The Magnificent Minutiae

In this Flight, I explore how the smallest of everyday gestures has been used compositionally and my fascination with the extraordinary-ordinary. Starting with Do the Wild Thing!, I chart how this focusing became a crucial principle in my practice in later works: how focusing on performers’ habitual actions, framing them as choreographic material, structured whole shows and required a slowing-down of the pace with which material was unfolded on stage. This led to understanding both the stage and the devising workshop as places in which to dwell, both for ourselves as makers, and then for spectators. I reflect too on how concretizing the smallest of actions in this way relates to how Simon's writing ranges far and wide and moves with a quicker, more febrile energy: in essence, the two different vectors of choreography and writing, flesh and text, become the fundamental axis between which Bodies in Flight's practice ‘unconceals’ itself.

Keywords: choreography ; dance and spoken word ; everydayness ; habitual movement ; performance phenomenology ; practice as research