Collaborative Choreography: Exploring the Dance World with a Visionary Artist - Claire French : 97

Claire French - After a chance encounter during the Vancouver International Flamenco Festival, I was thrilled to sit down with Claire, a remarkable dancer, choreographer, and mentor with over 30 years of experience. In our conversation, we dive into her fascinating PhD research in dance, which explores the role of a choreographer as more than just an authority figure. She reflects on the significance of creating a space for collaboration between dancers and choreographers and how open-mindedness and a willingness to question can lead to new perspectives and growth in the world of dance.

We discuss the pivotal moments in Claire's career as she transitioned from a dancer to a choreographer and mentor. She shares her experiences with interdisciplinary collaboration and how it has shaped her creative process, as well as the importance of fostering dialogue and understanding between dancers and choreographers. Claire's unique perspective on the art of dance is genuinely enriching to all who listen.

Claire is a renowned choreographer, dance artist, teacher, and researcher with multiple awards in Europe and Canada. Claire was born and trained in Europe, but her journey led her to Canada when she pursued an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies at SFU, Vancouver, where she became a permanent resident in 2001.

Don't miss this compelling conversation with a true artist and visionary in the world of dance, Claire.

Let's enjoy her story.

To connect with Claire
http://linkedin.com/in/claire-french-phd-77b74727 
https://www.restlessproductions.com
https://dancehouse.ca/event/nova-dance/
https://thedancecentre.ca/event/creative-movement-for-seniors-8/2023-06-12/

Transcript

Daniela: 0:00

Hi, i'm Daniela. Welcome to my podcast, because everyone has a story, the place to give ordinary people, stories, the chance to be shared and preserved. Our stories become the language of connections. Let's enjoy it, connect and relate, because everyone has a story. Welcome, claire, to the show. Thanks, daniela, lovely to be here. We met six months ago. Yeah, for what I was volunteering for? the Flamenco show festival in Vancouver 2022. It was so fun to do. I've been always volunteering and then I met you. What a gift. We had a lovely conversation. So here you are.

Claire French : 2:56

Absolutely, i feel the same way. I feel the same way. I'm so happy to have met you and I'm really looking forward to our conversation today.

Daniela: 3:02

Yes, yes, Claire. why do you want to share your story with us?

Claire French : 3:07

In all honesty, daniela, i am sharing my story because you asked me to, partly because of the way our conversation unfolded together made me realise that I have a story to tell that other people might be interested in.

Claire French : 3:25

I can take it out of the art making context or I can take it out of my immediate circle of dance and music and collaborative performance work, but just that special place of just realising that when other people are interested in what you have to say and they have a way in to what you have to say, then that you're creating a space for people to have conversation and you're creating a space to find out about other people.

Claire French : 3:51

I spend a lot of time, like you, talking to people and hosting a podcast and helping each other and mentoring dancers and all of these things, and often I get asked what about your story? When will someone interview you? And so when you asked me, i felt like this was kind of serendipitous and that you were the kind of this external force coming in and saying now is the time. Long story short, it's all. Partly you inspired this to actually go ahead and instigated me actually telling it, but also because I feel like this is a really nice way of me telling the story in a more kind of inclusive way, like perhaps more comprehensively, outside of my field.

Daniela: 4:31

Yes, so thank you. Yes, it's true that when we were talking, i have no idea about dancing. I love dancing and I'm not in that world, but when you were explaining what we were going to talk about, it was so interesting And I thought I have no idea of this world, but it is fascinating what you have to say, so that's why I thought you have to share your story.

Claire French : 4:50

Thank you so much. So, just in context frame, when we met, we met at a dance festival, which was the Vancouver International Flamenco Festival, which I've just come in to start coordinating and managing Flamenco Rosario, the Flamenco company. So we met through our love of dance and also our particular passion for Flamenco dance in this context, and so, while Daniela is saying that she maybe doesn't feel like she is a dancer, i can genuinely tell you that her love for Flamenco and her interest in that and interest in my story says a lot to me about how much she does appreciate dance And therefore, as a dance teacher, i feel like it's just on the periphery, before you were actually dancing yourself.

Daniela: 5:35

Yes, i know that I feel like eventually I have to learn how to dance and take away that story that I had in my head saying you know, you're half German, you have two left feet. No need anymore. I want to learn how to dance.

Claire French : 5:49

It will happen. Two left feet dancing is pretty special. I think it's great. Don't knock it. Start there.

Daniela: 5:56

Wonderful Claire. when did your story starts?

