Mark Hill and McGregor

“For me, choreography is a process of physical thinking. It's very much in mind as well as in body.” — Wayne McGregor

This quote really did stand out for me because of I found it to be true with what McGregor was saying and what Mark Hill explained to us when we did our workshops with him. One thing that I found really relatable between Mark Hill and Wayne McGregor is the movement of body using mental imagery. While we were learning Butoh from Mark, he taught us to isolate our body part and use them to imitate an image that we would have in our head (hair in a river, snake in the desert, etc.). In the TED Talk, McGregor talks about having an image set in specific space, and working around that image. For example he uses the letter ‘T’ to imagine it in front of him, and moves his body around that image. He then goes on to demonstrate this, using his dancers, with a few images and shapes to create a beautiful choreographed dance routine. I found it absolutely fascinating to watch the dancers create such a beautiful dance out of nothing but a few images in their minds and without being told what specific moves to do.

I think this way of creating a physical image, in your mind, in front of you is such a simple yet remarkable way of creating art with your body. It really is painting the image with your body. It never occurred to me that such a simple tactic as working around something, rather than trying to imitate it, could be considered dance or theatre.

While I was watching the video, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through the minds of the dancers while they were doing this. I recall that when I was doing the Butoh activity, the only thing in my mind were the different images we were acting out with our bodies. McGregor’s way of physical thinking, however, seems like it encourages the dancers to imagine themselves in a different world. A world where what they see in their minds are obstacles around them which are always moving and changing, forcing them to work around the images, to maneuver between them, dodge them and play with them.

Lastly, another thing that stood out to me was the McGregor’s saying that physical thinking allows us to “Misbehave beautifully”. This little quote is just so beautiful and relevant to me because I feel as though this idea of misbehaving beautifully is the basic foundation for all forms of art.

Mark Hill and Wayne McGregor have both taught me really fascinating new ways of looking at physical theatre and creating it. Even though I have learnt a lot from these two people, I feel as though my understanding of the possibilities of physical theatre is still immature and only skims the surface. Physical theatre is a very new idea to me but from what I’ve learnt about it so far, there is SO MUCH of it out there and I can’t wait to learn more about it and expand my understanding of this vital form of theatre.

“Misbehave beautifully”

-Emma-