Drawing Dancing in the Dark

Last night I went to an AMAZING drawing and dance performance at the Volcano Theatre premises in Swansea, by Marega Palser and three other dancers. I’m not normally a huge fan of dance, but this combination of extreme movement, creative soundtrack and spontaneous drawing was fantastic. Marega also had an exhibition of her drawings and monotypes along the walls and several pieces of drawing-based animations. True to form I took my sketchbook and scribbled! There was no seating – the performance moved around and so did the audience which gave me a lot more freedom to draw than in a conventional theatre.

The dancers had those strange dancerish bodies [sorry – don’t mean it nastily] which gives them a very Egon Schiele feel. They were pushing their physiques to the limit and the some of the extreme poses they struck were great to draw. The dancer above is very tall and thin but has strong calves and feet, which seem to anchor her frail torso to the skin of the planet. They used lighting very creatively with minimal props and this piece looked like it was set in a cell, very claustrophobic even though we were in a huge room – an old furniture showroom.

Drawing figures in movement is also challenging, especially as I’m used to working with professional life models who stay completely still. I had to quickly respond to rapid changes and so some of my drawings became composites of different poses and angles, like this one above which is an amalgamation of the dancer in about half a dozen different positions.

The drawings are in Faber Castell Pitt pens into a recycled sari sketchbook, around A5 in size. The show is called ‘Sometimes We Look’ and it’s really exciting and innovative. The Swansea run is finished but it’s moving to Chapter in Cardiff next week and then onto Aberystwth Arts Centre. Try and catch it – I’ve never seen anything like it.