And a 5..6..... a 5,6,7,8! by Chi-San Howard

'uncovering actor physicality and movement qualities.' MDA Member Chi-San Howard reflects on movement direction within musicals.

I never saw musical theatre coming.......Despite the fact that my first placement whilst training was assisting on a huge scale production of Sweeney Todd with the Welsh National Opera. Despite the fact that my first professional job was on a musical adaptation of a 1923 Expressionist play Adding Machine by Elmer Rice. Even five months later, as I opened Darren Clark’s dark cabaret musical about the Argentine military junta These Trees Are Made of Blood - had you asked me, I still would have looked you dead in the eye and said, “No, I don’t really do musicals.” How it is, therefore, that roughly six years later (notwithstanding one jobless pandemic year), I find myself stepping into the position of Movement Director on Les Miserables is somewhat of a shock. I, like many of us, whole heartedly believed that to create movement for musicals, I would have to have my jazz hands, pirouettes and split leaps at the ready. I believed that I would have to have every number mapped out, choreographed and ready to go in a notebook - possibly accompanied by some assistants . I was, of course, entirely mistaken. As musical theatre in its form and approach has evolved and developed exponentially over the last decade so has the role of movement and choreography. Whilst I had initially written off those early run ins with musical theatre as rarities - the rare musical where you don’t need dance numbers or the story was “weird” so I got called in. Over time I have learnt that they were no fluke. I found myself working on more and more musicals alongside my roster of straight plays and discovering that the approach to creating movement for musicals was far more similar than one might think and yet, with some distinct differences. Take for example my most recent work on the Royal Exchange’s Christmas show, Betty! A Sort of Musical co-written by Maxine Peake and Seiriol Davies. The show tells the story of an amateur dramatics troupe who decide to create a musical about local hero Betty Boothroyd; the first ever female Speaker of the House. Different periods of her life are told by different characters, so the style of the songs often matched the music of the period, and the personality of the character currently telling the story. The show then peaks when the controlling director of the troupe, Meredith Ankle - played by Maxine - is electrocuted on a tea urn (spoilers!). She then hallucinates a 20-minute rock opera in which famous political debates between Betty and various MPs are enacted with a silliness of epic proportions. For the cast, this was a unique challenge as only one of the six company members had never done a musical. My job was two fold. The first was to create musical numbers that felt like reflections of the characters who were supposed to have made them, that revealed that they were actually quite good at it (but not too good), and were funny. The second, was to coach, coax and encourage the company through a new theatrical experience, exercising a new part of their brain and body.

I started, with a mistake. My mistake was not naming and acknowledging the new and unique journey the acting company were going on, and explaining how we were going to face the challenge together. This, I believe, would have allowed for more space and permission to try and fail collectively at making a musical. Instead, I made the assumption that they knew this about me and realized much later that I needed to explain the process much more clearly. But, this is how we learn and get better at what we do. In preparatory conversations with our director, Sarah Frankcom, we set up narrative pegs within the songs to hang our staging from. Let’s look at one of the largest and most complex numbers Be A Good Girl. The songs all tell very clear stories about the events in Betty’s life that were taking place at the time. We broke the song down into these events - almost like scene units. In this song Betty leaves Dewsbury to join a dance troupe in London called the Tiller Girls. The story within the song is Betty being challenged to keep up with increasingly difficult choreography across the number - first within classes and then in performance. The added challenge is that the Royal Exchange Theatre stage is in the round and I had only 3 actors available. We decided that as the Tillers were famous for their kick line we would only use variations of high kicks in the choreography. We explored various formations for kick lines in the space and how they might shift and change to wrong foot Betty. We looked at how the steps might suddenly change mid phrase and even mid word in order to escalate. What emerged was a number less rooted in complex dance steps and much more in shifting rhythm patterns and spacing. With the comedy rooted in the never ending chase and Betty’s attempts to “Kick Betty, Kick Betty, Kick Pivot Turn!” Working with shifting rhythms I have found is crucial in musicals. It’s actually relatively rare in well written musicals to have songs and numbers that stick solely to a 4/4 time signature throughout. Time signatures often change mid song and understanding and working with the musical dramaturgy of that is key to better physical storytelling. Composers and musical supervisors spend hours, days, weeks, months working on how the musical composition tells the clearest narrative - nothing is written without purpose. Thinking about rhythm in relation to character and storytelling is deeply helpful for working on musicals. Connecting words to moves and the rhythm of the language is what I have used across every musical production I have worked on. It provides an anchor for discovery around gesture, and can tell you what the sequence requires physically. It offers a huge amount by uncovering actor physicality and movement qualities that then tie neatly into the musicality and dramaturgy of the piece. Often this alone helps to generate choreography for a number - questions such as, would a character celebrate by waving? Stomping? Clapping? Spinning? Is the sequence a ballad? Is it a call to arms? Is it a 20- minute battle of wills escalating in silliness until it culminates in a slow motion handbag battle between Betty Boothroyd and Margaret Thatcher?

