DANZ QUARTERLY No 10 December 2007
The Body’s Canvas
Katherine Wellington talks to the 2007 Caroline Plummer Community Dance Fellow, Dr Katrina Rank
Arriving in Dunedin in June, the 2007 Caroline Plummer Community Dance Fellow, Dr Katrina Rank, soon found she had been accepted into more than a six-month internship.
As she set about establishing her project ‘My Body is an Etching’ she found she had been accepted readily into the fabric of the city. Those Katrina met in her first weeks were supportive of her project and of her personally. “My overwhelming first impression was of how well informed most people were about the Fellowship, and the warm recollections of Caroline they held. There was a tangible generosity of spirit and a willingness to give me a go - which in other places one has to work much harder to achieve” she says.
A Melbourne-based dance practitioner and researcher, Katrina wanted to explore two main concepts in her project. The first is that bodies are written or etched by past experiences, and the second that embodied histories can be accessed via creative movement.
Her work has taken her in varied directions as she has worked with different community groups, ranging in age and abilities. Within a month or arriving in Dunedin she had established three regular classes. A group of seniors at a rest home with 15 participants between 75 and 92 years learning a new dance. An open intermediate contemporary class averaged six participants, most of whom were associated with the University of Otago. Then there was the group where she felt the most progress was made – a mixed ability community dance class with 22 regular attendees.
People with intellectual disabilities, multiple sclerosis and participants recovering from mental or physical illnesses, joined those who had no debilitating condition but “found joy in sharing the space and movement with other open-minded, creative and generous people.”
Aged between 18 and 72, the participants developed a sense of community and pride, Katrina says. Relaxation, co-ordination and confidence have soared among the group. “People who found touch difficult initially are now sharing weight and offering ideas, volunteering to dance solo, leading parts of the class and observing each other’s performance with respect and interest.” Even after Katrina has returned to Australia in December, they plan to continue the classes themselves.
Alongside her regular sessions, Katrina established a pilot group for ‘My Body is an Etching’, which began creative exploration in a studio and visited Dunedin’s beaches. “As the creative development period moved on and the participants began to feel more confident, the site visits became instrumental to the work developed in the studio. The simplicity of the movement score, the reflective moments and the occasional wild energetic bursts of energy within the composition showed synergies with the beach environment.”
The group showed their work at the Otago Museum in October and included photographs taken during the creative development period. Three visual artists, Pauline Bellamy, Lynn Taylor and Josephine Regan, also joined the group to prepare a portfolio of etchings, “from a real place of understanding of the dance”, for two exhibitions in November.
At the time of writing this article, Katrina was dicing with spring’s changeable weather to film another group (with about half the participants from her pilot and half new) at a beach location. The dancers learned a piece within an hour but finding a break from the rain took much longer than Katrina had anticipated.
She felt having the film would be a validation of the participants’ input and once edited, everyone would be given a copy. It will form part of the installation to be held in November that will combine many aspects of Katrina’s work in Dunedin. Whomever of the participants wishes to can perform the work to the public, but the process of making the dance in the first place was what mattered, Katrina says.
“It [the performance] really will be a remembering in a completely different context.”
Counting up the hours she has put in makes her fully realise the intensity of the past six months. It is, however, a concentrated amount of time that suits her. “I’ve been doing what I want to do. How privileged is that? Who cares how many hours you put in?”
Other advantages of the fellowship were that Katrina was able to participate in a number of experiences she did not expect but found valuable. She has attended contemporary dance classes with notable New Zealand dance artists - Carol Brown, Kilda Northcott, Ali East and Shona Dunlop MacTavish.
Katrina has also danced for Ali in the Dunedin dance identity’s new choreographic work, which exposed her to other choreographic processes. “All this adds to a greater understanding of the local dance scene and my own professional development as a choreographer, teacher and facilitator”, Katrina says.
During her time in Dunedin, which she describes as “magical”, she has formed deep connections with people both from within the dance community and outside it. But as with all the community dance projects she has been involved in, it is the people from her projects that will long remain in her heart. “Some of the participants, I will always carry with me.”
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