us how we’re getting along. How to stop the internal chatter? The left brain, he states, will want to qualify, to label, to reduce, all in the name of keeping you safe. He proposes a tool: let the internal chatter be the instigation for the next frame. It occurs to me at this stage that the language sounds quite similar to that used in meditation techniques. Perhaps because moving requires so little effort or concentration at this stage in my life, my brain is easily occupied elsewhere. It’s also a genetic thing. My Dad often wonders off into his own little world, and I notice that my brothers have this tendency too. So how do you bring yourself back to the present? I nearly deleted that sentence when I realised I’d written it in the second person. Sten asked us all to speak in the first person during the feedback sessions. So, how do I bring myself back to the present when my brain starts to drift elsewhere? How do I restrain the internal chatter? Sten’s suggestion is not to suppress it, but to use it. Give it a job. In meditation ‘anchors’ are used to give the brain a focus. Whether that’s by tapping into breath, or sensation, or finding a mantra to come back to. All these are techniques to, in Sten’s words:
“give the dog of the brain a bone to chew on”
He gives us another clue: ‘eyes’, the mirror to the soul. Sten says that if you allow the eye to glaze over you are retreating into ‘left brain mode’. I can’t be absolutely sure that this is the case. I know Sten highlights the left/ right brain split in order to create some clarity in the work, but I’m not convinced that he’s got it quite right. First of all, as far as I’m aware, the dreaming mode is more of a Right brain activity, whereas the left brain may well be responsible for critical thought. He seems not to have factored in the role of the frontal lobe, the area of the brain that inhibits us from carrying out actions that may not be acceptable in society. Still he’s right on one front: being present requires an active engagement of the eyes. In London we’re all particularly good at walking around with our eyes cast downwards. Not engaging. For the last few weeks I’ve tried to bring my gaze up, not meeting others, but at least not trying to cut off the world.
Sten feels that the eyes should be a part of the movement. This was a huge discussion when I was training. I was often accused of having great technique, but looking ‘dead’ and ‘expressionless’ in my face. Well, I never felt that layering on a ‘look’ could actually feel right. It just felt like a superimposed exclamation mark at the top of a moving body. The ‘eyes down’ mode is quite typical of contemporary dance aesthetic, letting the movement do the talking. But Sten’s understanding made some sense of this. He speaks about the eyes being a part of the movement. Keeping present allows me to use my eyes as an integral part of the movement, whereas retreating into my head will literally cut out my focus, draw me in… so the only way that the eyes can truly be a part of the movement is if I am absolutely present in the here and now. If I’m just doing something with my eyes but not really present, then that’s superficial. Why didn’t anyone tell me that 10 years ago!!!!!!!!
We split into pairs (oh god, I think) one person ‘directs’ by saying ‘shift’ whenever they want to and the other person carries on with the improvisation, shifting frame when directed. I move first. My partner Amara later tells me that I rarely move out of the sagittal plane. My focus and my body are either up or down, I never engage my focus when standing at eye level. I also tend to repeat an activity within a frame rather than allowing it to develop. I admit that I’m finding it hard to just stay in the present.
Sten brings in another tool. Don’t go with the first movement impulse that arises. The reason we fall into habitual or known pathways is another left brain interference (I’m beginning to think of my left brain as the enemy here). It’s an instinctive desire to contain, label, simplify and flatten a movement. He suggests using ‘spontaneous self interruption’ i.e.: pauses. “tune in to the sensation and then allow that to inform the movement”.
So far Sten hasn’t really spoken about making noises, though you wouldn’t believe that from the sound in there all morning. We come back to our partners after the break. One stands still, whilst the other massages their back, arms, legs, shoulders. (as a side note – massaging someone in an upright standing posture isn’t the easiest of tasks). ‘Make sounds’ Sten tells the people receiving the massage. My voice feels stuck in my chest. I have to breathe deeply just to let something out. Luckily I start to feel less self-conscious. At least Sten hasn’t asked me to dig deep for some unexplained reason to generate sound. He’s just told me to do it. Fine, I think. The rest of the afternoon is spent in different pairs, allowing sounds to lead into words and vice versa, using sounds as the initiation of movement. Sound IS movement, Sten says. Of course it is…
Day two arrives. It feels as though everything we could ‘learn’ was offered on the first day. So today involved more practice. Half an hour before the end of play and Sten asks us all to sit along one length of the studio. Oh no! … my inner scaredy cat starts trembling. And then, yes he did: he made each of us get up in front of everyone else and just improvise: movement/ voice the lot. Gulp.
