In the Predicament of Ending is a practice that articulates a changing dancing relationship to a choreographer’s vision. This practice was initiated in the company of Rosemary Butcher in 2012 and has continued in 2016 at Inquiring Bodies4 in November and the work was accepted as part of Memory at Work: Remembering Rosemary Butcher in the present tense in December 2016. It has since been danced at conferences and events at Roehampton and Dance4. It is an active practice that could be danced again and again.
Footage of the final section of this practice, danced at Roehampton in 2017.
A written proposal for a short opening ending. (In the Predicament of Ending); This proposal draws on a solo movement practice that I first performed in 2012. It formed part of an MA in Creative Practice; an intensively delivered module called Investigative Practice. Rosemary was our lead teacher on the module and we spent 6 weeks studying with her. The solo that I refer to formed the last work in a ‘Collection’ by the whole group, that was shown in the roof studio at Siobhan Davies Dance Studio. I have been following the reverberations of this period of study in my practice for some time since.
The practice research that I did in those weeks, informed a much longer process of transformation for me as a performer. I attribute this partly to the generosity and to the challenge of working in the way that we did during those weeks and to the feedback I received from Kirsty Alexander and Rosemary. Also later I gathered some of my notes from classes and conversations that I had with Rosemary and some of of those people that were along side me in those classes with her over some years.
In the performance I dance among the people who are in the room, the audience or the spectators. My intention, through the choreographic choices, as well as those made as I work in performing these choices, concern the distillation and discarding of material as I attempt to suspend form by resisting hiding behind form. I am finding spaces to work in a predicament as Rosemary intended. Glimpses of this predicament are accompanied by a simultaneous opening up and condensation of space. I hum for sound and the blinds are pulled up and house lights come on.
I don’t consider this a completed piece or a choreographic work. It reveals itself as a recalling of ancient journeys and a remembering of places visited, closely guided by my attention to interior surface and the perceptual flattening of exterior spaces.
There are no technical requirements except someone to open the blinds or turn the house lights on. It takes between 10 and 15 minutes before the audience begin to leave. I perceive this as a performed dance practice that could potentially be at the end of the day/ event.
The Ending that Katye danced at Rosemary Butcher’s memorial, Memory at Work. in 2016.
Katye Coe 