Claire French : 5:59

Okay, i chose the title Begin Anywhere because I felt like I want to start the story, not at the beginning of my life, my whole history and dance, or anything, but quite now, almost the last six months meeting you, daniela, start sparking this whole conversation, partly because it comes at a time for me of starts and ends, just as in life. If we're paying attention, we're always going to notice starts and ends of things in our lives. But for me, this is particularly an important milestone because I was just I've just completed a PhD in dance, i've just started a job with the Flamenco Festival and Flamenco Rosario, i have three decades of professional experience in the dance world and I've been on the planet for 50 years. So I was like, okay, the Begin Anywhere is also a title that comes from.

Claire French : 6:49

It's a quote from John Cage, who's a 20th century avant-garde composer, mid 20th century composer, and it was actually given to me by somebody at a show, a premiere of one of our productions, and I just felt like the person who gave it to us really understood our work and understood us and understood process in the same way that we do, and that this idea of being creative is often just about beginning somewhere. Starting is just about starting. I thought what would be really nice to start the story is to maybe pick up on where we left off in terms of our conversation around dance making and art making and just maybe explain how my PhD could be in dance and what kind of research I did that Because you you had a different point of view from the dance teacher.

Claire French : 7:39

Yeah, in a nutshell, what I've been thinking about and how I might explain. My PhD is My, my research is on a personal level. What I was interested in exploring how, what is choreography or what does it mean to be a choreographer, beyond telling dancers what to do? Because I feel like there's a pre conception or a conception out there in the world, like a perception of choreographers that they're the boss, the dancers do what choreographers tell them to do, and that all work that's created by choreographers Is about the choreographers vision and and the dancers are there as vehicles for the choreographers vision and that is one possible, you know kind of way of choreographing. It's a little bit of an old fashioned and out of date perception. Understandably it exists because that being in the world for centuries that way. But at the same time, we all know in the contemporary dance world and just in contemporary society, that there's a lot more give and take, a lot more contribution and even devising, as we call it, happening in a room, regardless of whether it's dance or any other situation, any social situation. There's a lot of give and take. There's a lot of ideas that come up because of the people in the room, because of how different people respond to The situation itself and the context, and that, for me, is a big influence on how things evolve and how things emerge. And so, as a choreographer, i really wanted to just Embrace that in my research and explore how we create and how we, how a concept might even emerge in a group situation, how a piece might evolve not just from one person's perspective and vision, but from Everybody in the room and from the combinations that are in the room, still with the choreographer contributing as a choreographer. And so that's where it gets a little intricate and nuanced and and subtle. Because if you believe that a choreographer is the one telling people what to do, then in my shared practice model there's a point at which you go okay, well, that's fine, but then at some point somebody has to leave and so the choreographer is going to tell dancers what to do. It's all nice to say that's what the process is, but at a certain point the choreographer is going to have to be the boss and going to have to demand certain things and is going to keep an eye on quality control. You know those kinds of things and concepts, containment and all of those.

Claire French : 10:01

I don't think that's necessarily the way It has been happening actually in the 21st century particularly, and late 20th century, and I also don't think it has to happen that way, and so my research has been around that. So I brought in social cognition, philosophy around assemblage, mainly using Dulles and Gattari, who are very high level aesthetic thinkers, tried to underpin all of my research with those kinds of things in an academic context, but in a in a practical context, which is some of the elements that I've also used in my process. It really just is about what are our conversations, what do we discuss, what are our own preconceptions and assumptions? when we walk into a studio for dancers and for choreographers and really honestly, what can we make together? Like, how do we allow for each person's take on what's happening in the room not only to influence what we're doing but also change, as the more I speak, the more complex it gets, the more less there are. But that's also what I'm trying to prove. You know, in a sense, if I'm trying to prove anything, it's just that things happen. When they happen, we stay creative, we stay positive, we stay rigorous, we stay trying to work things out. At a certain point We all call it and say this is what the work is and within that, the still flexibility and adaptability and room for each person to both grow And to decide how they want to practice and to bring in their own relationship to their practice into that process. So it's very complex, but I think I'm just talking about life is essentially.

Claire French : 11:33

I think I'm just talking about that and maybe a creative life from a privileged position that way. But but at the same time I've had conversations with indigenous artists recently who in Vancouver, like indigenous lands muskwim, squamish and slay with two peoples It's become extremely important, significant and vital to kind of think about ways in which we are the same and ways in which we can respect each other in process. I am essentially talking about a way of working which is quite close to that way, but not the same way. It's not this, not the same process. So I've had some wonderful conversations around.

Claire French : 12:11

This kind of openness in a process allows for people to contribute fully. That also brings up conflict and then how does one deal with conflict, and so there's some interesting processes there, but it's to kind of try to explore that conflict is going to be there. This isn't an openness or an equal practice, egalitarian practice. In that way. It's more about embracing our humaneness, and that's difficult. That's difficult because we put these go into situations needing boundaries or needing barriers, needing containment. It's not necessarily about letting go of all of those, but it is about awareness or self awareness.

