Birdsong Analysis

Birdsong (2004)
Choreographed by Siobhan Davies

Contextual Information/ Key Details:
 Choreographer Siobhan Davies
 Movement Material Siobhan Davies and Company Dancers

 Sound Score and Design Andy Pink
 Visual Artist David Ward
 Production Design Sam Collins
 Lighting Design Adrian Plaut
 Costume Design Genevieve Bennett

 Dancers 8  5 Female and 3 Male
 Type of Stage In the round

World Premier Northern Ireland April 2004
 London Premier October 2004

A pebble effect, starting from the middle and moving out. The central Bird Song Solo was the first section choreographed and then it mirrors as it grows (except no second diagonal)

The Order of Bird Song

Infinite Monkeys

Four
ACTION:
• Pedestrian movements/ gestures; isolations of joints; idiosyncratic action linked to particular dancers

• Action has a focus on the body; initiated form the joints or around the joints; drawing attention to the anatomy, body surfaces and body parts

SPACE:
• Proximity and distance (near and far) to the audience and to other dancers

• Small detailed action and larger more extended movement

• A multi-centred, Cunninghamesque approach to facings and directions

• Unprojected intimacy, task-like presentation and more expansive focus

• Confined and expansive; complex pathways – linear and curved

DYNAMICS:
• Slow motion/stillness contrasts with speed

• Complex energy flow: fluidly successive or jerkily through and across joints or body surfaces; melting, ricocheting, arresting, recoiling, dispersing, flowing and regenerating

• Transitions between movements can be sudden; body parts flicking to a new facing or focus

• Contrasting dynamics: relaxed, soft, heavy, gentle, gliding, sharp, driving, playful, buoyant, wriggling, twitching, fluid, rippling

CHOREOGRAPHIC DEVICES:
• Repetition, recycling, variation, recombination, accumulation

• Short phrases grouped together rather than traditional motif
But the piece starts on a note that is much too frenetic for any bird to be noticed, and half the work has to pass before we, or the eight dancers, get to hear the song of the title.
During the whole of the opening section, Andy Pink's score fills the stage with waves of clashing, grinding noise. The sound is a deliberate assault on the dancers, who appear to be flung around by its force - catapulted into flailing, staggered lines, or dashed, twisting, to the floor. For the audience, seated on all four sides of the stage, the combination of driven energy and savage pattern making is overwhelming; it comes as a relief when Pink's music and David Ward's lighting begin to calm the frenzy. The dancers start to become aware of wider horizons, and of each other: arms that were raised as barriers make tentative contact, and snatches of piano music mould their bodies into a graceful, more coordinated