HowNow Open Sessions: regular co-led gatherings to move, chat, play and connect for dance artists, in Cornwall UK
HowNow Open Sessions began in October 2021. To receive updates, join our mailing list by emailing hownowcollective@gmail.com
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HowNow Open Session information: who it is for and how it works
This is a day for anyone working with movement and/ or dance as an aspect of their creative/ performance/ making practice. Time to gather, play and share ideas (practical, artistic, fantastic, realistic) about how we want to make dance work, now.
You may be based in Cornwall, passing through, or just fancy visiting us here. (We can help with liftshares/ travel info.)
We want to move together, hatch plans perhaps, and also have a sense of spaciousness to simply chat, to get to know one another, to laugh, to let go, to witness, to offer, to step in and out, and for each person to feel welcome to turn up with how you're feeling on that day. Quite how we do all of that, is what we're currently finding out!
As of 2023, we're trialling bringing a little more structure/ focus to the space as facilitators. Each session one of us three will take more of a lead, bringing an opening prompt or question, and the morning's moving will be guided by that.
We hope that this allows for deeper investigation and play, allowing us all to get more out of the sessions. We will continue to allow good time for our lunchtime chat, and the afternoon will build on the morning's moving, perhaps also incorporating ideas that have surfaced over lunch.
Come as you are, have a natter, have a boogie, see what arises...
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March 2023
Here's a short description/reflection on March's session. We hope this will give a sense of what we're up to for people that couldn't be there but might want to join in in the future...
This Open Session was held by Winona Guy.
For our March 2023 session, Winnie brought an opening prompt: around paying attention, and noticing what's possible. After some warming-up/ arriving time, Winnie led us through a series of moving explorations, each responding to a question such as 'where is your attention now?', noticing our focus wandering within and beyond us. We did some solo/ partner/ trio body work, moving in response to touch, and noticing our attention: as the person offering touch, moving from the point of touch, dancing with the memory of that touch.
Over lunch various topics came up, including the recent NPO outcomes for Cornwall/ SW [which companies are continuing to have regular Arts Council funding through the National Portfolio Organisations (NPO) scheme and which are no longer receiving support through this scheme], and the impact of this on us and other locally-based freelance artists [NPO organisations often employ freelance artists to deliver workshops etc.]. The freelance feelings of isolation and exhaustion also got an airing, and the importance of being able to share these experiences in a non-judgemental, peer-hosted environment.
Between us we had recently taken part in workshops with Annie Hanauer/ Gather Up (Bristol), Independent Dance's International Festival of Learning (London), and a workshop, earlier the same week, led by Gary Clarke, organised by Emily Alden/ Hall for Cornwall at AMATA in Penryn, before seeing his show, Wasteland at HfC. It felt rich to have impressions from all of these experiences in the collective pot, and on all counts we noted how generously these events had been held, really positive experiences.
In the afternoon, we did some timed 'attention' tasks: one minute of attention, five minutes of attention, two minutes of attention. We discussed what came up from that. We took it in turns to move and then be echoed/ reflected by the rest of the group. We each moved alone and then paired up to share one word/ movement that articulated, somehow, that dance. We then danced with the other person's word, and carried on 'wording/ moving' and swapping until we got back to our original partners and received our first word/ movement, fed back to us and unexpectedly transformed.
Unexpectedly transformed. That feels like the two-word version of this gentle, practical, serious, soft, shared day. Thanks to those who came and joined in. And here's to more....
Written by Kyra Norman
April 2023
Here's a short description/reflection on April's session. We hope this will give a sense of what we're up to for people that couldn't be there but might want to join in in the future...
This Open Session was held by Claud Tonietto.
At the start of the session, Claud shared with us two thoughts that would weave throughout the session. The first, something that stuck from a workshop with Annie Pui Ling Lok, was the invitation to be selfish in our practice. How does that change the way we might choose to move and our interactions today? The second, gathered from Claud’s research into Queer Dance, is to recognise the body as social. How might we see and share our dancing bodies differently? These ideas remained present and chewy throughout the day.
After a warm up and arrival into our own bodies (consent for a selfish warm up always feels great!), we travelled across the space with notions of grounding, first moving on a low level, then mid, then high. In trios we then explored these levels together, switching between the three to ensure all levels were covered at all times. We attempt to seamlessly move between the three, testing each other, our vertical flow and our quick responses on a Friday morning.