Daniela: 12:48

Well, you seem to be talking about, not only in the dance world but in general, teamwork people collaborating more than taking directions from one person. But what I want to know, claire, is you said that you've been dancing for three decades now. When did it happen to follow up and go back to your kind of develop a story? When did they happen that you believe, or you started to believe, that this was the way, because before you obviously had people that the choreographers would tell you what to do?

Claire French : 13:18

Yeah, and I was a choreographer who told people what to do as well.

Claire French : 13:21

I think what happened was that the work that was coming out of that, i think I had a realization that part of the way in which process was unfolding was creating a certain kind of work, and so in process, there were certain things in a process that were being filtered out because of this need to feel or obligation to decide on behalf of a group or on behalf of the dancer and me, how a piece should develop, which meant that things were filtered out, which meant that some of the essence of what was being created and what some of the really creative stuff was being ignored. So there'd be a moment, say, the dancers are on stage, a dancer is on stage, i'm not, i'm watching. I was a dancer dancer for a long time in works. At this point I'd already made the step to move out of being on the stage myself, so I'd already become a kind of overseer of a project and the outside eye. And then watching the dance on stage and being like, oh, where did that thing idea go that we had, and flashbacks to in the studio when it would be like, oh, i remember a time when this was really felt much more developed than I'm seeing on stage right now, and I had obviously in the process, decided to go in a particular direction. While I was watching it on stage I got this, as many choreographers talk about this realization that there were other things happening in the process. That would have been a better choice. There would have been a better choice for the work And, knowing that you'd explored that in the studio already, you have that information in your body that you went a different direction.

Claire French : 15:00

I would say that this is for choreographers either just starting out or formal choreographers who put things on stage to who designed the work for the stage. So make decisions almost like this will happen over here and then they'll move over here and this will happen over here. And so you start to put on a layer of external design onto the work, whereas in the process there can be a lot more kind of organic development and that can feel a little bit more of a vulnerable place for the dancer and for the choreographer. And so you make quick decisions and put it here and put it here and compartmentalize and because you're thinking about the overall piece, but in the process of that sometimes you can miss the essence of the work, and so what I realized? I got to a point where I was confident that I was putting work on the stage that I was proud of, that I felt like was thorough and rigorous, and then I noticed that there was another way to do it. I became obsessed with this other way to do it And I realized, in order to do this other way, i had to change how I choreographed, and so that became why I went into this.

Claire French : 16:02

Research Also came from I'd been mentoring a lot of choreographers and dancers for a while and I realized I needed to put myself through that same process that I designed for other choreographers and dancers for a while, just to kind of take care of this change that I wanted to make in my work And of course, that's something to do with aging. I suddenly realized that the work on stage wasn't necessarily representing me now. It was representing maybe perhaps a younger version of me as an artist, and I know it's very insular. I like I'm talking very much inside my world, but it really is about that. Like this story is about that, the meme wanting to change the work I made. I realized I had to change my process in order to change the work I was making.

Daniela: 16:42

And do you remember when you were a dancer that you just followed the lead of the choreographer and now you are going to change it to? I want your opinion as a dancer. How would you have felt when you were a dancer?

Claire French : 16:56

So this takes me all the way back to when I started dancing at the age of three, and now I'm 50. So I've actually danced my entire life Like I'm still dancing, danced yesterday, danced this morning, like I'm still dancing all the time. You've hit a really good part of the story, i think, or kernel of a story, daniela, because I would honestly say that from three up and all the way through me dancing all the way up to 2012, really as a performer in other people's works, there has always been this thread of being obedient to a certain degree, being an interpreter, which means I have to bring myself my imaginative self, my technical self, my social self, all of these things as a dancer into a situation. And then there's a point at which perhaps my interpretation sometimes, for some people, tipped too far into my own vision, tipped too far into my story as a dancer, which impinges sometimes onto a choreographer's or onto the aesthetic of a work, so that it's not necessarily getting in the way of a choreographer's vision, but it might be just kind of pushing the aesthetic a little bit in my direction, into the dancer's direction. And so I realized there was a point at which I was becoming just as interested in being the creative person who could tell the story and unfold the story rather than just interpret somebody else's perspective on a story or on a theme. And at that point I realized that I was perhaps going to be a little bit held back by being a dancer, because you wouldn't follow the lead.

Claire French : 18:30

Yeah, because I couldn't allow for my daydreaming as a dancer to take over in my performance.

Claire French : 18:36

I always had to make sure that I was reeling that in a little bit and that it was always and not to sound like a diva, i've never really.

Claire French : 18:43

I mean, i have my moments, as we all do, but I've never really been a diva dancer.

