Research through collaborative practice: identifying the principles of performance in 'Umm... I... and uh... [revisited]'

In recent debates on the development of practice-led research, discussions have often focused on the relationship between the different modes of doing that the researcher-practitioner engages with, which often include collaborative practice and interdisciplinary activities. Within this context, this paper sets out to explore certain principles of performance that emerged, as part of the creative process and the performances of the solo work 'Umm… I… and uh… [revisited]', but also through reflections that I shared with performer-collaborator Susanna Recchia when the project was completed. It unfolds collaborative choreographic research through the articulation of the ‘performance principles’ of the work, which sustain, as I propose, a shared thinking between choreographer and performer, in a piece whereby the performer is given by the choreographer a series of written instructions or prompts that form the ‘performance score’. My practice is therefore presented here not only as multi-layered and complex in terms of its process, but also as shared amongst artists; Recchia in particular is staged as a parallel researcher with her own reflections on practice. Given that the main focus of this practice-led research concerns the performer’s relation to space, what follows is a meditation on a series of tasks through which a space for practising choreographic thought in writing is created. The tasks are four: ‘Go horizontal’. ‘Mark out the territory’. ‘Create a miniature’. ‘Find the new beauty’. Through them I propose not a style or way of choreographing, but a way of approaching the stage and therefore a way of opening out possibilities, a way of imagining and preserving what I am exploring as the space of the dance possible, in practice.