Two weeks ago, rehearsals began for Quarantine and National Theatre Wales’ new piece, English. Richard and Renny, co-artistic directors of Quarantine, movement director Jo Fong and writer Sonia Hughes are working with performer Jonny Cotsen, in the rehearsal room at the National Dance Centre at Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, where English will premiere as part of Festival of Voice in June.
We’ve described English as “A performance built out of a fascination with what happens when we try to talk about how to live together” and as “A joyous, intimate, provocative encounter, English asks how language shapes us all and what happens to our sense of self when we don’t really know how to say who we are.”
Over the past 2 weeks, Stage Manager, Perla Ponce Nunez, has written a daily show report, and it has been a fascinating glimpse into the rehearsal room so far…
Day #1
… different relationships we will have with the audience through the performance; how Jonny’s different abilities will come into play…
Day #2
…. conversations about the concept of home and how to map out the space. We explored this using tape to mark out part of the piece’s journey…
Day #3
… in the end he learnt a bit of tap, ballet, hand games, waltz, and salsa. Afterwards he continued to explore the designing of a pattern or figures on the floor with LX tape…
Day #5
…we talked about Jonny’s past as a shepherd, and using onomatopoeia…
Day #6
Frances Rock, a linguistic ethnographer, visited the rehearsal room this afternoon.
The question of how to start a conversation has been recurring today.
Day #8
…foil blankets were tried as well as ways to put them together; it was discovered that a glue stick doesn’t work…
More news from the rehearsal room later.
