- Title: Make-Make
- Summary: Made for six dancers, the title is taken from the name of an Easter Island god. The piece begins with an image of a confined space, an island with dancers inhabiting it. Their movement is their language of communication. The score comprises unaccompanied voices from different cultures and during each performance the order of these songs or spoken words were different. The voices offered the different inflections of their language and this aural information helped the dancers during rehearsal to find different rhythms, phrasings and punctuations in their movement material. The pouring rain, falling behind a plastic curtain behind the dancers, gave a further sense of the inhabitants' isolation.
- Work: 1992
- Choreographer: Siobhan Davies
- Choreographer Comments: choreographed for Siobhan Davies Dance
- Dancer: Gill Clarke, Paul Douglas, Sean Feldman, Jeremy James, Elizabeth Old, Deborah Saxon
- Music: David Buckland
- Music Comments: Mixed Live by Ron Thomson
- Sound Score: David Buckland, Russell Mills
- Sound Score Comments: Original sound recordings largely made by David Bradnum. Studio sound engineering by Mark Underwood.
- Designer: David Buckland
- Lighting Design: Peter Mumford
- Costume Designer: David Buckland
- Costume Maker: Sasha Keir
- Analysis: ‘The human frame and voice are the essentials of Make-Make. The movement was generated by images of people in a confined space - an 'island' 8 metres by 6 metres...During the performance the sound track is mixed live from voice sounds pre-recorded on an 8-track tape. The voices were chosen for their sound; they are free from instrumentation or formal rhythm. In passing we may hear events such as the meeting of men and women, the singing of a duet between two men apart in a desert, a lullaby or a funeral song...These songs are not adhered to literally by the dance. In fact, the movement and the score lead separate lives, but can by chance inhabit the same time’ (Programme note, 1992).
‘As with White Bird Featherless, a private world or community is implied in which the dancers play-out a series of ritual-like tasks and activities. Hand and arm gestures recur and movement material is made and remade throughout the dance, reflecting the title. Dancers were set the task of how a phrase performed in the upper body could be performed with a phrase made for the lower body, to perform less simply co-ordinated material. As Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues was originally choreographed prior to, but in the same year as Make-Make, some of the significant changes identified in Make-Make may in fact have their genesis in Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues. But those aspects were developed much further in Make-Make and then had a significant impact and influence on all subsequent work, including the revival of Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues’ (Sarah Whatley, 2002). - Production Date Original: 1992
- Tour: with White Bird Featherless (1992)
01/10/92 - RNCM, Manchester Festival
14/10/92 - 17/10/92 - Riverside Studios, London (Dance Umbrella)
20/10/92 - Leadmill Theatre, Sheffield
23/10/92 - 24/10/92 - Cambridge Arts Theatre, Cambridge
27/10/92 - 28/10/92 - Newcastle Playhouse, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
03/05/93 - 04/05/93 - Teatro Libero, Palermo, Sicily
with Wanting To Tell Stories (1993)
18/05/93 - 19/05/93 - Harlow Playhouse, Essex
06/07/93 - Northcott Theatre, Exeter Festival
09/07/93 - Dundee Repertory Theatre
04/10/93 - The Hawth Theatre, Crawley
08/10/93 - Theatr Hafren, Newtown, powys
17/10/93 - Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
21/10/93 - Recklinghausen, Germany
23/10/93 - Gelsenkirken, Germany
26/10/93 - Krefeld, Germany
29/10/93 - Leverkusen, Germany
