f Writing with a choreographer's notebook

This article is concerned with a British choreographer's decision to write about her choreographic process, which led into projects of writing as a mode of making alongside choreographic processes. Dual in voice and perspective, the article is written by choreographer Rosemary Lee and her collaborator on the writing projects, dancer-writer Niki Pollard. Lee is a widely respected and experienced choreographer whose work spans more than two decades. Her works include large-scale site-specific performances (e.g. Common Dance 2009), short films (e.g. Boy 1995) and installations (e.g. Remote Dancing 2004) and her collaborators have included artist/film-makers Nic Sandiland, Peter Anderson and David Hinton. Lee is a research associate at ResCen, the Centre for Research into Creation in the Performing Arts at Middlesex University. It is argued that Lee writes here as a choreographer, even if her words may also serve as illustration of an argumentmade in the interest of a university economy. The imperative of the article remains as much creative to make as it is analytic to reveal or increase understanding. The article focuses on the relationship between Lee's first anticipation of a piece in a notebook, prior to casting, and to her subsequent studio practice with performers, taking as example the making of Passage (2001). Finally, it is observed that Lee's enquiry into her process circled back into her process of making Common Dance (2009).