Michael Clark, Choreomusicality, and the “Material Gap”

Presentation abstract

Abstract

This presentation is based on my first year of PhD research, where I am exploring the concept of choreomusical emergences. My research investigates how choreomusicality can be conceptualised through the idea of ‘unsounded sound’, this is to say, imagined resonances and implied audibility are created in the relationship between music and dance. I am exploring this idea through the work of the choreographer Michael Clark due to the centralisation of music in his choreography, his reworking of and resourcefulness with technique, and the curatorial aspects across (and within) his body of work.

This research has ultimately been shaped and developed through a predicament of archival access, and how one can work a project around the (current) inaccessibility of archival materials. The restrictions imposed by this, have allowed my research to live within ephemeral processes and ways of disseminating knowledge, and investing in the living archive within dance networks operating in London. This paper discusses how I am approaching knowledge of ballet technique through a lens of analytical process, and the positioning of my body within this project as a vessel for research: capitalising on embodied choeromusical knowledge. Further to this, my methodology by necessity of the ‘material gap’ imposed by archival access has necessitated a turn towards what knowledge can be sourced through the transmission between people and bodies as a reflection of the flow of knowledge that occurs endemically within the ecosystem of dance. While I am studying Michael Clark’s work and methods, access to this knowledge is mediated through lineages of pedagogy, collaboration, and ultimately shaped through my language and my own subjective body via inheritance, mirroring, and speculative constructs.