If you follow the truth and pull of the music and script the process becomes far clearer and the need to adhere to preconceived notions of box steps and jazz hands slips away. Instead you make something filled with your own creativity and unique movement voice.

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Chi-San Howard's movement direction work includes; Les Miserables (Sondheim Theatre, UK Tour, Netherlands/Belgium Tour); Betty! A Sort of Musical (Royal Exchange); O, Island (Royal Shakespeare Company); Ivy Tiller: Vicar’s Daughter, Squirrel Killer (Royal Shakespeare Company); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare North/Northern Stage); The Narcissist (Chichester Festival Theatre); Chasing Hares (Young Vic); That Is Not Who I Am/Rapture (Royal Court); Corrina, Corrina (Headlong/Liverpool Everyman); The Taxidermist’s Daughter (Chichester Festival Theatre); Anna Karenina (Sheffield Crucible); Two Billion Beats (Orange Tree Theatre); Aladdin (Lyric Hammersmith); Milk and Gall (Theatre503); Arrival (Impossible Productions); Typical Girls (Clean Break/Sheffield Crucible); Glee and Me (Royal Exchange); Just So (Watermill Theatre); Home, I’m Darling (Theatre by the Lake/Bolton Octagon/Stephen Joseph Theatre); Harm (Bush Theatre); Living Newspaper Ed 5 (Royal Court); Sunnymeade Court (Defibrillator Theatre); The Effect (English Theatre Frankfurt); The Sugar Syndrome (Orange Tree Theatre); Oor Wullie (Dundee Rep/National Tour); Variations (Dorfman Theatre/NT Connections); Skellig (Nottingham Playhouse); Under the Umbrella (Belgrade Theatre/Yellow Earth/Tamasha); Describe the Night (Hampstead Theatre); Fairytale Revolution, In Event of Moone Disaster (Theatre503); Cosmic Scallies (Royal Exchange Manchester/Graeae); Moth (Hope Mill Theatre); The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Scarlet; The Tempest (Southwark Playhouse); Adding Machine: A Musical (Finborough Theatre).

Film: Hurt by Paradise (Sulk Youth Films); Pretending - Orla Gartland Music Video (Spindle); I Wonder Why - Joesef Music Video (Spindle Productions); Birds of Paradise (Pemberton Films).

Production Details Betty! A Sort of Musical with book by Maxine Peake and Seiriol Davies; book, music and lyrics by Seiriol Davies, directed by Sarah Frankcom and produced by the Royal Exchange Theatre ran from December 2022 to January 2023.

Movement directing ...cake

'a deepening of my understanding of the mantra: ‘trust the process’; the actors bore testament to its truthfulness' MDA Member Gerrard Martin reflects on his process movement directing ...cake by babirye bukilwa this summer.

I was brought in to work on playwright babirye bukilwa’s latest piece, ...cake, prior to its critically acclaimed run at the Theatre Peckham. Despite the actual process being relatively short, due to my having been brought in by director Malakai Sargent towards the end of the play’s creation period, the experience turned out to be extremely fulfilling.

I was tasked with assisting the actors to safely navigate the play’s increasingly tense intimacy, the team then identified specific areas to pinpoint, and we physically explored the trauma and fear experienced by their characters. I also choreographed the moments of violence and joy, (which jumped from the pages of the poetic script).

Working practice started with a ‘check in’, which allowed the whole company to focus on how they were each feeling. This initial focus on everyone’s individual’s emotional state helped both bind the company and imbue it with an understanding as to what each creative was experiencing that day, and how each one of us could help support the another.

