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Nobody Diaries – 16th July

16th July 2021

Hello! With the Nobody creation process complete, and as the premiere creeps closer, we are bringing you the latest behind-the-scenes action by turning another page in the Nobody Diaries!

In June, we shared our first ever live streamed open rehearsal of Nobody. Don’t worry if you missed it, you can still catch it on our YouTube Channel!

We want to thank Matt from Noisegate Studios for his help in running the live stream and our friend David Guilding from Warwick District Council who hosted the Q&A with our Artistic Director Kevin and our dancers. We had some brilliant questions from people watching but didn’t manage to answer all of them on the night, so below we have answered your burning questions about the show!

Nobody Open Rehearsal

‘How much acro training do the dancers have/do?’ 

Our dancers train every day and have various circus skills when they join the company. We are always looking to develop our skills as a company and we train our lifts and acrobatic skills every day in rehearsals.

‘How heavy is the scaffolding box?’

The cage is approximately 160kg. 

‘What’s been the hardest thing during the last year for the dancers?’ 

It was really hard to not be able to be together and to perform to audiences so we’re really looking forward to getting on the road again. 

‘Which section(s) were the most influenced or changed by the pandemic and lockdown?’ 

The whole show was really influenced by the pandemic – the feelings of isolation and being disconnected from others that came with lockdown. The crows became more developed as characters too, because during lockdown many of us were more aware of our inner voices and the voices in our head.  

‘Did you have to R&D over Zoom? If so, was there any unexpected silver linings to this?‘

All of the work with our collaborators happened over Zoom – the development of the score, the projections, discussions about costumes, etc. 

We were all able to keep in touch via Zoom and follow the developments, which was useful as it ensured we were all on the same page when we did return to rehearsals.

‘Do any of the dancers get a bit scared or nervous with getting swung or thrown around?’ 

Everyone trains and develops their skills and comfort level to be able to perform the tricks we do in the show. As Berta mentioned in the Q&A, Kevin works closely with the dancers to create the material for the show, so it’s the playing and experimentation on the set that allows us to come up with material. They then build the moves from the initial idea until they all feel safe doing them.

‘How are shows developed? Does one person plan each step and come to the group or is it collaborative? If so, how does that work?’ 

Kevin has the ideas of what he wants to make a show about including the narrative and story he wants that to take, but he uses a very collaborative process where the dancers work closely together with him to develop the vocabulary and material for the shows. Kevin gives the dancers creative tasks and they play and improvise to create material, which Kevin then uses to create the structure of the show and the choreography. 

‘When watching the section with the box I got a sense of improvisation used during the creative process… Is this a tool you use for parts of the production?‘

The show is devised with Kevin and the dancers as a result of improvisation working with the sets. So this duet came about from those improvisations.  

‘Some of the moves look as though they are quite uncomfortable, do dancers learn to accept discomfort and conceal it?’ 

Some of the moves can be uncomfortable but the dancers can adapt them once they are familiar and can tweak to make it more comfortable.  

‘Did you half to practice on Zoom if so was it hard to do things on zoom and how did you feel when you came back?’ 

Some of our dancers live together so they were able to train together as a household before we created the bubble we now use to rehearse. They also did a daily class together on zoom.