Claire French : 18:47

I think, if I take it out of that dancer-choreographer relationship which is hard for me to do, but in this instance I think what I can say is sometimes the inspiration from dancing just enough for me to want to go off and tell my own story, to feel like I was in a group and if I didn't know what a choreographer was asking for, but dancing was making me feel something, but that wasn't right for the choreographer and they couldn't explain to me why it wasn't right.

Claire French : 19:12

That would be frustrating for me because it would get in the way of me being able to express not just myself but to work with dance, to engage with dance, and I didn't like repeating things a lot. I like improvising more and devising more and I felt like sometimes if you're repeating a phrase over and over and over in a rehearsal, it can feel like a technique class and I just wasn't interested in spending my time doing that. I'm not undermining or, like you know, wanting to disrespect people who do rehearse something a lot, because i think there's a real I'm finesse in that, but for me as a dancer it wasn't something i was interested in what you were dancing since you were three, so you already had the skills.

Daniela: 19:54

If i have to start learning now, i probably need to repeat many time.

Claire French : 19:59

Yeah, but i think in a dance process, sometimes in a choreography, you can spend a lot of time in rehearsal just going over and over and over and eight count, sixteen count, thirty two count, phrase. I don't create that kind of work. I know a lot of choreographers who don't count. You know a lot of pieces are not created through counting. That's a particular style and a particular process. It doesn't get to the performance of the work. It keeps you in a technical landscape, it keeps you in the Mechanism, it keeps you in the function. It doesn't get to concept, it doesn't get to interpretation, it doesn't get to the acting part. You know other performing parts and i think for me i have. My choreography is also about the stage context and is about training in performance, which isn't repetition, it's about feeling.

Daniela: 20:41

How old were you when you realize, okay, i don't, i really want to be creative as well as a dancer.

Claire French : 20:47

I find this really fascinating, cuz i also think dancer's extremely creative. I think you have to be extremely creative, is it as a dancer and i think this is one of the things in my research that i'm also trying to say Is that, as a dancer, dances are giving their creative skills and technical skills in every single process, every single time. I don't think you can dance without being creative. However, to come to your point about the separation between being an interpreter, i suppose, and creating the kind of context of the story and all those things for a dancer to dance inside of with, i think i realize that i dance from that place of, in a way, story or creating something that i want to follow. I feel like it's how the dancing Exists with other disciplines, so it, how is the dance supported by the music and also supporting music, how does the scene and the stage and the lighting and all of those components Feed into the same idea or offer something new to the idea that the dance is trying to do?

Claire French : 21:49

i mean, i'm really interdisciplinary in my thinking and i think, as a dancer, i found that that wasn't. Nobody wanted my opinion on those things. i was never asked. I think it was something about wanting to be involved in the big picture more. Not be a part of the big picture, one of the colors of a piece in an abstract painting, but actually be. Take care of the frame as well.

Daniela: 22:10

You can't take care of the frame if you're a dancer you were following the lead and you were very obedient, as you said, for Many years, and tell when, what age, that you decided well, i went to university to do my dance degree and at eighteen and before that i didn't even know there was a dance degree, i didn't even know it was possible to do that.

Claire French : 22:30

I came upon that serendipitously When exploring like journalism, english degrees or drama degrees, and then when i was in university still very much in that land of dancer even an improviser at that point and character dances and i did all sorts of styles, so not just contemporary. I was, i've been a disco dancer, ballroom dancer in a tap dancer, in song and dance girl and i was in musical theater and i did everything coming up to contemporary dance. I realized in the contemporary dance world there was room for my interdisciplinary ideas, a little bit more poetic, a little bit more avant garde, maybe a little bit more off the car for abstract. But even at university i said i'll be a dancer, i'll be a teacher, i'll be a dance writer, i'll be all these things, but i won't choreograph, because i think i found it so hard, i think it took everything out of me, but of course that's essentially the path i had to take yes, so do you meet a lot of dancers that were in a similar point of view as you?

Daniela: 23:23

i feel like it's perhaps a matter of personality some people like to just Follow and dance and some other people want to be more independent.

Claire French : 23:32

Yeah, i think personality to a certain degree, yes, but i think there's also a point of which your relationship with dance can be best realized or actualized in the world.

Claire French : 23:42

And i do agree. I think there are some very shy choreographers, though introverted choreographers as well who have such Beautiful stories to tell, and maybe they work with more gregarious dances who are able to bring something out in a much more magnified way than the choreographer could themselves performing, and so there is a really important relationship there and which i feel like you know they kind of is like the in yang. They belong together in order for you to receive the whole picture, and who Who is doing what is is much more kind of complex. But i also think i think it depends on your relationship with with dance and with art making And then your relationship with performance and your relationship with the world, like how you want to be a creative in the world, how you want to live. I think that's a lot to do with it. I think it's a lifestyle choice as well as it's a Personality choice, if that makes sense, i see clear.

