Remembering Dance in the Fells

by Brianna Unsworth

A few months ago you heard about Sam's experience dancing in Nikki's section of our piece at Dance in the Fells.   Here's another one of Nikki's dancer's, Bri, telling her side of the experience.  Enjoy!  -Nicole.

As a play on the environment of which a performance was set, the choreographers developed a sequence of interferences, or rather an implied universal interruption. The choreographers known as Monkeyhouse, utilized their roles as creative human beings to piece together individual moments in time where they found connection to the earth. Much like the ever seizing flow of natural disasters, they found themselves shifting the earth, or exchanging motion with it. This interruption of movement in nature is what I found to drive the creative performance at Dance in the Fells.

From the beautiful natural environment, equipped with changing leaves, wild winds, silky water, bugs, and wildlife, to the materialized, metallic, and inflated balloon fish the creators utilized the most obvious forms  to make this simple opposition clear to viewers. The floating fish tempted to manipulate the natural flow of the water’s ripples, while the lone dancer manipulated the earthly water sisters. This interaction between human and nature occurred in stages of the piece, building and building as time elapsed – only right in time for the audience to be left making their own interpretations – to manipulate, or to become one with the natural environment that encircled them.

As a dancer, or rather a water sister, I felt in tune with my natural surroundings; feeling the wind down my spine, the spider crawl over my legs, and the spritz of rain touching down on my face. Not only did I find the creation of this piece interesting and ever-evolving, but it inspired me to view the natural environment as a more prominent “being” in my life. Monkey House was a blessing to work with not only as they allowed me to further my dance career, but also in helping to develop a deeper understanding of movement, nature, and my inner self.