Choreographing experience

See, for example, Peter Zumthor's thermal spa in Vals

Or Aldo Van Eyck, and his famous Orphanage and Mothers House in Amsterdam - his buildings contain many possbilities for children and adults to appropriate small places for their own use eg. edges thickened to provide the possibility of seats, shelves, places to settle and put things down on. Steps or sills can become seats, shelves can become hiding places and play areas. Small windows to give glimpses of a view.

Relationship to my project

1. The journey to the main theatre/performance building:
• a walkway over the mangroves, to give a separation between the real and perhaps the imagined world, between the ground-based world and the spiritual, watery world
• take people away from the malae/marae area
2. The journey to the meeting house/whare nui:
• a path down into the sunken space, clearly demarcated but no actual fences or gates, just a threshold
• crossing this large open space requires invitation, or purpose: you will feel uncomfortable unless you have a reason to be there
• an open space
3. Public through to Private/Intimate/Spiritual; noa to tapu
• workshop & carving studio accessed directly from the carpark; these are more public spaces
• the creche/playcentre/homework spaces will also be accessed from the carpark but also with links to the malae area
• the whare kai/dining hall/plus associated ablution block can be accessed off to one side from the malae space, quite separate though

Space or place

Notes from 'A Choreographer's Handbook' by Jonathan Burrows, one of the UK's leading choreographers.

• the philosopher Susanne Langer has said 'The primary illusion of dance is a virtual realm of Power - not actual, physically exerted power, but appearances of influence and agency created by virtual gesture'
• the space of dance also has this virtual quality - the placement of a person on a stage can approximate to a narrative or emotional force, a dancer can render a small space infinite

Performance space

• how you handle the space in which you perform is part of the contract you make with the audience - a more relaxed space invites a more relaxed gaze while clean surroundings demand sharper attention (though the reverse can be true).
• surroundings are in dialogue with, and affected by, the performances that take place within them.
• the space itself is not the performance

Audience

• the relationship with the audience is a circular thing - I give them clues as to how they might sit and they, in turn, give me permission to relax and do best what I've come to do
• it is possible to use the situation of the unreality of a theatrical stage to become something extraordinary. This is one of the great pleasures of performing or watching performance - that suspension of disbelief/to suspend doubt.
• our thinking about direction is in constant negotiation with compass points and square rooms. The audience is usually in front of you and facing them is one possibility but not the only one, and it isn't a guarantee of communication
• another way to meet the audience is to confront them. The strongest confrontation is gently conscious of its purpose. Confrontation does not guarantee communicaton any more than facing the front...
• the gentle aim of the following principles, written by the composer Christian Wolff, is to liberate both audience and performers:
• a composition must make possible the freedom and dignity of the performer
• it should allow both concentration and release
• no sound or noise is perferable to any other sound or noise
• listeners should be as free as the players