Claud then invited us to repeat the play of these three levels, but with the leading exploration ‘to disobey’. We can also disobey disobeying. Disobeying quickly arrived, in opposites, obstructions and disengagements before relationships across the floor gave more nuanced findings. New options and directions from A to B shifted to alternative journeys across bodies, gazes, thought processes, chairs, hallways and playlists. Afterwards we reflected on how disobeying allowed more space for chance to occur, for unexpected meaning to arise and how decisions to go with or against relationships and material challenged improvisational decisions we might typically make.
We then were guided into a new proposition to explore our edges. Claud guided us to close our eyes, and using touch explore the edges of our body- softly and firmly. Our edges were then extended into our kinespheres and the space, where our edges expand, disappear, merge. We are guided into smaller spaces, allowing encounters with other bodies to just be, whilst still looking out beyond our edges. This bought up questions of how we take up space, how we hold our own in varying proximities and margins. How we can do both with softness and strength. Physically, socially, politically.
Lunch involved our usual chatter on the steps, getting to know newcomers, catching up with familiar faces, and discussions range from holidays to wider conversations about freelance life, letting go, sustainable travel as artists, challenging outdated gendered structures in training, full circle experiences, movement therapy, the list goes on…
In the afternoon, the session was opened up for anyone to bring something they were working on into the space, that needed some collective thought or dancing to overcome those sticky points we can find in creative practice. We spent some time exploring Miranda’s new work with Newquay Dance Collective at Newquay Orchard, and how to best bring her ideas and the music together in an inclusive way for her open workshop. We danced, we chatted, and we came up with some possibilities which Miranda has taken into her project.
We concluded the day bringing all that we have explored, possibilities, new ways of looking, and disobeying into a final exploration around binaries. On post-it notes we wrote down binaries that we felt existed within the body and movement vocabulary. On sharing, we then took one that interested us to explore and challenge through improvisation, and created movement and words to share with the group. In sharing, it bought us back to notions of the body and movement as social and that in our individual explorations and deviations there are always new findings and connections that bring us together boldly, beautifully and deeply.
Written by Winona Guy
HowNow Open Session
General info:
Next Session:
tbc
These sessions are for anyone working with movement and/or dance as an aspect of their creative/ performance/ making practice - based in Cornwall, passing through, or those who fancy visiting us here. If that's you, we'd love for you to join us.
More info:
We're very much keen to continue to hold a space for us to come together as independent dance/movement artists of the South West and play and share ideas, both artistic and non-artistic on our art form(s). It also feels important to continue to give the sessions spaciousness to chat, to get to know one another, to laugh, to let go, to witness, to offer, to step in and out and to turn up with how you're feeling on that day.
We'll be doing more of just that, but over the next few open sessions we're also going to trial bringing a bit extra to the space as facilitators, and each session one of us three will take more of a lead in the shape of the session. We hope that this allows for a bit of a deeper investigation and play, whilst also allowing us all to get more out of the sessions. We hope it also takes off any pressure to arrive with stuff yourselves, (although you absolutely can!), but there's no expectancy to.
Come as you are, have a natter, have a boogie, see what arises.
Any questions or conversations about lift shares etc do just give us a shout: hownowcollective@gmail.com
Practicalities: Bring lunch, and layers. There's shops quite nearby if you need. 10 minutes' walk from Truro train station. Limited free parking, so if coming by car do allow time to find a space nearby (the street in front of the hall is now part of a residents' parking zone). If you can offer a lift by car, or need a lift yourself, let us know and we can help coordinate that.
Guest Workshop 2022:
Shoulder to Shoulder: Nurturing Solo Creative Practice Together
A weekend workshop led by Orrow Bell
Saturday 10 - Sunday 11 September 2022
Temperance Hall, Penryn
Join a gathering of artists for a weekend of sharing and feeding your own creative practice, shaking your habits and diving into some fresh approaches.
Developing a solo practice for dance and movement making can be an enriching and yet also sometimes an isolating experience - this workshop looks to create a space for a playful, nurturing and inspiring being-alongside-ness as we delve into and deepen our own individual approaches.
Through a series of co-authored scores and invitations, we’ll swim through possibilities for improvisation, movement making, meaning making, reflection, writing and drawing. We’ll interrogate how a practice of respectful being-alongside can be physicalised. We’ll also dip into shared materials and the knowledge in the group. We’ll invite being seen and feeling keenly. We’ll play.
HowNow Open Sessions: regular co-led gatherings to move, chat, play and connect for dance artists, in Cornwall UK
HowNow Open Sessions began in October 2021. To receive updates, join our mailing list by emailing hownowcollective@gmail.com
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