Choreographing Poetry Workshop (October 2020)

In late October 2020, during the brief time we could hold sessions in person, a group of creative students came together to explore poetry and make the use of studio space. A number of talented poets in Cambridge contributed their work to our workshop and our aim was to use words and imagery from their poems to inspire movement. We started with a centre ballet warm-up, followed by an improvisation section in which we closed our eyes to allow us to focus on the movement, with a particular word or phrase in mind, such as “explode” or “stretching the fabric”. We then listened to the poems and discussed their use of language and how we could convey their meaning using our bodies. Finally, we spent some time individually creating short dances based on one of these poems and shared our work with each other at the end. This was a wonderful opportunity to have the space and time to simply create and learn from other’s creations.