Title: Dance Work
Work: Wanting to Tell Stories
Summary
A dance for six. Two enormous screens hang, rotate and slide to divide and close off areas of the stage, providing intimate and open spaces, corridors, private and public rooms. The visual and physical influence of edges, corners, corridors and open spaces on the people who were encountering them provided the initial information for making the movement material, as well as the strength of the commissioned score by Kevin Volans. The title came from Volans who had spoken with Davies about the work of the artist Philip Guston (1913-1980) whose later paintings became more figurative.
Analysis
‘To tell stories or not to tell stories? The conflicting attractions of the figurative and the abstract have continued to absorb creative artists throughout the 20th century. As the century nears its close, Siobhan Davies and composer Kevin Volans, with designers David Buckland and Antony McDonald revisit the debate in Wanting To Tell Stories, which received its World Premiere at the 1993 Brighton Festival. All acknowledge the need to communicate something about the human condition 'to tell stories' in their work, but all are equally convinced of the ability of dance, music and design to communicate on their own terms. The result shows that stories can be told in a myriad of unexpected ways and that abstract language has the power to underline and enrich the process’ (Programme note, 1993).
‘In Wanting to Tell Stories, two huge wire mesh panels move and rotate to create rooms, corridors and recesses. Davies' company of six dancers perform with an energetic fluency in simultaneous solos, duets and trios, offering high-speed movement encounters and quieter dialogue from the chance meetings. This superb work is choreographed to Kevin Volans' specially commissioned score for piano, viola, clarinet and double-bass’ (Towngate Theatre, Basildon 23/05/93 Promotional Flyer).
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