It's all about the GREAT CHAIN OF BEING. 

The tension between being a thinking person and an animal. A beast and a god. 
Thomas joined us on Day 2 to chat body - mind - pain - mortality - immortality etc. As always, listening to him was extremely inspiring and would deserve a whole day! 

Today, we danced and improvised cells making a mass / bodily needs / being human. 

It feels like there would be so much more to explore. From DNA to strange cellular phenomenon whose names are impossible to remember. 

A B S U R D   H U M A N  C O N D I T I O N

Today, we explored the word, texture, physicality of DYSFUNCTIONALITY. The condition of being dysfunctional.
We chatted DNA, consciousness, body, mind, genes. 
We drew, we sculpted, we embodied and we embraced. Also, we were very hot. 

D Y S F U N C T I O N A L I T Y 

Dysfunctional cell
in a 
Dysfunctional organ, 
in a 
Dysfunctional body
in a 
Dysfunctional group of people
in a 
Dysfunctional place
in a 
Dysfunctional country
on a 
Dysfunctional planet 

As Annie Pender told me last September: health might be communication, unblocked pathways. 

I guess... I am interested in those blocked pathways, these frictions, these impossible communication.

Tomorrow for more.

This is the end and yet the beginning of it all (background lyrical music)
 
3 weeks have passed by really quickly. They have been inspiring, surprising, challenging, questioning, testing, wondering, dancing and full of momentum.
 
The Wellcome Collection’s Reading Room overflows with treasures about science, health and illness. The division mind and body remains a real enigma and gynaecological cancers too. I realised a lot of people (men and women) were not able to place a WOMB or a CERIX on a drawing. There is a lot of work there to be done. So we’ll keep on diving, digging and trying to make sense or give body to what is scary, frightening but also ô so absurd: a disease.
 
What the hell it is, to have a body?
 
I leave you there with few of the quotes I found at the Wellcome Collection, but most of all, with Thomas Stern’s essay The Human and the Octopus >> HERE
 
Thank you to everyone who joined our discussions, our workshop, our work in progress showcases and who have been sharing references/books/thoughts with us!
 
Thank you to Hattie, Rosie, Joachim, Jennifer, Lewis, Ali, Danilo, Eva, Annie, Ruth, Karin and Guillaume; Adeola Olaitan, Thomas Stern, The Place, Arts Council England, Valerie Brown, the Wellcome Collection, TROIS C-L Luxembourg and Kinneksbond Mamer.
 
 
To the next phase!
 
Léa
 
Photo of events at the Wellcome Collection: Danilo Moroni

A workshop, a research, a attempt to set but keep alive, a discussion around gynaecological cancers and women's health, a session for photo/trailer, a sharing, a tech rehearsal.....

It was busy but productive, creative. So much energy is SO fullfilling.

Few of the words that came out during our sharing were:
Empathy
Physical contradictions
Vulnerability
Beast
Creature

........... More to follow.... Tonight TOUCH WOOD.

Ici, c'est un petit coin de paradis pour les travailleurs acharnés, les créateurs qui cherchent sans cesse et qui ne s'épuisent jamais. Vivre dans le studio est le rêve. Encore mieux quand dehors il fait -12 : l'excuse parfaite pour ne pas sortir.
Et puis, la pièce vous suit, dort avec vous et  s'étale physiquement sur plusieurs mètres carrés (corps, cahiers, images, inspirations, sons) .
TOYS prend forme, on trouve sa chair et ses contours.. JOUR-16 avant l'ouverture.
Aujourd'hui il s'agissait de comprendre nos personnages, de se raconter des histoires, de se rapprocher différemment... erm.

 - Feedback forms from particpants both in Newcastle and London -

That’s it.
Our fifth day in the studio here in London is over! And so is the week.
We spent most of the morning improvising… and magic happened.
 
We structured the beginning of the piece and we said goodbye to TOYS for a good month. Next time, we will be in Grenoble…. and it will be January 2017.
 
Thank you to Arts Council for supporting these wonderful, creative and rich R&D sessions, and to Dance City Newcastle and The Place London for having us working in your studios!
Thank you to Catherine Greenwood and Hattie Gregory for helping me thinking and producing these two weeks.
AND
MASSIVE thank you to the incredible dancers who threw themselves full heartedly, Rosie, Elsa, Joss, James and Lewis!

 This morning was glorious; it was all about sharing and experimenting.
Thank you so much to everyone who made it to the workshop (on a Saturday morning!) and who generously played the game.
Some of the words that came back about this morning's session are.... playful, fun, intensity, challenging, subtle, open.
The workshop was definitely a physical approach to the questions we raised on Thursday during the open discussion. Someone said this morning: "It made me wonder if pleasure is something we find within ourselves or if we need others to achieve it, and to which degree?"

In the afternoon, Danilo Moroni joined us for the making of the second teaser. Our first collaboration in July was very exciting and I cannot wait to see what magical images he will come up with this time.

Tomorrow is already our last day. WHAT?