Daniela: 24:36

You went to university and you want to be a teacher dancer. And then what happened? how did you switch? Ain't a little bit like?

Claire French : 24:44

you asking me to be to do this podcast. I was asked by an opera company in leeds, which was a where i did my undergraduate degree, if i would choreograph the opera and i was just like i was in it as a dancer as well, but i did choreographic. So they wanted me to choreograph Numbers, like some of the dance numbers inside the opera, but also work with principal actors and opera singers on gestures and movement and posture. How that came about, i think, was Through somebody somebody's mom, like a dancer i was working with and her mom had asked because her daughter was in one of my pieces. It was a very people Networking, kind of like personal way built and i had such a good time, we had such a wonderful time. They loved what i did and they invited me back the next year and it just became Like i said about the interdisciplinary context. It showed me that choreographers have a role, dances have a role in this bigger theatrical place, but also taught me how i could bring that back into just a dance work. I said just meaning no other, you know back to the formal dance creation. So it was really a two way thing. It was like i was asked to come in and do it. I said yes immediately.

Claire French : 25:57

I was fearless back then. I mean, i still am to a certain degree, but it's changed over the years. Yeah, i just, i just really wanted it, but always find myself in these positions and afterwards i would be a bit like i'm never doing that again or that's too much, and oh my gosh, what was i thinking? But then it just picked up and it became something i realized i knew how i knew how to do. But that also connects to later in my life when i decided i knew how to do it in a certain way. But now there is something deeper that i wanted to explore. So that comes back to me making a change in my practice later in life, if that makes sense, which led to the phd.

Daniela: 26:34

But i feel like you, even that you were a choreographer, with the old fashioned way of thinking you still wear democratic.

Claire French : 26:40

Perhaps when somebody came with an idea, you, instead of rejecting it, were also more open than other people, yeah, but i've also been in situations where i've told somebody they need to be quiet because i've said this and i don't like the word regret, but i do. I do regret saying it. But also some of the things i said help me realize that's not who i want to be And that's not who i want to be in the room. So some of the things i have said in the past is we don't have time for your opinion, i think in a nice way, but never is never nice to hear that right for anybody. In any, however much i try to take care of my words, i'm still saying something To somebody which is no, and quickly, so indis and decisively.

Claire French : 27:19

So that's a shock to anybody system, understandably. But i would say i haven't got time for your opinion and my opinion counts cuz i'm the one paying you. That is not cool with me anymore And it wasn't at the time, but at the same time it was understood by everybody in the room. It was cutting but it wasn't offensive, although it should have been. Like you know, it was understood and I'm not okay with it being understood. We don't need to talk to each other like that in the art world, but it happens far too often.

Claire French : 27:53

And then another time which I don't think was my fault I was really, really upset with somebody who didn't bring a costume for a photo shoot, even though I had asked everybody to make sure that they had. They'd even told me what they were bringing and this one person didn't bring it. And it wasn't just a photo shoot, it was also a videoing of the piece with a professional videographer. And I was so upset with this person for not bringing what they said they would bring because they lied to me and said that they didn't get the email, even though they'd responded to the email, And so the truth of the matter was just all in my cart but there's nothing I could do.

Claire French : 28:29

Thankfully, I've been around enough to know that you have a contingency plan at all times and I just so happen to have a spare costume. That could be costume, I say, but like outfit, that matching kind of complimentary outfits for the video. Don't like the word costume anymore either, But there is something I was able to. She was able to be dressed and it worked. That was hard for me, Like that was a difficult situation for me. It feels like sabotage when these things happen, but it's an urgent situation, sometimes not life or death, but in that moment it's now or never that can get heated, And we're in a creative space, And so there is an element of everything being heightened, but I don't think that's an excuse. If things are heightened, you have to pay more attention to how you're speaking to each other.

Daniela: 29:14

So how many years pass until you notice? okay, I wanna change, It's gotta be 20.

Claire French : 29:20

Okay, and partly that's down to, yeah, around that, 18, 20 years maybe, and I think that partly that's because I was busy. I was busy choreographing and teaching and doing a lot of administration, which I do now and producing and self-presenting, and also, and as the world itself and the dance world was changing and I was doing everything all of these components some dancers I was working with who were dance makers as well, so some of them had problems with me doing everything. They wanted somebody else to speak to, not just me, about costume or schedule or pay or those things, and it was always me that they had to speak to. And I realized I was just getting to a point where dancers were needing different things. They had different expectations. The dance industry was changing. Was I keeping up And could I adapt? Did I want to be part of this world? And what was going on for me there, like a whole bunch of things, made me evaluate and reevaluate how I wanted to be in the world, how I wanted to be creative. I mean.

