'Writing is re-writing'

On Wednesday 14^th October I took part in a ‘Talking about Writing’ workshop with Peter Thomas. I was keen to attend this meeting since although writing comes relatively naturally to me, I wanted to find areas upon which I could improve and was curious to hear other people’s viewpoints. I noticed that in many areas discussed, there was a large correlation between the writing process and the choreographic process, alongside general dance practice. 

 

We started the session with a freewriting activity. The aim of freewriting is somewhat self-explanatory. You aim to write for a certain amount of time (in our case it was five minutes), without stopping, re-reading, correcting or judging. I found this exercise rather daunting since I often struggle with self-judgement and I feel anxious when I can’t check what I have written as I feel I have the tendency to go off topic whilst writing freely. This self-criticism is mirrored in my professional dance practice, and it struck me how common habits can seep into multiple creative and mundane activities. After we had finished writing we were asked to pick out key phrases that we believed answered the question of the task ‘What is writing?’, or simply stood out to us. It was fascinating to see the huge variety of ideas from all the participants, ranging from writing as a form of communication or self-expression to the literal physical action of it. Overall there seemed to be theme of writing as a process alongside writing as a physical thing, i.e. a literal text. 

 

Peter shared some quotes with us that were relevant to the question, ‘What is writing?’ and one that particularly resonated with me was that of Paul Abbot, ‘Writing is re-writing’. This idea of revisiting ideas, not just your own but those of others, and re-working them is intrinsically linked to choreographic practice. In my experience creating new movement phrases based on ‘old’ ones is a task often set by choreographers wishing to improve upon a previous piece or create completely new work, and it is a skill that is very sought after. 

 

The three stages of writing, namely Generate, Organise and Present were discussed by Peter and I noticed another similarity with the choreographic process. Peter pointed out that the three stages are usually not linear, and one often has to dart back and forth between stages during the writing process. This further reinforced the links to my practice I had already established, especially in terms of the difficulty that often comes with the ‘Organise’ stage. It can be very difficult for me to organise and prioritise movement material whilst choreographing, and I frequently find myself returning to this stage of the process after having finished the piece in order to improve upon it. 

 

Another component of writing that was presented to us was the idea of a ‘Writing Toolbox’ proposed by Steven King in ‘On Writing’ (2000). King sees the toolbox as a way of noting skills that are essential to successful writing. I feel in dance practice our ‘toolbox’ is our technique, alongside the other ‘formal’ skills we were taught during training and our ‘informal’ skills acquired through experience. In terms of creation the ‘toolbox’ could be a movement phrase or motif central to the concept of a particular piece. King then moves on to discuss the practice of ‘developing muscle’, or ‘training’; improving these skills through consistent practice. Again, this links with professional dance practice in terms of training technique through consistently taking class, and in a choreographic sense, in rehearsing movement phrases. 

 

The final aspect of this writing workshop that I felt could be linked into my practice was that of conventions and expectations. Peter described this as the conventions of writing in a certain format (e.g. a blog or an article), and the expectations of the reader that accompany this. He then made the point that the conventions may limit artistic choice in some more rigid writing forms, such as academic essays. I feel there is perhaps a connection with dance practice in the sense that some choreographers may feel constricted by the wishes of artistic management of either a company or school, and some students may feel the need to adhere to expectations whilst creating work to be assessed, as opposed to following their creative instincts uninhibited. 

 

Overall I found the workshop extremely helpful and it allowed me to see multiple aspects of not only the writing process but also certain creative processes linked to my practice. 

 

 

King, S. On Writing. (2000)