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Left: cropped version of a Henry Darger drawing / Right: Maya's mom in Hawaii, 1998

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It begins with finding two initial poses or gestures, much like you would find two words in Rodari's exercise. claire and Maya turn to their shared archive of photos and references to excavate and embody the bodies of their past or their shared imagination.

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Performance process: Introducing the images

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Performance process: Introducing the images

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We first introduce our selection to the audience to offer insight into what these images/poses/gestures might mean.

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Performance process: Embodying the images

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Performance process: Embodying the images

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After introducing the images, we take time to embody the poses and sit with the differences between the two sources.

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Embodying darger-lola source image stage 1

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Performance Process: Source images of pairs for duets

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Performance Process: Source images of pairs for duets

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Performance Process: Making a binomial through dance

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Performance Process: Making a binomial through dance

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Once the groundwork has been established, we dance to explore how these image pairings might relate, using different scores or compositional approaches to unfold a landscape of relationships, discovering in real time, through improvisation, the complex connections that can only emerge through dance.

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Duet binomial darger - jane eyre long excerpt 1

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claire and Maya are two dance-artists exploring themes of friendship, language and memory through immersive games and scores that draw on the vast wealth of archived materials from their decades-long relationship. Their current project spans a performance, a 'zine and a workshop series, inspired by their research in embodying the principles behind Gianni Rodari's "fantastic binomials" writing exercise.

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The Performance: 'The Fantastical Power of Two'

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The Performance: 'The Fantastical Power of Two'

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This video is a compilation of rehearsals for the performance and but with or on in to, begun in 2022 and currently in development. It shows how we cycle between language and movement to expand the relationship between two words: "tissue" and "prehistorical". Then there is an excerpt from 'binomial duetting' - working as a pair to embody and expand two images into a new story.

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This performance piece is inspired by claire and Maya’s encounter with the work of Gianni Rodari, an Italian teacher and children’s book writer whose pedagogy valued children’s innate playfulness and nurtured their imaginations as writers through collective processes. In Grammar of Fantasy, his ‘introduction to the art of inventing stories’, he explores the belief that children—and all humans—have a basic right to play, and further that creativity is essential to social justice movements.

Of the many exercises and experiments he guided with his students, his ‘Fantastic Binomials’ exercise struck a particular chord with claire and Maya. This exercise prompts writers to find two not-easily-related words and bring them together to spark the storytelling imagination.

In this research and performance project, we seek to expand on Rodari’s notion by translating his writing exercise into a dance practice. How can we take two distinct, not-easily-related terms and have them relate in space-time? What kind of tensions arise, what kind of poetry occurs by approaching this exercise through movement? Are there inherent storytelling properties in dance and how might they facilitate, or challenge, this binomial process?

The Fantastical Power of Two is anchored in the notion of singularities brought into a pair, into pairing. We facilitate this in ways that attempt to be as concrete as Rodari’s writing exercise, all while engaging strategies from time-based art: for instance by merging dances, embodying improbable word combinations, or improvising ways to explore the syntax of movement. We also explore broader ‘meta’-questions of how dance and writing may also be a ‘binomial’, informing one another to spark the imagination in an individual, a couple, a group, and audience.... Or perhaps claire and Maya are a binomial, living in different countries and cultures, separated for many years?

Independently developed with the support of Greywood Arts (Cork, Ireland), Forsøgsstationen (Copenhagen, Denmark), and through remote sessions on zoom.

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This process began when claire and Maya both started reading and discussing the work of Italian author Gianni Rodari, particularly "The Grammar of Fantasy".

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The Grammar Of Fantasy : Gianni Rodari : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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From Italian of Gianni Rodari, a guidebook for educators on inventing stories using various tricks and techniques for calling up uncoventional associations.…

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Residency Report - Forsøgsstationen, April 2024

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Residency Report - Forsøgsstationen, April 2024

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An end-of-residency report on our most recent research and development period held at Forsøgsstationen in Denmark, April 2024.