Daniela: 30:17

It's opened up a whole bunch of other things for me now as well, which is really great, that's beautiful, that you had that introspection and realizing and willingness to question that versus a lot of people are like no, this is my way. I've been doing it for 20 years and I know and I'm not changing, you're changing. So I feel like Bravo to you for having that attitude towards change.

Claire French : 30:41

So I have to say I've also been informed very much by being a rehearsal director for other choreographers. I think this is why also another reason why I wanted to share my story is because inside this insular world of dance and choreography, i've done so. I've taken on so many roles And it sounds like organized chaos really. I've been a rehearsal director for more established choreographers than me. I've witnessed them be those people. I've been doing this for years. I know it's my way or the highway, and you're like. You see it differently. I see it differently.

Claire French : 31:11

As a rehearsal director, my relationship with the dancers and with the choreographer is I'm the bridge. In some circumstances it hasn't had to be a bridge. They're not at either ends of the bridge. We're all on the bridge, in the middle, together. And then other times it's literally been. I've had to communicate and facilitate conversation between a choreographer and dancers because the divide is just so great. There has to be something in the middle to help. It's just too. The distance is just too great for them to hear each other, and so I stand in the middle and holler back and forth between them and bring them closer together or organize it in such a way that they can all be who they are from either end of the bridge And the audience can still enjoy the energy and the dynamics that come from that, because there is a sense of it. It's not necessary for everybody to change. I think it's just necessary to have a respect for others and to have more space to hear other people. It doesn't mean you have to necessarily change, although for some people that is change.

Daniela: 32:12

Yes, this goes also in all the areas of your life. I was in a meeting the other day. We were talking about a project that I was working really hard on. The other person had a comment. I was getting really upset and it's because it was my baby, This project, it was me. It was something silly. So I had to go to other people to try to see what is the point of the other person, because I couldn't see it And I feel that that's sometimes what happens. You close your mind because this was so close to me. I was biased completely. You do need that help.

Claire French : 32:42

Yeah, and to come back, to when you said I've always seemed to give room for other people's opinions or it's always mattered to me what other people are thinking or how they're feeling in a situation. I think that's become a bonus for me now Because I've always been that way. I haven't had to actually change. I'm just communicating diplomatic or democratic place that I stand in, Maybe because I've been a choreographer and a dancer, Maybe because I feel that they are different but they offer different things to projects. Maybe I can do it that way.

Claire French : 33:10

But I've always been interested in facilitation because I think there's something so powerful in giving space to different opinions. So powerful because the situation is never one person's perspective on it And in the dance world we've always given that to the audience. We've always accepted that an audience is. Every single member of an audience can go away with a different resonance or a different feeling. So why would we deny that in the process of the dancers having a different feeling to the work that the choreographer is giving them? And we don't. But sometimes we don't give it as much room as we give to an audience being able to take the work on, and maybe just because it's closer or trust, And it's trust in ourselves to share something in a studio, in that vulnerable place. By the time it gets to an audience, we feel like we've massaged it enough and taken care of it enough to give to an audience something that they can take away. So there's something about that space.

Daniela: 34:03

And Claire. So when you decided to change, you were probably choreographing the same dancers as you were before. Did you have some kind of surprising reactions? People will be like, oh, what's wrong with Claire? She's been more democratic. Do you have any experiences like that? Yeah, kind of.

Claire French : 34:22

I'll just say two things. One is that I think some people have always seen me as more democratic than a lot of choreographers they've worked with, so I've always been more. But then there's always been this point that I was talking about before where it's like whoa, suddenly Chloe will shift into this gear of it's going to be like this, it's going to be this, it's going to be this and triggered. I used to be triggered at that point of triggering, or the tipping point as I refer to it and other choreographers refer to it, but I talk about it in my thesis. Now I'm trying to pay attention to that tipping point moment where expectations from the dancers are that the choreographer will do, will behave a certain way As we approach that tipping point in a process. I'm trying to manage expectations of dancers that I'm not going to do that that I used to do. I'm going to keep it open. And so what does that mean? That means it's a longer process. I have to say It does mean that it does make the process longer because decisions are made slower. However, it also means that process doesn't quite mean the same thing.

Claire French : 35:25

So, at any point, you could invite an audience in. Once you've got stuff happening. An audience can come into a process. It doesn't have to feel like it's a product that is finished, tight, ready to tour. Bang. Here it goes. This is the piece that's going to tour. It's the same, much more open to. Even though we have a process and a piece, it's still going to evolve, even in front of an audience. Different audiences will get different experiences, not just from them, but because the work is different. That's a big change. I'm also at a time right now where I'm still I'm actually a little bit afraid of going back into the studio to do a group piece, in case I fall back into my old ways.