Well having survived the disaster of my first solo improvisation, I walk back into the space on the third and final day. I finally click that the term ‘warm up’ doesn’t mean the gradual and considered layering of movement that we use in ‘training’ or ‘conditioning’ the body. It’s a chance just to get into the present, to tap in to the body and voice. Sounds/ words reverberate through my movement and vice versa. The interchange is so fluid, that I actually enjoy it! The day is spent with more exercises, more feedback, more thoughts circulated. We work in pairs and this finally starts to grate. I have partners who don’t quite ‘get’ the task, or who insist on giving me feedback (the cheek!!) The thing is, I realise, that being honest about what you’re doing isn’t always that easy. I start to get frustrated by the lack of rigour in other people’s practice. Not Sten’s of course. But other participants who are convinced that they’ve ‘got it’. If you scratch the surface you realise how superficial it is. We end with a solo improvisation during which I feel more re-assured of what I know. I’m not ‘there’ yet, of course. But after years of being chastised for being a performer who doesn’t ‘open their mouth’ I feel that I’ve proved to myself at least that the ability is there. It’s just that I never had a good enough reason to do it!
I’ve just started two new Pilates Classes @ Diorama Studios.
These are relaxed and friendly classes for all levels and abilities. Learn how to work your body effectively and intelligently, gain strength and flexibility and leave feeling energised for the week ahead!
What: Mixed Ability Pilates Classes
When: Thursdays from 31st October
Where: Diorama Arts Studios, 201 Drummond Street, Regents Place, London NW1 3FE
Times and Prices:
Class 1
18.00-19.15 (1hr 15min)
£72 for 8 class course, or £12 drop in.
Class 2
19.15-20.15 (1hr)
£64 for 8 class course, or £10 drop in.
Mats and Small Equipment provided
Contact: margueritegalizia@gmail.com
“Marguerite pays meticulous attention to the smallest details which make a very real difference to each exercise. Her knowledge and experience in biomechanics means she is able to treat each person she sees as an individual, making small adjustments to posture or technique so that the benefits of each position are maximised. Classes with Marguerite are friendly and relaxed, yet you always leave with the feeling you have worked hard!” – Client Testimonial
If you didn’t do class at ID this morning, well then you didn’t do class at ID this morning… but not to worry: Sarah Wookey is teaching for the next few days. Her class is for both professional dancers and non dancers with a movement background. She brings together a rigorous interest in, and knowledge of, Bartenieff Fundamentals together her desire to get moving. Refreshingly for a release class, this did not involve spending 1.5hours rolling around on the floor in semi-sleep mode. Phew!
She divides the class into three functional components. First we begin lying on the floor doing the now well known Bartenieff patterns: in and out of centre, body half and cross-lateral. These become strung together in a simple movement phrase, upping the tempo so you really begin to feel the seemless transitions and adjustments that your body needs to make to remain absolutely ‘true’ to the pattern. An improvisation which focused on reach and push dynamics brought us to standing, walking and then running.
The second section of the class was a gradual development of patterns in standing travelling sequences. Simple patterns, mixed up, sped up, interchanging between body halves, bringing clarity to complex movement.
The final section was a simple phrase / sequence that incorporated the movement patterns we had just experienced in isolation. You shift into performative presence, selecting dynamics but remaining true to the ‘real’ direction of the movement.
A clear, rigorous and intelligent way to get yourself moving. Certainly a teacher worth looking out for!
Looks like my thoughts made some impression….
I used to have a sort of embargo against articles about crowdfunding. It wasn’t that I didn’t see a place for it, or thought it was an illegitimate way to make money; I just thought that there wasn’t really any depth to the topic worth talking about.
But, times change, and a fewarticleslater, I find that crowdfunding has really come into its own as a subject worth introducing to my readers. To that end, I was thrilled when I discovered that a dancing blog, of all places, had written up an excellent guide on how someone with no knowledge of crowdfunding could set up a project and get their dreams funded. Below, you will find my summary of the guide’s sticking points, originally compiled by Marguerite Galizia and presented on her personal blog.
Crowdfunding is a way to get your projects, personal campaigns…
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Marguerite Galizia