Cherilyn: [Piano] Cherilyn
Albert, 24,
Dancer, Choreographer, Artistic
Director of Instigate Unknown. I
have trained in Tap, Ballet, Jazz
and along the way I found Street
Dance. And then when I started
to study dance, that's where
found Contemporary. So all those
 styles influenced my movement
and my choreography.
I have always known that I
wanted to be a choreographer,
and the name Instigate Unknown
comes from the fact that I don't
know why I started dancing, but
I'm definitely here to stay. I
enjoy fashion... I enjoy picking
up random instruments and trying
to play them... [Plays Violin
poorly] Watevs.
And I like messing around,
making people laugh and laughing
until I can't breathe.
'Lag, delay, imagine' [laughs]
Marta: Lag, delay, imagine is
about patience and how you react
when something unexpected
happens. As in how creative are
you able to be at that moment?
Kyra: The words that come to
mind are stressful but
entertaining.
Clea: To me, it's all about
empathy, because we've been
going through a time in which
our only way to be together has
been online.
Marta: One of my favorite moments during in lockdown is
when we were doing freestyle rounds and ads started playing
and Cherilyn said if ads play just carry through with the
freestyle. And... for me it's
that imagination, that
spontaneous creativity that
Cherilyn always brings on, is
finding possibilities in
anything, anything is worth
trying. And I think that really
makes our practice really rich.
It means also that anything can
turn into a gem, into something
valuable.
Kyra: I enjoyed seeing the
struggle of using zoom, and the
technical difficulties that
could occur, such as music or
audio not working.
Marta: Yeah, I can't here!
Kyra: [laughs] Sorry.
Clea: Technical difficulties
that have arisen are kind of new
to all of us. We're all in the
same boat. And I really feel
like, you know, we've been able
to laugh about it and just help
each other out because of the
lag... you're seeing things come
together on the screen that
wouldn't have come together, if
we'd have actually been in
synchronisation.
Cherilyn: I decided to go with
this theme, as I feel
like it has been a really big
part of moving our training
online. And I'm gonna talk about
them individually but in its
entirety, I guess to me, it
means the obstacles that we've
had to face, how we've overcome
them, and what has been born out
of those challenges that we've
had to face. Oh Clea we can't
hear you!
Beth: Oh no.
Cherilyn: Wait, speak again.
Clea: Hello?
Cherilyn: Lag, has been...
I think us falling in and out of sync with each other,
whether that be technically with the music, or having
misunderstandings because it's, it's harder to communicate
through the screen. [Sings] Go
go go Clea, Go go go Clea.
Cherilyn: I'm guessing I also
made absolutely no sense!
This is a public call out announcement for someone tech
savy. Someone needs to sort out
the music lag for us dancers on
zoom...
Marta: Yeah.
Cherilyn: Cause that is hard as
well to navigate.
I believe it's week five, it's ingrained in my head, a time
where I was teaching new choreography, and it's probably
the one section that has very varied musicality.
I was so- when I watch the recording back, I am so out of
sync with the music that my dancers was hearing.
[Cherilyn counting and music playing out of sync]
And this lag continued for the rest of the rehearsal. And I'm
completely oblivious to the fact that it's not making sense to
them. I have absolutely no clue how they all like, soldiered on
and learnt it as usual. The other day actually, I had to ask
like, 'why did you guys not
say anything?'
Questions? Questions? You guys
alright? Sometimes, it's your
device that's going a bit wrong. You do, you just kind of stay
quiet and wait it out and things usually fall back in sync after
a while. It's hard to train online and we do get the sense
that we want, you know, as less disruptions as possible.
Sometimes someone can't hear the music.
Kyra: I think you forgot to share the sound.
Marta: Oh, crap.
Sometimes we can't hear each
other. Why can't I hear anything
now?
Cherilyn: No, Kyra's just on
mute. Okay. [laughs]
There's so many
examples.
...like to my phone 'stop'! And
then you guys stopped and then
I'm like, 'no you don't stop, I'm not shouting at you, no don't
stop!'
I can't see you guys. But
yeah...
Marta: We can't see you
[music playing breifly cuts out and comes back]
Cherilyn: Delay, is how we cope
with the situation or how we end
up reacting or what ends up
happening, because of the lag.
We then are in a delay. This
whole situation is a delay!
We've been delayed to starting..
properly in a sense.
This is particularly hard, for me to choreograph,
I feel like online, but we're doing it anyway. The skeleton is there.
I don't think delay is always
necessarily a negative thing.
It's kind of like holding off, or
having to hold off, for a reason
Delay can be entertaining, can be
disruptive, can be both.
[Phone rings, Kyra groans]
Cherilyn: [Country music advert]
We all have to dance to the
advert how 'bout that?
[A series of adverts play]
Cherilyn: There's been a rehearsal where
Marta was injured, a rehearsal
where I wasn't feeling well. And that's a delay I guess, 'cause
it prevents stuff from happening
or slows things down. But
arguably, neither of us would have made it into
rehearsals...if it wasn't
remotely.
One person traveling, the rest
filter in and then [Cherilyn
sounds out choreography]
we'll do that final choreography
and that will be it. First
example a little bit random. I
have really enjoyed the way that
Marta and Leah fix the camera
for each other, the way it
affects their movement, changes
what the choreography looks like
and what the improvisations are.
Choreographically I start to
think about the possibilities of
seeing things at different
angles like... woah! Imagine if
this was dance on film and the
camera was sweeping from one
angle and then panning slowly
from the side. And they're not
conscious that they're doing
this for each other, but they
are there live editing the
sessions. I've tried to
choreograph and keep rehearsals
the same as it would be if we
was in the studio. So I saw a
really nice moment happened
between Beth and Marta. They
created solos around a shared
motif that we all had, and the
way that they handled the
movement... I just felt like it
fitted nicely together. So I
created a duet, although they're
on separate screens, that's
still what it becomes. I know
it's largely based on our
imagination of them being side
by side. But it's still a duet
that we've created and all
that's left to do is take it
into the space. One thing that I
realised I'm gonna have to wait
until the studio for is
dynamics.
[Cherilyn sounds out
choreography]
Just so you know, again, I'm not
expecting you to do that now,
but just so you know. I can't
expect them to do that and I
can't expect myself to do that
in the environment we're in.
There's a reason why we have dance
studios with sprung floor. And
we're more prepared than we
think as a community, dancers.
We're very used to marking out
movement, we have great
abilities to kind of imagine and
play out scenarios in our minds.
I have no doubt that when we get
into the studio, obviously, it
will take some time. But
everyone's on the same page as
to what kind of energy needs to
be given and dynamics to the
movement. But for now, we just
need to
live through it in our minds.
Cherilyn: In conclusion, I think
that lockdown has taught me that
our
greatest assets can be
the things that challenge us.
And I love that that's what I
feel like I've been taught
because I feel like that's the
basis of problematic props as
well, which was our methodology.
Which is, you know, giving
yourself a problem and then
working things out from there,
and I didn't think I was going
to enjoy being forced to start
working remotely but I don't
think we would have been able to
have such a rich connection and
and rich training, if we wasn't
in lockdown. Favourite moment is
a difficult one because there's
been so many great and so many
just funny moments as well. I
think my favourite moment has to
be first couple of weeks
teaching my dancers UNREST
because none of them had known
it before and it hasn't been
performed since 2014. And it's
just lovely to see it on on
different bodies and get
different creative input and to
start developing it into
something longer. My name is
Cherilyn Albert and that has
been my episode on Lag, Delay
Imagine.