Daniela: 36:02

Claire, being a choreographer, in a way, is you are creating something. What the mindset that you have to adapt or change is that okay, this is not just my creation, it's everyone's creation And you are not taking all the credit. It's everyone's credit, So it's a teamwork really.

Claire French : 36:21

Two things. William Forsythe talks about choreography and dancing being two different disciplines. He also mentions that choreography doesn't need dancers. Choreographing is an organizing movement in space and time leading to an event. That could be one very general definition of choreographing which doesn't mention the bodies of dancers. Necessarily, Movement doesn't have to be just associated with dancers and dancing, But of course that's how we know it and that is how I'm a choreographer of dances. As soon as you open the door to it being movement as opposed to dance, that implies dance technique and all of these things you can already imagine that if you're organizing movement, it could be movement of objects, it could be movement of kind of people that choreographers have done work with sheets blowing in a wind, with a fan on it, just a washing line and a sheet hanging and the audience watches the sheet blow on stage. So these are still organizing movement, our experience of movement.

Claire French : 37:20

I think I might have gone off a little bit from what you were talking about, but I think there is an element that over my career I've also done a lot of imagining choreography, Imagining what it is, imagining what it would look like. I dream of choreographies sometimes which obviously the dancer isn't there, but because I've worked with so many dancers, That's interesting. But then sometimes it doesn't become a work, a dance work, Sometimes it becomes a poem or it becomes just a diary entry. I put that sense that I had, that experience I had, which is also drawing attention to my own body, into my administrative work. You know, sometimes I use that as the focus for the day, right, And I have that access. I think it's really important to talk. There's access that being a dancer on my life has allowed me to have, Like it's almost like a different level of consciousness, I think.

Daniela: 38:14

Yes, how fascinating, fascinating. And when you talk to other people at your same level as you, are they the same as creative. They dream about this like you do.

Claire French : 38:25

Yeah, but I think it comes out in different modes. I mean, one of the questions you asked me was if earlier, the second point I was going to make after talking about the studio is is just how, and I think this answers this question as well. So it's a nice segue. When I've talked to dancers and choreographers about my research, they just say yes, yes, yes, yes. Like it's not written about in an academic context, but we all know this And we know it.

Claire French : 38:49

There's a title of knowing in my bones of a dance maker has written a book called Knowing in My Bones And it's an old book from, i believe, from the 50s, 60s, but it's a very we know in our bones. I mean, we have these kinds of conversations. It's just helpful because it's hard to put this stuff into words. So we do it through these metaphors that still involve the body, that help us kind of talk about the somatic or inner world that we all have, and of course, our inner world are all different, but we also share a knowledge base that allows us to kind of understand what the other person's saying, even though it's gobbledygook to most.

Daniela: 39:27

So yeah, And you decided to do a master's, or you already had a master's and this is a PhD.

Claire French : 39:35

Yeah. So I did a PhD this time, but the master's does lead me back to my story. Another point of change is when I moved to Vancouver. So I moved to Vancouver in the 90s 1997. I think we both moved here on the same time. I seem to have. Yes, but I moved to do my master's degree. I moved from England, from London, england, to to Vancouver to do my MFA in interdisciplinary studies.

Claire French : 40:00

Now perhaps you can start to understand why I called this begin anywhere. Because I mean, my life is so iterative, and as all of our lives are. But you know I don't have children to talk about, i don't even have pets. You know I try to keep plants alive. I'm trying, but you know I don't, i don't have those things as milestones in my life. My career and my travel and my art making are the milestones in my life, like. So that's kind of it's not my full identity anymore, but it was for a long time.

Claire French : 40:28

So moved to Vancouver in 1997 to do my MFA in interdisciplinary studies at Simon Fraser University. Now there is a campus downtown in downtown Vancouver, but at that time we were up on the hill in the Shacks at the end of the end of the lane, just be where the bus loop is. We were up there hidden away, yes, and I met some amazing people there, including my partner. I left my whole family back in England, a sister and brother and a large extended family. So many stories there too. A lot of change happens weekly, daily in my family, in my extended family, for sure. Yeah So, but I'm here with my partner mainly, and we have I feel like it's a very artistic life We lead in Vancouver. I know not everybody sees Vancouver that way, but for us it is genuinely who we are, why we are and how we are here in Vancouver, and I feel quite privileged to be experiencing Vancouver in that way.

Claire French : 41:22

The masters in interdisciplinary studies I mainly did a little bit of visual art studies and a little bit of creative writing and dance, but I had technology in my show and music in my show, and it was all original And the technology is a whole other story. There's a whole path and what I was trying to do with technology back then that you couldn't do at the time but you can easily do now. So that's a. That was. That was crazy, but that was fun. That was like me turning.

