Kyra Norman

GOING, GOING

What makes us human?

How does sound connect us?

What keeps us going?

And what happens when we stop?

Photos: Steve Tanner

Image: screenshot from video by Ruby Ingleheart

Going, Going is a live collaboration between dancer & choreographer Kyra Norman and musician & composer Barnaby Taylor, both based in West Cornwall, UK.

Reflecting on Barnaby’s experience of composing for wildlife and nature documentaries (barnabytaylor.com/work) and Kyra's experience working with movement improvisation as performance, the starting point for this collaboration was an idea to create, for an audience, a sense of watching and hearing a slightly unfamiliar species: ourselves.

Working with an expanded community of experienced dance artists and musicans, aged between 20 and 70, the work invites a thoughtful contemplation of what it is to be human in this complex present moment: a celebration of co-operation, connection and care, in the midst of climate chaos and collapse.

Filmed & audio recorded during a live performance of Going, Going... (October 2023, at the Acorn, as part of a Distant Dances event) Filmed by Ruby Ingleheart, sound recording by Chris Fayers

Photo: Lilou Dobinson

NEXT UP FOR GOING, GOING

We have a Going, Going gig coming up, as part of this Winter's public programme of music, theatre & dance at AMATA (Academy of Music & Theatre Arts, Falmouth University, Penryn Campus)

Tickets and all the info, here: https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/arts-centre/whats-on/going-going

FURTHER BACKGROUND INFORMATION

We chose to work with structured movement improvisation, so that the audience gets to watch the dancers making decisions and responding to each other, the sound, and the context, in real time - thinking about a definition of documentary as "real people involved in real events". We're also playing with the way that music often works, in wildlife documentary, to add emotional resonance or a sense of narrative progression to actions that are instinctive and unscripted, and may be read in multiple ways.

Thinking along these lines also got us wondering about what traits we might want to choose to highlight as distinctive of humans as a species? In a time of human-led climate crisis, where humans are often seen as the problem – foregrounding our negative impact on the world around us – can we draw attention to the aspects of our humanity that are constructive, collaborative, considerate, willing to be seen as vulnerable, and perhaps still a bit wild? We’ve been thinking about the word ‘tending’ – as in, the things we tend to do (habits), and also our capacity to tend (care for). In these times, there’s an urgency around finding ways to adapt some of our habitual behaviours, and to take better care of each other and this planet, our home.

Photos crowdsourced from the audience at our first performance, in June 2023, at the Acorn, Penzance

We shared a first, 10-minute version of this live dance performance with original music as part of Distant Dances, an evening of live improvised movement and dance performance, at the Acorn, Penzance, in June 2023, with a cast of 10 professional dancers from Cornwall and Devon, aged between 20 and 70.

On Thursday 12th October 2023, we shared a 12-minute version, again as part of a Distant Dances event at the Acorn, Penzance. This version will include some live musical elements (piano, cello, percussion), augmenting the recorded track. Working with a slightly different line-up of 12 dancers – in total we now have a pool of 17 local professional performers involved in and contributing to the work:

From 17 - 21 June 2024, we had a week's studio space for research and development as part of the Summer Residency programme at AMATA (Academy of Music and Theatre Arts, Falmouth University). This was an opportunity to develop an updated evening-length programme in 4 parts: 2 live improvisations with dancers and musicians, and 2 structured dance improvisations with original music (as yet untitled) composed by Kath Buckler, and a 15-minute version of Going, Going by Barnaby Taylor.

On Saturday 13th July 2024, Kyra presented a workshop sharing scores that have evolved through the Going, Going process, as part of Yorkshire Dance's Ageless festival of intergenerational dance performance. Kyra was accompanied by 5 dancers who have contributed to Going, Going so far: Angus Balbernie, Talia Sealey, Kuldip Singh-Barmi, Sue Smith and Lois Taylor. Thanks all. The workshop was documented on video by Eleanor Sikorski, and a short film is currently in development.

On Wednesday 9th October 2024, Going, Going will be performed as part of AMATA's public programme. Tickets are live, here: https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/arts-centre/whats-on/going-going

Performers (to date)

Angus Balbernie, Angus Capel, Debbie Fionn-Barr, Winona Guy, Hannah Jacobs, Sarah Levinksy, Katie Lusby, Phoebe McChesney, Tim Merrifield, Polly Motley, Aisha Naamani, Kyra Norman, Talia Sealey, Harry Scott, Kuldip Singh-Barmi, Sue Smith, Sapphire Sumpter, Lois Taylor, Claud Tonietto, Olivia Walton