Corali and Thick & Tight: reflections on collaboration, queer culture and equality

Over the past year Corali and dance duo Thick & Tight have been discussing, planning and fundraising for our joint project, Excellent Together. I wanted to write this blog to express how exciting I have found this process, and how inspired I have found working with Daniel Hay-Gordon and Eleanor Perry the co-founders and co-directors of Thick & Tight.

 

Of course, the most exciting bit of the project is yet to happen – delivering Excellent Together, together. But whilst we wait for the outcome of our funding bids and finalise logistics, I really wanted to capture what I have already found so inspiring about our collaboration, and what I have already learnt. To mark a point in time before the project activity begins.

So, what is Excellent Together?

The idea behind Excellent Together is simple – two dancers come together in a studio (or online if needs be) to exchange practice and share ideas. One of the dancers is from Corali, and the other dancer from Thick & Tight’s network.

Bethan Kendrick and Jules Cunningham, Excellent Together pilot 2019photo: Jon C Archdeacon

Bethan Kendrick and Jules Cunningham, Excellent Together pilot 2019

photo: Jon C Archdeacon

Each dancer from Corali has a learning disability and each dancer from Thick & Tight’s network align with or ally the queer-focused work that they produce.

Whilst the principle of Excellent Together is simple, the project’s potential outcomes feel far-reaching, even profound.

So, what have I found so inspiring?

Corali’s partnership with Thick & Tight, and the conversations with Danny and Eleanor!

Over the summer of 2020 we spent time reflecting on, and defining our Excellent Together project, and talking through our shared ambition for the work.

We’ve asked ourselves, “what does our joint artist-led collaboration look like?”, “what do we want the artists to get out of the project?”, “what do we as companies want to learn?” and “what can we share with other people, artists, organisations, and venues?”

Spending time reflecting on Excellent Together has enabled me to think through all that Corali has learnt from our partnership with Thick & Tight to date, and what it means for us to collaborate with a company that creates queer-focussed work. I began to think about the different layers of our collaboration and how it has opened-up Corali’s artistic positioning. I also began to understand that not only was our partnership strengthening each company’s own artistic identity and practice, but also that it has exciting potential ripple effects for the wider artistic community.

This fledging understanding for me began to become clearer still when the three of us met with artist Luke Pell to talk with him about Excellent Together.  We hope that Luke Pell, will be engaged in the project as ‘Research & Reflection Guide’ – to work with us to contextualise and reflect on the project. We spoke to him one sunny February in the early evening on Zoom.

Luke Pell                          Photo taken by Jassy Earl

Luke Pell Photo taken by Jassy Earl

Corali is a fan of Luke’s work and many years previously he had facilitated a masterclass for us.  Luke, knowing Corali’s work, and knowing our longevity, immediately articulated something that perhaps should have been obvious to me, but was made suddenly clear. He articulated that the non-binary nature of queer culture had enabled Corali, through our relationship with Thick & Tight, to take up a different relationship to the mainstream.

Of course! I thought.

Our collaboration with Thick &Tight moves away from a demarcated relationship to the mainstream and has enabled it to become more fluid. Having this articulated by Luke that evening was a bit of lightbulb moment for me. Thinking in ‘non-binary’ terms articulated something that I consider to be central to Corali’s work – a move away from thinking about, ‘Us and Them’ relationships. This understanding is something which I hope runs through everything Corali aspires to, and is at the heart of our practice. In our work, we want to break down boundaries of what role artists with a learning disability can have in the studio, who they can collaborate with, and on what stages they can perform. In other words, no ‘us and them’ in the studio, and no ‘us and them’ where we perform.

Corali and Daniel Hay-Gordon and Eleanor Perry (Thick & Tight), Adieu, The Place 2019photo: Jon C Archdeacon

Corali and Daniel Hay-Gordon and Eleanor Perry (Thick & Tight), Adieu, The Place 2019

photo: Jon C Archdeacon

My lightbulb moment illuminated that our collaboration with Thick & Tight has enabled Corali to think about equality in new ways. That these new relationships are also on new terms, not on the terms of ‘other’, or ‘mainstream’. Until that afternoon, I hadn’t appreciated how queer culture has opened-up that space for us, and how our collaboration with Thick &Tight enabled us to enter in and be an active part of these dialogues.

This understanding will fuel Excellent Together, which is an ambitious project. We hope, amoungst other things, that the project will disband prejudice surrounding what makes an artist or their work ‘excellent’, blur the lines between professional and participatory practice, and build solace, understanding and solidarity for artists and audiences alike.

Thinking about all of this, and during that same conversation with Luke, we began to talk about change. We talked about the different ways dance and art can evoke change. But importantly on that afternoon, we also talked about how change can happen in different ways.

Triggered by Luke’s stimulating conversation about change, my brain-cells started pinging again, reminding me of lots of conversations I’ve had about the subject. But talking of change taking time, this blog post is now long enough, and any more would take too much of your time. So more on that subject in another post soon….

So, what else have I learnt so far before the project starts?

How vital it is to have conversations – how vital it is to enter discourse with other companies to help define and progress practice. That talking and thinking about ideas is both beautiful and inspiring. It’s also very much part of the project, not a separate adjunct. So wonderful to be working with Peter Laycock as Learning Consultant on Excellent Together, to help us capture our collaborative learning.

A massive thank you to Danny and Eleanor, and the other conversations we’ve had so far to lay the ground for Excellent Together. Watch this space to see how the project unfurls.

DJ and Thom:

Below is a film of a collection of moments taken from the second day that Thom and DJ met and played together at the Wayne McGregor Studios. Their shared energy and connection was remarkable to be around. 

Veneshia & Vidya:

Below is a short film, filmed on Danny's iPhone of Vidya and Veneshia. This comes from only spending a few hours with one another in a community centre in London. The use of mirroring and gestural movement helped create a simple yet beautiful minute of film.

Arianna Carloni