Schonkala
The machine knitting dance
Performed by Miriam Nicholls
See also vimeo.com/56022251 for the complete film.
Description by Dani Powell:
The knitting machine ‘dance’ demanded a different scale and yet the same qualities of repetition, absorption, the isolation of the maker or craftsperson in the confinements of her practice remained. Seeing Nicky knit on the machine was immediately for me a choreography but I was also interested in exploring the dynamics between this repetitive, manual task and the flight of the mind when the body is grounded so.
The knitting machine dance became about departure and return: about the physical tie to the mundi, the world, the task at hand, and the departure of the mind, to the realm of dreams. The ‘thread’ which connected the two worlds was of course the yarn, which Nicky carefully guided down from the yarn guide to the needles to begin knitting.
The yarn would enable the dancer to depart the task, to reach as if blind and roam in the world of thought and daydream. And yet it would pull her back each time to her work, sometimes with a jolt.
Hildegarde de Bingen came to mind, the 12th century visionary, abbess, writer and composer. And yet underneath this otherworldly music there would always be the rhythmic repetitive sound of the knitting machine.
And of course all the while something is being made. And when it is complete does it not contain the dreams of the maker, knitted in to the garment itself, and will it not always carry even a sense of this time of making?
Sadly I knew I would not be in town for Nicky’s exhibition opening and so approached Miriam Nicholls, whom I’d enjoyed collaborating with for the past five years, to work with me as a choreographer and dancer. So together we have worked to create these two pieces, the hand-knitting and the machine-knitting dance, both of which you will see on opening night and the latter, filmed by Shane Mulcahy, throughout the exhibition. Shane has also worked with us to film the knitting machine at work, capturing in the second short film, its anatomy and inherent dance.
Nicky’s first response to what we made was emotional, feeling we’d transformed her daily practice into something beautiful, shown it in a way she had not seen it before. It’s funny because as a performance-maker that was there for me from the beginning, seeing her work. So in a sense making something of it through dance was almost to extend what I saw in order to show her. And this of course was only achieved through working with someone like Miriam who has the ability to interpret through her body what I am describing that I can see in my mind.
I was reminded through this project how artistic collaboration is a process of extending each other’s ideas in a dialogue that transcends language so that perhaps, as TS Eliot put it, ‘the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time’.
The machine knitting dance
Performed by Miriam Nicholls
See also vimeo.com/56022251 for the complete film.
Description by Dani Powell:
The knitting machine ‘dance’ demanded a different scale and yet the same qualities of repetition, absorption, the isolation of the maker or craftsperson in the confinements of her practice remained. Seeing Nicky knit on the machine was immediately for me a choreography but I was also interested in exploring the dynamics between this repetitive, manual task and the flight of the mind when the body is grounded so.
The knitting machine dance became about departure and return: about the physical tie to the mundi, the world, the task at hand, and the departure of the mind, to the realm of dreams. The ‘thread’ which connected the two worlds was of course the yarn, which Nicky carefully guided down from the yarn guide to the needles to begin knitting.
The yarn would enable the dancer to depart the task, to reach as if blind and roam in the world of thought and daydream. And yet it would pull her back each time to her work, sometimes with a jolt.
Hildegarde de Bingen came to mind, the 12th century visionary, abbess, writer and composer. And yet underneath this otherworldly music there would always be the rhythmic repetitive sound of the knitting machine.
And of course all the while something is being made. And when it is complete does it not contain the dreams of the maker, knitted in to the garment itself, and will it not always carry even a sense of this time of making?
Sadly I knew I would not be in town for Nicky’s exhibition opening and so approached Miriam Nicholls, whom I’d enjoyed collaborating with for the past five years, to work with me as a choreographer and dancer. So together we have worked to create these two pieces, the hand-knitting and the machine-knitting dance, both of which you will see on opening night and the latter, filmed by Shane Mulcahy, throughout the exhibition. Shane has also worked with us to film the knitting machine at work, capturing in the second short film, its anatomy and inherent dance.
Nicky’s first response to what we made was emotional, feeling we’d transformed her daily practice into something beautiful, shown it in a way she had not seen it before. It’s funny because as a performance-maker that was there for me from the beginning, seeing her work. So in a sense making something of it through dance was almost to extend what I saw in order to show her. And this of course was only achieved through working with someone like Miriam who has the ability to interpret through her body what I am describing that I can see in my mind.
I was reminded through this project how artistic collaboration is a process of extending each other’s ideas in a dialogue that transcends language so that perhaps, as TS Eliot put it, ‘the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time’.