Resolution! is The Place’s annual, new year open season for shorter dance works. Over 70 works are presented in nightly changing triple bills. Choreographers Maria Cassar, RedTape Dance and Amy Watson, Nylon Theatre chat to Beth Wood from Run Riot.

BETH WOOD: Do you both have backgrounds in choreography and performance?

MARIA CASSAR: I performed in the biggest theatres in Malta, my home country, before I moved to the UK to study at Laban, and specialize in Dance Theatre. I had the chance to dance and tour works by Tom Dale and Kerry Nicholls, I also worked with Lizzie Kew Ross, and was part of a reconstruction of Diversion of Angels by Martha Graham.  In 2010 I joined Tees Valley Dance, a company in North East UK, then directed by Kristina Sommerlade. We toured to various venues performing stage and site specific dance-theatre performances, created specifically for communities, and children. I’ve always been interested in choreography. In 2005 I was runner up in the Choreography Awards, organized by Malta Dance Council and this is where I realized I wanted to explore this medium more seriously. That’s why I applied to study at Laban.  In 2008, after presenting a work to the Bonnie Bird Stage, I set up RedTape Dance Company with Christina Cauchi, with the intention of creating more opportunities for dance artists like us to express ourselves, and open up a discourse with other art forms.  Since then we have collaborated with a variety of artistic media, including brass bands, visual artists, film makers, photographers and composers. Our performances varied from site specific pieces, to flashmobs and performances for theaters. We have performed in several major Festivals in Malta, we have been part of Blueprint Performance in Startford in 2010. We are now very to take part, for the first time, in an established festival such as Resolution!

AMY WATSON: I trained with The Dance Company in my native Cape Town, focusing mainly on Contemporary and Jazz, as well as dabbling in Tap, Hip Hop and Musical Theatre, whilst also being very interested in theatre. Six years ago, I decided to come to the UK to expand my horizons, and concentrated my efforts on the theatre side of things. I somehow made my way back to dance and choreography over the years, and completed my MFA in choreography at Roehampton University last year. I founded my current company, Nylon Theatre, with Heather Caruso last year with a desire to make work which exists in the spaces between dance and theatre, and through the integration of body, voice and emotion explores human behaviour, gender and representation and the “reality” of performance itself.

BW: Who do you both look to for inspiration and what was the inspiration behind your choreography?

CM: I think there are several dance artists/choreographers that inspire me, such as Forsythe, Ohad Naharin, Luca Silvestrini, Philippe Decoufle, Lea Anderson, and many more. I also draw my inspiration from art exhibitions, installations, photographs, fashion and films. It’s however the everyday environment around me that I use more often for my researches; the daily routines of physical relationship, so subtle or taken for granted.  The inspiration of this piece came from the analysis of how humans are evolving communication skills in an ever-changing media obsessed world, where technology has become a constituent part of sociality of most of us.

AW: 'll admit I'm a bit of an inspiration magpie - anything can catch my eye, and I borrow, steal and store it up for future use! Anything from a snippet of a conversation overheard on a bus, to a passage from a favourite book, a photograph, an experience...I'm a compulsive 'people-watcher' and this informs my process - I count myself lucky, as these activities are taking place around me all the time! A lot of my most recent work has very much been inspired by the notion of the quotidian, the banal, the routine - I'm interested in taking these fleeting and seemingly boring moments and transforming them into something else, making them obviously 'special', on a stage. My piece for Resolution! 'Public Displays of Affection' has been informed by endless hours traversing London on public transport. I'm fascinated by the private bubbles we create for ourselves when we are amongst lots of people; we think we are anonymous and yet there are always people watching, seeing, and witnessing our “anonymity”. I started to think about what we are willing to do or show when we think no-one is watching and how this shifts when we are performing these actions in front of an audience, on a stage, when the point is that people are watching.

BW: Could you both explain a bit about the main concept of each piece?

CM: We are a generation of people that have embraced technology as part of their everyday life. This world of electronic communication has created an evolutionary shift in the way we socialize and portray ourselves. The performance will make a comment at how technology affects the social lifestyle of the average human being. We will explore what it means to have an online virtual presence, and how being logged on has affected our physical presence within society. Our project will explore the effects that this media shift has brought on to us. We will take a look into various scenarios that happen everyday and on various social networking websites. The performance will take the form of a physical dance piece with spoken word that will reflect upon ways in which we have started to communicate, for example; abbreviations and expressions that have been introduced into our vocabulary when we talk, text and write. It has also made us more aware of the way we portray ourselves through photographs and videos. We also explore the need to upload parts of who we are online, and how some theorists think that this is defragmenting us as personalities.
Subsequently; we will explore how this new way of communication has affected our physical interaction with each other and how we can portray this on stage, keeping in mind the effect the physical relation we have with the audience during the piece.

AW: I suppose I've mostly answered this above! It's a bit of a 'boy-meets-girl' (or, 'girl-meets-boy') type scenario - the piece comprises two duets, which unfold in very different ways on stage, and examine the relationships between the dancers, and look to these daily movements and motions that are continuously presenting themselves in public spaces.

BW: Have either of you had any triumphs or disasters that you can share with us?
CM: I think for most companies taking part in resolution! 2012 Managing to get a piece together and putting it on stage under the critics and audience's scrutiny is a triumph.
Most of us have to juggle different work schedules and booking studios spaces (that are barely affordable) so getting everyone to each rehearsal is a small triumph in itself.  We're lucky that so far we've had no major disasters unless one considers, time spent in some rehearsals creating and exploring a certain idea, to be then thrown away upon process and reflection. (I hope now I haven't jinxed myself by saying that!)

AW: I don't think triumphs or disasters come into my work at the moment. I tend to look at the day-to-day successes and struggles, and I imagine my experience has been very similar to the rest of choreographers and companies involved in Resolution! All of the logistical minefields - from scheduling conflicts, to tiny budgets...basically making sure that all your ducks are consistently in a row is hard - particularly when you are working on other projects and have other job(s) at the same time. I guess the difficulties make all of the little successes feel like triumphs!

BW: How will The Place platform help each of you in your next steps as choreographers?

CM: I'm hoping that this will open up our horizons as a dance company. It's been great that The Place has provided artistic development workshops to help us along the way ensuring we are on the right path. I think it's great to network with other companies and increase the audience following.
I also feel this experience has now given me more confidence to approach other venues and events that might be interested in considering our work for the future.

AW: Resolution! is an amazing platform for emerging choreographers - not only is it an excellent opportunity to get work out there, but particularly for the combined support that The Place offer in terms of guidance and artist development; that is invaluable. The platform is a bit of a right-of-passage in the contemporary dance world; this makes me not only incredibly happy to be taking part, but also aware that it is a great early step in my career, and hopefully one which will help inform how I move forward as a choreographer.

Resolution! in 2012 runs from Fri 6 January - Fri 17 February

Nylon Theatre perform at The Place, Resolution! 2012 on Wednesday 25 January

RedTape Dance perform at The Place, Resolution! 2012 on Tuesday 14 February

Website: www.redtapedance.com