Pause. Listen. (performance, 2014)

Output

Video documentation of complete live performance (30 minutes, 4 cameras). A 5-minute edit of this documentation is available at the end of the Contextual Information.

Summary Statement (300 words)

Pause. Listen. is a practice-research dance and performance project by Simon Ellis (choreographer), Chisato Ohno (dancer) and Jackie Shemesh (designer). The research uses a range of performance and choreographic practices to explore listening, choreographic and performative agency, and the performance environment.

In Pause. Listen. the dancer Chisato Ohno is fed a randomised system or score through wireless video playback on three small screens. These screens are unseen by the audience, and their presence is unimportant to the audience’s experience of the work. The texts presented on the screens display up to three choreographic prompts randomly pulled from a large collection of pre-practised choreographic materials. Each screen presents different possibilities and together they challenge Ohno’s memory, presence and sense of agency. As such, Ohno’s performance is both guided and unguided, choreographed and un-choreographed.

Pause. Listen. was founded on a residency model during its primary research and development period in Italy in 2013. This means that the performance work iterates or is adapted while the artists are together in residency. For the première in London in 2014 the artistic-research team was in residency at The Place for four weeks, and used this time to build the performance in response to the performance space, the conditions of the venue in general, and our evolving curiosities and inspirations as individuals and as a team.

Research aims

1. To understand and test the possibilities of creating choreographic systems that directly address agency
   
2. To build a practice of working in relation to the nuances and limitations of specific performance environments
   
3. To interrogate listening in choreographic practice-as-performance, and as a way to understand the choreographer-dancer relationship.

The discursive components of the research into listening, agency in choreographic practice, and the choreographer-dancer relationship are discussed in detail in the book chapter Pause. Listen.: Visibility and Freedom in Choreographic Practice.

Contextual Information

• Production Credits:
  • Performance: Chisato Ohno
  • Choreography, direction and operation: Simon Ellis
  • Design: Jackie Shemesh
  • Music: Dawn of Midi
• Commission: The Place
• Length: 30 minutes
• Video Documentation:
  • Camera: Stacie Bennett
  • Edit: Owa Barua
• Première: 17 September 2014, The Place, London
• Project website: skellis.net/pause-listen/
• Research and development blog: pauselisten.wordpress.com
• Related publications and presentations:
  • Ellis, Simon. ‘Pause. Listen.: Visibility and Freedom in Choreographic Practice’. In Dance and the Quality of Life, edited by Karen Bond. Social Indicators Research Series. Springer, 2018, pp.167-183 download PDF
• Photo gallery: skellis.net/ref2020/pause-listen-images. Selected images from performances of Pause. Listen at The Place. Images by Stacie Bennett
• Notes / Distinction:
  • Initial research and development residency occurred at Garage Nardini, Centro per la Scena Contemporanea di Bassano del Grappa, Italy, October-November 2013
  • Awarded Arts Council England Artists International Development Fund to to work in Italy and develop performance and choreographic opportunities. Much of the early research and development for Pause. Listen. happened during this period of support.
• Five minute video edit of live performance (5 minutes, 4 cameras): vimeo.com/395210265

Simon Ellis
C-DaRE
Coventry University
February 2020