INTERVIEW: Shaun Dillon on reworking We Stand Alone Together for Resolution! 2017

On a wintery Friday evening, I met up with fellow Roehampton alumni Shaun Dillon at London's Southbank to chat about his return to The Place's Resolution! 2017. As well as sharing his experience of reworking We Stand Alone Together, we chatted about his passion for working with young dancers and life in London as a freelance dance artist.

Shaun graduated from University of Roehampton in 2012 and set up his current venture Dillon Dance after a few years of working as a freelance artist. Notably, in 2014, Shaun worked with Matthew Bourne on Lord of The Flies. Shaun's professional works include Rise, That's Not How He Wants It, We Stand Alone Together & Where We Are.

Maya Pindar: What can you tell us about We Stand Alone Together?

Shaun Dillon: We Stand Alone Together began as a 3rd year project, which has taken various forms over the years. So, for Resolution! 2017, I decided I wanted to develop it into a more fleshed out work, without the perimeters a 3rd year project has to subscribe to! 

The piece itself comes from a really personal place, stemming from the person I used to be. I wasn't the happiest, wasn't in the best place mentally. So it's interesting to let this work be informed by the person I am now. It's a very emotionally... accessible work. There are themes of frustration, anger, having to make peace with something you're not ready to make peace with. Emotional complexity and being able to connect to the work is really important to me. I want to be moved by [dance] works, to leave the theatre having been through an experience.

Photo credit: Danilo Moroni

MP: Can you sum up where your inspiration comes from for WSAT?

SD: Digging away at the surface of it, the movement comes from the trials I had as a teenager and some of the things I had to deal with. I had a lot of tension and conflict within myself- on the surface there was a constant state of rage. There's an idea of feeling strong, even though you're alone, because your struggle unites you with others in similar situations. I was desperately trying to look for help in areas that I didn't necessarily believe in. So there are themes of almost looking for a higher power. But it's not a religious piece!

MP: What's the rehearsal process like with your dancers?

SD: So it's very different to what I'm used to, which is creating work from scratch. I already have the framework and the atmosphere of the piece. The rehearsal process is very movement heavy. It's important for me as a choreographer to have my dancers really moving through space. I like unison and I like my dancers to move as a pack. So the rehearsal process is a lot of me just putting movement onto the dancers. The original piece was made entirely by myself, then I put that onto an all female cast. I like to watch movement and I feel like that was my salvation- my coming of age.

MP: What challenges have you had to overcome while reworking WSAT?

SD: The music... because the university's music licence was a bit different to The Place's! So having to restructure and explore the work with a new soundscape was really difficult. I had to almost close my ears to what the piece used to sound like. I'm collaborating with a good friend of mine Jenny Whittaker, who is composing the new original score. She's doing an amazing job. Structurally, the new score is different, but tonally it is very similar. The sounds and instruments are very similar. We're working a lot with the sound of bells- it's something that you might associate with ritualistic ceremonies, almost cult-like. 

Photo credit: Danilo Moroni

MP: Can you pick one word that describes how you feel returning to Resolution! 2017?

SD: Progression. There is a real sense of progression from last year to this year, which I suppose is very natural. The support we get, the quality of what's being produced, and hopefully that will be obvious in the final product.

MP: As an emerging choreographer, what is the best piece of advice that you have been given?

SD: Hmm.. That's such a hard question to answer! Ok, 'the first thought is usually the right one'. It's not a direct quote. But it's something that I have mulled over and streamlined over the last few years. It's about going with my gut and trusting that the first idea is usually the right one. Gut instinct. 

MP: Last question! If you could dance with anyone, who would it be?

SD: It's going to sound really cheesy- but my students. It sounds so cliché! But their youthful energy, their sense of exploration and questioning of everything, their disagreement and curiosity. They inspire me, they make me want to improve and stay current; to be a better choreographer. And that is the beauty of teaching for me. So yeah, if I could spend the day dancing with anybody, it would be my students.

Dillon Dance are performing on 4th February at The Place's Resolution! 2017. Interested in Shaun's ideas? You can find out more about Dillon Dance, the amazing cast and other projects here.

Stay tuned for more articles and reviews of We Stand Alone Together in the run up to Resolution! 2017 at The Insanity In Dancing #Res2017

REVIEW: Footprint Dance Festival: First Steps

9 May 2016
Footprint Dance Festival
Roehampton Dance
First Steps

Footprint Dance Festival kick started a week of workshops, events and evening performances with an eclectic mix of contemporary dance at First Steps. The bill included works from Roehampton Dance students Ellie Hall, Kali Allen, Dan Walsh, Brandon Trieu, Mitch Hammond, Harriet Roberts, Emily Robinson and Daniella Fox. Outside artists, Elevate Dance Company, and Sekar Sari also presented interesting films and live performance.

Beginning the evening Ellie Hall presented the self explanatory and amusing In Eight, which plays with timing, simple (but satisfying) movement, repetition and sound. 

Following an uplifting performance of Iridescent by Elevate Dance Company, final year student Dan Walsh presented an incredibly fun and light hearted duet set to Nina Simone's Here Comes the Sun. Bound together at the wrist, the pair scuffle over a pair of sunglasses. Overtly stylised and pantomime-like, Walsh parades about the stage, triumphant in winning back his sunglasses from dancer Abi Smallwood. Here Comes The Sun is cheeky and bold.

Film highlights include Kali Allen's DRACA AND ARACH, which explores the loss of a loved one and the chasm left behind. Daniella Fox's Feathered Folk draws upon natural imagery and repeated motifs. And, Indonesian Artist Sekar Sari investigates identity through the use of a traditional mask- a thoughtful and pensive film.