I continued this process with the actors by facilitating a mindful meditation with visualisation; this included a physical warm up, a mobilisation series and a yoga asana practice.

I used movement and text-based tasks to explore and heighten the character’s motivations within the scene work, the tasks being based on expressions of ‘surrender’ and ‘resistance’; both themes which I found were important within bukilwa’s work.

As part of my role, I presented the actors with grounding and wellbeing exercises for use both before and after both rehearsals and performances. These were designed to provide the actors with tangible tools, allowing them safe return to the present moment, and to shift emotional states safely, if ever they felt triggered by any aspect of the play.

One discovery I made, while working with the ...cake production, was a deepening of my understanding of the mantra: ‘trust the process’; the actors bore testament to its truthfulness. They were so organic and intuitive with their choices in movement and how they delivered text, that it gave me permission to be even more open and curious in my facilitation practices.

In reflecting on ...cake and how I worked on the production, I don’t believe I would have done anything different, but I would have loved to have been a part of the process earlier on and had more preparation days, both in the rehearsal studio and on stage with the company. I do intend to speak with the actors, (now the run has finished) and ask them how they felt the movement and wellbeing tasks supported them through the rehearsal period and performances and help them to find a physical truth in their characters.

The three images that would encapsulate the feeling of my movement in ...cake would be ‘Cat & Mouse’, ‘Imposed Karaoke’ and ‘Nostalgic Faded Star’; some images are more literal than others!

...cake allowed me to develop as a movement director and reinforced a need to trust my myself and my skill set.

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Photo by Kiraly Saint-Claire

Gerrard Martin trained at De Montfort University, gaining a BA Hons in English Literature and Performing Arts; he continued his studies at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance and obtained a BTEC Diploma in Professional Dance Studies.

He has danced for Altered Skin, Akademi, Rosie Kay Dance Company, and has toured nationally with Tavaziva Dance, Union Dance Company, as well as dancing for the West End's production of the Lion King, Ballet Black, Aletta Collins Dance Company, State of Emergency, and Phoenix Dance Company.

Aside from modelling, commercial dance contracts, and film engagements, Gerrard has also danced for the National Theatre, toured internationally with the English National Opera, and the Royal Opera House.

Gerrard currently teaches on the Musical Theatre BA Hons at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, the CAT programme at Trinity Laban and has taught and mentored on the Children Youth Dance and Adult Classes & Courses programme at the Place. He is a guest Associate Lecturer at the University of Northampton, and a dance, yoga and movement teacher at RADA, (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art).

Gerrard has choreographed for Outbox Theatre, Longborough Opera, British Museum, Pegasus Opera, and the National Portrait gallery. The West Bengal Federation of Dance, India commissioned Gerrard’s choreography for World Dance Day.

He created his project-based company Gerrard Martin Dance in 2011 and has had work featured at the Place, the Curve Theatre, BHM, National Portrait Gallery, RichMix and the Emerge, Between the Lines, South Bank Urban, Let’s Dance International, and Cloud Dance Festivals. Gerrard's work has also been selected for Ident festival, The Field Film festival, UK and the Athens Video Dance Project, Greece.

Gerrard aims to produce works of emotive and socially relevant dance-theatre; to teach and facilitate creativity through movement, yoga, and dance, and wishes to collaborate and engage with artists across different mediums.

He was an assistant choreographer on the English National Opera’s (Olivier Award winning) Porgy and Bess, One Love Musical, (Bob Marley), and the 40th UAE Royal Anniversary Performance, Abu Dhabi. He has been a movement director on productions such as ‘GHB Boy’, ‘BEAM’ & ...cake

Gerrard is the co-founder of Black Artists in Dance, (BAiD) and the associate founder of The Healthy Young Dancer Project (THYDP). He is part of the first cohort of The Kerry Nicholls Dance Mentoring Programme and is a trained Yoga teacher.

www.gerrardmartindance.com

Production Details …cake was written by award winning playwright babirye bukilwa and premiered at the Theatre Peckham. …cake forms part of a trilogy of plays and is a prequel to the critically acclaimed blackbird hour. Performed by Danielle Kassarate and Donna Banya directed by Theatre Peckham’s associate director malakaï sargeant.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion by Ingrid Mackinnon

Steering group member, Ingrid Mackinnon, on big questions and important conversations.

