New Work / The Test Pieces
- Submitting institution
-
Middlesex University
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 907
- Type
- I - Performance
- Venue(s)
- Kunstbau at Lenbachhaus Munich, Germany
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first performance
- August
- Year of first performance
- 2014
- URL
-
http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/16692/
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The Test Pieces is a live work, which constitutes a choreographic investigation into time, memory and site. In this research practice, Butcher revisited her earlier works The Site (1983) and Body as Site (1993). In considering this archive work, Butcher placed a focus on ‘language as source and the territory of experience’, asking: What was the language that was used for the making of The Site and Body as Site? What was significant in the way that movement vocabulary was accessed and motivated? How has language moved on since? How can a new language be found?
In her collaboration with dancers, Butcher placed a concrete focus on working with the idea of physical remnants left behind after the demolition of architectural buildings. She explored how remains (and hence the past) can be recorded and inscribed through a movement language resting in an empty space. Using mooring ropes as an extension of the dancers’ bodies, the work presents conceptual and literal traces of their movements across the space. The final iteration of the work also included the use of live video capture, with visual fragments of movement transmitted as a live tracing onto small monitors placed in the space.
An early version of the work entitled New Work was initially created in 2014 with four dancers for the 110-metre-long Galerie Kunstbau/Lehnbachhaus (a former underground station), in a light installation by Dan Flavin. It was reworked as The Test Pieces with a new cast for Nottdance Festival 2015 in Nottingham Contemporary Gallery. A further iteration involving five dancers was presented at Tanz im August Festival 2015 at Akademie der Künste in Berlin.
Supported by Arts Council England, Middlesex University, Dance 4, Tanztendenz Munich, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in cooperation with Joint Adventures Munich, Tanz im August Berlin.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -