Patua Dance

What an incredible two weeks I have just experienced!!!

I have experienced an amazing cocktail of emotions during this project>i have found it frustrating not being able to update my blog daily but I have not had internet access whilst i've been away.

Some of the challenges I have faced are these:

• Losing one of the dancers after week one



• having accommodation away from the other performers which wasn't very accessible to wheelchair users



• Managing my tiredness and fitness during long physical days in the studio



• Company politics

On the other hand, I can take so much away with me from this project. I was able to find new ways of working through new improvisation techniques. I particularly enjoyed using song and vocal techniques. I was lucky enough to sing part of one of my own songs as well as sing parts of other well known ones.

I enjoyed demonstrating to the others ways to improvise with my wheelchair and I also loved improvising from other styles of chairs. There was an real international theme going through the cast.I am English, one dancer was Welsh, another from Finland another from Brazil and we had a student on placement with us from Argentina...There were many different languages spoken every day which created a lovely rich environment to work in..I now can speak about 5/6 spanish words....JUST!!

As part of our residency in Cardiff we visited a special School on Thursday morning to show a section of the piece and to deliver a workshop to an inclusive group.The children really loved the dance asking all kinds of questions at the end . Eeva and I each sang a few lines from one of our songs.We used some of our improvisation tasks from the piece with the young people.This workshop was a little chaotic as it was a large group but everyone seemed to be able to participate and have a great time.

One of my favourite moments of the whole project was when we were doing an improvisation during week one. We were using movement, voice, and props,we used fake flowers.There were a few magical moments when everything clicked into place i chose good songs to sing and it all seemed right...we ended and Fernanda said..."that's it, we have our piece". because this improvisation worked so well we re -worked it and put it in the piece....its a really goose bump section and I love it.

Due to the re furbishment of Chapter Arts we were working around the builders noise, mess and schedule every day.As a result of this we decided to recognise it in the piece by coming onstage with florecent jackets and hard hats on.

Finally the day of the first show came around and I woke up with my heart pumping and images of the show in my head. We were a little disapointed at the lack of numbers in the audiance for this show however Satuarday night was almost completely full.

I am both excited and sad leading up to our next performance which will be our last.We are performing this saturday at Theatre Powys in Llandrindo Wells as well as delivering a workshop.

I have included some images in this Blog of our show on Saturday and next time I will provide a link to footage on Utube...enjoy the photos.