Like most movement people I am interested in bodies in space, how the bodies are affected by the space they are in and how the space is transformed by the bodies within it. And like most, I’m interested in words, particularly the order of words.

What does this have to do with anything related to movement?

Ok yes, this is a weird start to this blog post but stay with me. Some of what I’m about to mention may be difficult or even invoke physical reactions in you, stay with it. Like most potentially uncomfortable, difficult or even hard conversations it’s sometimes easier to warm up, massage and ease our way in. This is what I’m trying to do, stumbling my way into a topic that is too epic for this post but needs to be offered in the space nonetheless.

So, to relate this to movement practice think of this as the warm-up you might get to do with a company ahead of a session. Without this warm-up the approach can feel hard, possibly even too direct for some. Even injury might occur and I for one do not want to come across as the ‘mad, angry Black woman’ – oh I forgot to mention for those who may not know me, I’m Ingrid Mackinnon and I’m Black, a woman and sometimes angry.

Sorry, back to difficult conversations, the hard approach sometimes results in rigidity, bodies and minds that are so paralysed with worry about saying the wrong thing that they say nothing at all. And trust me when I say that silence is much worse. In fact when we are silent, we remain complicit in supporting systemic structures that alienate and discriminate others. That was a deep lunge that we may not have warmed up sufficiently for, but it leads me back to my point about words. There are many new words in our everyday lexicon thanks to the pandemic such as self-isolate, quarantine, lockdown and social distance and many more to boot. Another one that is rolling off of tongues currently is Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. It’s a mouthful of really hefty words that have quickly been abbreviated to EDI; I suspect to take the pressure off their individual importance.

I wonder, why does Equality come first in this title? I mean, who decided that Equality might benefit from being first? In my experience, it’s Diversity that gets the most discussion and airtime so why not call it Diversity, Equality and Inclusion? I guess if we did that, then one might think that if we have Diversity then there is Equality. Job done.

But where does that leave Inclusion? Speaking quite frankly, inclusion has become such a sexy word that many have begun to add it to their professional elevator pitch. Heavy words that float off of tongues taking a rather indirect route to silence. Ok back to EDI, my movement director brain is rejigging the blocking and thinks that we should try Inclusion, Diversity and Equality.

Hear me out, because if we have included everyone in the room, with all of the Diverse aspects that make them human, we might get one step closer to Equality?

What do you think? You see, I have given this a lot of thought. As a Black Female creative there are many times that I have felt excluded, too diverse and exponentially unequal to everyone I’m in the room with for reasons that are now called protected characteristics. Some of these characteristics are visible and some are not visible.

So, my fellow movement folks, what do you think? What do you think about EDI? What do you think about language? Has your language changed in the rooms that you lead since EDI started rolling off of tongues? I hope that these conversations are happening in private spaces and if they are, HURRAY! But now it is time for our movement community to unpack these words - EQUALITY, DIVERSITY and INCLUSION -with the same glee that we might unpack a Laban principle, polyrhythm or kinaesthetic awareness.

Hopefully I have gently warmed you up into discussion. I hope that your minds are beginning to feel ready for the hard conversations, the important conversations that affect all of us. I hope that we feel brave to take risks to say something because saying something is better than saying nothing at all.

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Ingrid Mackinnon is a London based movement director and choreographer.

Movement direction credits include Liar Heretic Thief (Lyric); Reimagining Cacophony (Almeida); The Border (Theatre Centre); #WeAreArrested (RSC); First Encounters: The Merchant Of Venice (RSC); Kingdom Come (RSC); Typical (Soho Theatre); Fantastic Mr. Fox (associate movement Nuffield Southampton and National/International tour); Hamlet; #DR@CULA! (RCSSD); Bonnie & Clyde (UWL: London College Of Music).

Choreography and rehearsal direction credits include: The Headwrap Diaries (assistant choreographer and rehearsal director) for Uchenna Dance; Our Mighty Groove (rehearsal director) for Uchenna Dance; Three Penny Opera (choreographer) for Wac Arts; Boy Breaking Glass (rehearsal director) for Vocab Dance/Alesandra Seutin; Hansel and Gretel (assistant choreographer and rehearsal director) for Uchenna Dance; Imoinda (choreographer); In The Heights (choreographer) for Wac Arts.

Ingrid holds an MA in Movement: Directing & Teaching from Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

www.ingridmackinnon.com