Other exciting works include Introspectator choreographed by Brandon Trieu of SomaKinetic Movement Collective. Dancer Phoebe Crnich indulges in gorgeous undulations and fast paced floor work. Set to a vaguely French score, Mitch Hammond's tender choreography in The Loneliest Boy in the World also takes advantage of his dancers abilities. Fluttering wrists and highly gestural movement guide Hammond's exploration.

Finally, 3rd year students Harriet Roberts and Emily Robinson's 3 tbsp brought about a dark and ghostly tone. The dancers clutch one another, humming quiety on the dimly lit stage. Their bodies seem to melt together- it's hard to see where one body ends and the other begins. Gentle mime, coupled with moments of precise unison and a shadowy set create Roberts and Robinson's captivating dream like realm.

Footprint Dance Festival continues at Roehampton Dance until 14 May. For more information please visit: www.footprintdancefestival.com

REVIEW: Zoi Dimitriou's The Chapter House Returns to Laban Theatre

Athens-born Zoi Dimitriou brings The Chapter House back to Laban for a fresh perspective on choreographic processes, meaning and digital media. Combining pieces from previous works, Dimitriou's The Chapter House is nostalgic while still boldly unique.

Before the work has even begun, we know minimalism will be key. The stage is strung with washing lines, piles of linen and paper are neatly stacked and a music stand sits expectantly downstage.

Mark Coniglio, inventor of Isadora Software (real-time interactive software) creates the digital structure of the work. Coniglio films Dimitriou's spoken word and snappy poses, before transferring the images to a laptop onstage. He shifts quickly as she dips in and out of floor work, and speaks in a strange foreign tongue in front of the music stand. He pushes the camera invasively close to her and then suddenly darts backwards, capturing Dimitriou from different angles.

Her phrase of snappy poses is later repeated and developed, this time the movements are sinuous and gooey against the backdrop of Caccini's Ave Maria. We can see Dimitriou layering repetition and mirroring- a clear open window into her choreographic process. But none of this makes sense yet. 

The Chapter House may not be for the easily distracted, but for those of us who do feel lost finding meaning in the choreography, Dimitriou's dynamic range is simply something else. Her lines are clean and crisp, and then suddenly she curls her spine into creature-like undulations and contortions. If nothing else, we are happy just watching her move.

In deafening silence, Conigilio pegs sheets onto suspended washing lines, forming five makeshift screens. Onto these, pulsing images of Dimitriou's repeated poses, curling spines and sinuous floor work are projected. Deafening silence turns to rumbling electronic whirring and pounding mechanical sounds, interrupted by a recording of Dimitriou's voice. She explains, disjointedly, the five 'chapters' of the work- mythos, agape, love, ptosis, and crisis, while broken sentences are projected onto a moving washing line of pegged paper. 

All at once, Coniglio's invasive filming, the strange spoken word, and repeated motifs make perfect sense. The unknown language is simply Dimitriou's playful experimentation with sounds and words. And Coniglio's nostalgic images appear like flashing memories, muddled by an unfaithful mind. In an age that consumes and obsesses with technology, The Chapter House breathes life into minimalism and digital media. Dimitriou creates a multifaceted and highly detailed work that opens up new avenues in British post-modern dance. 

If you can accept the challenge of The Chapter House, Dimitriou is well worth watching.

Maya Pindar

REVIEW: The Surreal Fantasy of Pina Bausch's 'Ahnen'

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch - Ahnen
Sadlers Wells
Friday 24th April 2015

Whisked away into a strange fantasy world, Peter Pabst's cacti ridden set seems to remind us of a futuristic or alien realm. With the addition of sand, straw, an enormous ladder, a great tank of water and a wind machine, Pabst's set allows the dancers to interact with a range of natural and distinctly man-made structures. Yet the randomness of the head of lettuce, the remote controlled helicopter and the large rubber walrus sitting at the back of the stage, remains distinctly surreal.

Busy is the best way to describe Pina Bausch's Ahnen. Driven by the pulsating and changing hypnotic music, the dancers go about their activities on stage with a sense deliberation and conviction:

Perched on a small wooden stool at the front of the stage, a woman busies herself grating a white substance into a bucket throughout the majority of the first act. A man, handcuffed and gagged with an orange, receives a shave from a man in a smart suit and gloves. Later, a man with an outrageously large white feather headdress (which later appears to actually be a tutu), clad only in blue underpants, sits completely still staring into space. Elsewhere, a smartly dressed manservant continuously irons newspapers for a blind woman, as she abruptly fires a pistol into the audience.

Behind the action centre stage, a woman in a black dress and heels unloads wheelbarrows of bricks to carefully build a wall. The crashing sound of the bricks interrupts the action downstage, breaking up the confusion and repetition of the dancers in view. Despite Bausch's renowned reputation in Europe, the disconnection of the dancers arbitrary actions during first act left me feeling bewildered- and cold.

However, the work progresses and the actions of the men and women become more coherent, as they begin to interact with one another and with the audience. Rather than performing their activities separately, without acknowledgement of one another, the dancers are now seen in group formations, united by a prop or a movement.

During a storm created by a wind machine offstage, a man pushes an enormous wardrobe through the cacti, offering blankets to the dancers. Later, a woman addresses the audience, demanding they 'straighten up!', in between amusing discussions of the sound of flies and how to paint water. A man and woman mime a barbarous cartoon fight, stretching each others faces, switching limbs and removing each others guts. While still remaining seemingly random, the connection between the dancers allows meaning to exude from their actions.

It appears that amongst the randomness of the dancer's actions and the indiscriminate objects onstage, Ahnen is a surreal commentary on human life. Are our human desires and activities as futile as the blind woman's request for her ironed newspapers? Bausch's intriguing dreamscape seems to point towards the pointlessness and futility of our own human activity.


Ahnen continues at Sadler's Wells until 26 April 2015