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In this Padlet, I will be reflecting on my experiences of Unit 4: Collaborative Creative Practices. The focus of this unit is to develop knowledge and experience of different collaborative processes, furthering both practical and social skills within creative projects. Running throughout the whole of second year, the unit features several performance projects, each of which providing the chance to work with dancers and artists from outside of the place.

Some of the projects I was a part of this year include, site specific dance practice led by Grace Nichol, screen dance led by Margo roe, circus partner work with Chris night and immersive media with Antoine marc. In my reflections I have chosen to focus primarily on-screen dance and immersive media. I feel these two projects are the most comparable to one another because both involved collaborating with students from other universities creating interdisciplinary work, combining dance, technology, and film.

I have chosen to frame my portfolio around the first prompt, ‘Comparing two collaborative projects, analyse the collaborative skills that have been developed and how these have changed your perspective on the role of dancers within these processes.’

I will be comparing and contrasting my experience of the two projects, reflecting on both the positive and negative impacts they have had on me, what I have learnt, and how I plan to take this knowledge into my future dance practice. Additionally, I will be drawing upon principles of dance psychology to provide possible context and explanation to my experiences.

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In this reflection I will be discussing leadership within the screendance and immersive media collaborations, comparing the different positions I took on in the two projects, leader and alternatively collaborative group member. Additionally I will be discussing how I both failed and succeeded to clearly establish my role as a dancer within interdisciplinary creation, establishing expectations and boundaries when working with non dancers.

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How was leadership assumed within this collab?

When first meeting with the screen dance students, we were told we had three sessions to create our film. The first session to plan and discuss, the second to share our initial draft after having filmed in our own time, and the third to show our final product.

Each group was given one word, that they would use to inspire their film. The words shared a collective theme of nature and the climate crisis. Our assigned word was thunder.

From the beginning, the screen dance students, assigned themselves leadership roles, allocating the role of costume designer, director and editor amongst themselves, seemingly with the assumption that we were merely dancers and the subjects of the film.

This was an unusual feeling for me, because I am used to working with exclusively dancers, and we would normally be allocating leadership roles amongst us, rather than being considered as only movers. When working in groups I normally take on leadership roles. I not only enjoy contributing ideas, but I also feel I successfully encourage others to participate and contribute, increasing productivity within the group. Therefore, I did not enjoy feeling as though creative agency had been taken away from me: what I had perceived as a collaborative project now felt as though I were a dancer working underneath a film director.

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What happened?

Leadership roles, were decided by other members of the group, without discussion and consideration of the dancers.

What were you thinking or feeling?

This was an unfamiliar situation for me, as I usually take on the role of a leader. I felt that it was unfair for the screen performance students to make these decisions without offering myself and the other dancers the opportunity to be involved with direction, costume and set design.

What was good and bad about the experience?

Although I enjoy leadership roles, and would have liked to have had more creative input in the project, I feel it was good for me to experience something different. I am not used to other members of the group wanting to be in control more than myself, and although this may be experience in university, it is most likely not reflective of the professional world. It is beneficial for me to been able to take directions from another member of the group and explore how I can take ownership of my work silently, finding agency in my movement.

However, because of my lack of input in the creative direction of the project, I did not feel at the end of the week as if I had learnt anything about camera equipment, editing or direction, but had rather just been the subject of a film.

What else could you have done?

I could have found the confidence to express my desire to be more involved with the actual creation of the film, starting conversation with the CSM students about how I was there to explore more than my own dance practice.

What would you do in future?

I intend in future, as already implemented in my immersive media project, to clearly articulate with my collaborators about my intentions and goals for the project. If I am keen to develop a new skill I feel a collaborator can share with me, I will express that, whilst simultaneously offering to share my own skills and knowledge of dance with them if they wish.

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What was my experience of roles in the immersive project?

In our first session meeting the students from London college of communication, Antoine and Herman, introduced us to a list of roles that may be useful to assign amongst the group- with the aims to increase productivity. These roles were designer, artist, programmer, quality control, animator. I feel this was useful because it gave us the opportunity to discuss who in the group was interested in taking on different responsibilities, regardless of being dancer/immersive media student.

Immersive media students in contrast seemingly had less experience collaborating with dancers and so appeared to have less predetermined ideas about our role and their role. They were more open to taking onboard our ideas and allowing us creative agency. I had assumptions, based on what I had heard about the project the previous year, and based on my experience with the screen dance students, about what they might expect of us throughout the project, as so in the first session I decided to openly establish some boundaries and expectations from us as a group of dancers.

I have summarized some of these intentions and expectations for the project into a list:

-For the dancers to have creative input

-For the immersive media students to have a curiosity about contemporary dance, and gain a better understanding of what we do

-For us to leave with a better understanding of virtual reality and the equipment they use.

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Immersive media lasted for 5 weeks with two three hour sessions per week, whereas screen dance only lasted one week with two to three sessions and yet arguably had similar end results in regards to, length, quality and productivity.

Why?

The intensive nature of the screen dance collaboration, seemingly made students, and myself annoyed and stressed at the time, with a concensus that it was not long enough to create something of quality and ‘not reasonable’.

However much to my surprise all groups were able to create high quality films. Looking back on this experience I wouldn’t change the amount of time we were allocated.

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In our first dance science session of the year, we looked at the three basic psychological needs that allow for optimal creativity within group tasks. The first of the three is autonomy.

I feel one limitation of the screen dance collaboration, was feelings of low autonomy amongst the dancers. Autonomy refers to the perception of voice and choice. When members of a group feel that their voice is heard and valued, they are more productive and creative. For me a sense of autonomy is integral to my engagement with dance. I need to feel that I have choice over what I am doing, wearing, and performing. This of course has exceptions, when working for a choreography or underneath somebody else’s creative direction however in a project like this, autonomy felt primary to making it truly collaborative.

I found myself engaging less with the choreography, resigning to improvising on the day of the shoot, rather than committing my time and energy into structuring phrases. Because the decisions such as costume, music, and general aesthetics for the film had been pre-decided by the students from CSM, I did not feel I had any ownership over the final product and thus became less invested, lacking intrinsic motivation to engage in the project.

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How do social and historical factors, effect collaboration?

These quotes introduced to us by lucy, encouraged me to consider how historical and social factors effect collaboration today. Historically dance, particularly ballet, has operated within strictly hierarchical structures. Conformity and obedience were considered desirable characteristics amongst dancers in contrast to individuality, leadership, and creativity- traits which we as 21st century contemporary dancers, might consider more valuable.

It is interesting to consider how these ideas may have trickled into societies perception of dancers, leading to a perpetuated hierarchy when dancers and non dancers collaborate today. Generally, the students from CSM had preconceptions about what we do as dancers, limited to a small knowledge of more traditional styles like ballet, and additionally assumed we were more interested in moving rather than contributing ideas and making creative decisions.

Note that I do not expect non dances to know to anything about contemporary dance, and do not judge any individual for assuming that our roles were more passive. I am merely observing how common this was and reflecting on how I made efforts to inform them and began to consider how artists from different backgrounds can better understand one another and productively work together.