Controlled Release

I’ve built a dancing style of my own that can best be described as ‘controlled release.’  This consists in finding the natural line in each body and the favorite ways it likes to move about—then controlling these movements.
– Marie Bryant

When I’m not designing things, I’m generally dancing. I’ve been a keen swing dancer since 2009. In that time I’ve taught both partnered and solo forms of the dance, organised large dance festivals and teaching weekends and given talks on swing and jazz dance history. One of the interesting debates in the scene for me is arounnd ‘authenticity’. How does a now global dance community ‘remember’ and honour a culture through movement? What are we discussing when we use words like ‘authentic'?’ How do we begin to understand it and embody it?

My ongoing exploration of this idea is both physical (through my dance practice) and visual (thorough my design practice). Taking inspiration from Gjon Milli, I’m currently investigating Photo Visualisation as a way to explore Marie Bryant’s theory of Controlled Release. Drawing parallells between her ideas and those of Swing Era Jazz musicians about how one comes to embody jazz, towards a theory of authentic movement.