‘Feel free to use the dance floor’
“No time” is no longer a valid excuse to miss out on culture with Romany Dear’s ‘Dancing in a Circle’, exhibiting at the CCA. If you have time to munch a sandwich in seven mins at lunch, you have time to pick up some collective choreography with this accessible programme of performance and participation.
Rather fittingly, I entered the performance space at Tuesday lunchtime wearing my zumba kit as I thought I’d stop by the CCA on the way home from an exercise burst.
I was quite comfortable sitting myself down on the floor underneath the words ‘Feel free to use the dance floor’ scrawled on the walls. Elsewhere the performance timetable was painted on the walls, along with details of the artists involved in the project, a modern and encouraging way to communicate this information.
The performance piece itself was short and sweet. Two dancers, wearing startlingly unfashionable gym kits, emerged from a side-curtain to a throbbing beat, bouncing imaginary basketballs. They owned the dance floor by interacting in an intense part dance-off, part ball-defence routine which felt loose and unrehearsed. At the end of a singular piece, they retreated behind the curtain, leaving behind a hesitant: “is that it?” hanging in the air.
Finding true meaning
Did I feel short-changed by such a short performance? At first, perhaps. But then I moved into the adjoining resource room organised by G.O.D.S (Glasgow Open Dance School) and I discovered the true meaning of the project.
Waiting here was a wealth of information on choreography and performance, along with a notice board of local opportunities to take part in dance projects (and free stationary to take a note of the info!). As I am currently conducting my own research in this area for a personal project, I found myself lost for hours in this performance research-oasis.
As I sat reading, people wandered in to find out more about the project and took note of the performance times, discussing with the on-hand-guide how they were going to fit these bite-sized art chunks into their daily schedules. Maybe this what art for the always-pushed-for-time generation looks like?
Romany Dear successfully makes dance and performance accessible to new audiences, but it would have been nice to know in advance that I could have scheduled in a quick Tesco shop in my lunch hour too.
Lynn Pilkington
‘Joyfully captivating to watch’
For someone who is normally slightly intimidated by the words ‘performance art’, the Solo Variations performance (as part of Romany Dear’s Dancing in a circle is a reminder that we are part of the whole) is as far from intimidating as could be.
The exhibition/show is collaboration between artist and choreographer Romany Dear and the Glasgow Open Dance School (of which she is a founding member). There are three sections of the exhibition. The first is a resource room with articles, papers, books and more all about dance and movement of the body which have in some way impacted or influenced Dear and this exhibition.
The second is the actual performance (of which there are three different ones) and finally there is a space dedicated to film, photos, sketches and ideas that record and document the creative processes behind the entire project.
No separation
The audience has its first glimpse of the solo performer, warming up, as they enter the performance space and find seats on the floor. The only separation between performance space and audience space is a taped down surface to dance on – one which everyone was invited to dance on themselves.
After greeting each onlooker individually with a sincere smile the performance starts. The dancer begins the full choreography without music, at a slower pace while narrating the processes of her movements. After this she repeated the entire choreography but this time at a slightly faster tempo to the fantastic tune ‘Dance’ by ESG.
The performance was joyfully captivating to watch – as a spectator you definitely felt “part of the whole”, and the transparency of the ideas and processes behind it meant the audience was engaged in the entirety of the project and not merely what they saw in the exhibition at the CCA. Walking away at the end I couldn’t wait to get home, turn on some music and dance the night away.
Una Burnley
Romany Dear: Dancing in a circle is a reminder that we are part of the whole is at the CCA, Glasgow until Sunday, 15 March.
Tue – Sat: 11am – 6pm / Sun: 12noon – 6pm / Mon: Closed.
FREE
Afro Fusion Workshop with Nandi Bhebhe: 1.30pm Sun 15 March
For more details: www.cca-glasgow.com