Claire French : 41:48

You know, it was like analogue, digital really, because I had, there were so many processes for me to get a life forms figure projected onto the stage to dance with me in 1999. Now that just seems like something you know, it's more likely for me to be in the world of that figure, you know, rather than the other way around. But that was a. That was a thing. Yeah, so I was looking at digital technology and live performance back then. Well, i think I walked away from all of that at the same time. I don't think I ever have, because it's always been necessary for my work to have both the analogue and the digital and some capacity. And it's about creating worlds, what I've heard the term worldizing, and I've heard the term worlding quite often for how people build and create things, and that's in the design world as well as in the art world and in the academic world. But I think it's a really good term because you're kind of creating a world.

Daniela: 42:39

So you did the masters, you stay in Vancouver and you've been performing and working here, and then you decided to do the PhD after many years, yeah.

Claire French : 42:50

I'd always thought that I would do one. I was the first person in my family, my immediate family to go to university to get an undergraduate degree. But I've always felt that I wanted to and a lot of my friends were doing it. I couldn't decide what my topic would be. I couldn't quite decide, and it took me six and a half seven years to finish. But then I found my track through working through my, the mentor program that I was running, i realized that was what I wanted to put myself through And I found this really interesting area of research that only belonged in a university, to be honest, in that university context. Pulling it back into the professional world is now my objective, my motivation. But at the time I needed, i needed the academic world. I needed the institution to help me realize parts of this. Then, while I was in that world, i needed the professional world and the practice to help inform me as to how I was going about doing it. And now I need to free myself from the academic world for a while, because it was pretty intense and I need to walk away.

Claire French : 43:49

What is the PhD? So I have a PhD in. I mean, it's a Doctor of Philosophy and my title is Choreographic Sensemaking Developing a Shared Practice Framework. Choreographic Sensemaking is the term I came up with to help define what I am, what I've focused on, just the idea being that it's not making sense of the choreography. It's actually using sensemaking as a process, as a choreographic process to help a group and to help all of the collaborators and everybody who's in the work choreograph something together. So it is choreographed, it is co-authored, it is about something evolving and it's about finding a way to filter and, in the process of refining a work and refining perspective and refining your own practice, it can remain open, but it's not just a free-for-all. So the sensemaking is like is about everybody feeding into making sense of the process and the choreography comes from that.

Daniela: 44:52

You graduated, You got your PhD Just when I saw you because I think it was October that you were going to England to do that, to get it.

Claire French : 45:00

Yes, i graduated in October and I now have it on my wall in a frame, and so what's next for you?

Claire French : 45:07

Well, i'm working administratively for the Flamenco Rosario and the Flamenco Festival. I'm also helping develop a new facility in Vancouver. I'm also creating new work with the company Restless Productions that I'm co-artistic director for, alongside my partner, composer James Maxwell, done a research and creation phase of an interdisciplinary work which is more like an installation that an audience or invited guests can move around in. I've gone back into the studio for myself to perform again because in that roundabout cyclical way, i feel like there's more information now in this body as I've approached 50 and I teach and things, but there's something new in my body that I want to explore, perhaps to perform, but at least to investigate. So I can't miss that. So I'm back to that. A bunch of other things.

Claire French : 46:00

I'm actually the host of the Dance Center podcast as well And they choose the guests and I interview the guests on behalf of the Dance Center And I teach seniors every Monday in the power of dance seniors or active aging class. I also teach line dancing at the Holiday Inn. Yeah, you are busy. You're busy. I know. I told you organized chaos, man crazy, crazy life.

Daniela: 46:23

So we will have to put everything on the show notes so that people can follow you in one way or another, because we have to see a show, we have to see you dancing, we can go and dance with you. All kind of stuff.

Claire French : 46:34

Yeah, please come and dance with me when that's my favorite, If I can get the world to dance. my goal in life is to get the world to dance. If I saw everybody walking down the street doing some kind of dance, that would be the world I want to live in.

Daniela: 46:49

Yes, I think everybody will be happier, because moving dancing is just a beautiful thing. Yeah, it doesn't have to be for long.

Claire French : 46:55

Just a little skip here and there, a little hip, push your hip out once in a while, walk a little differently, get a little bounce in your step and feel it. I just think that it makes all the difference in the world. I really do believe that Wonderful.

Daniela: 47:08

Thank you so much, Claire, for sharing your story and explaining to us and to me because I really don't know anything about your world, but how fascinating it is The world of dancing, choreography and all your ways of thinking and how things are changing. I'm glad that you are pro-changed and pro-elevating the way things are. Thank you.

Claire French : 47:27

I'm obviously not the only one, but I really do appreciate you being willing to put this on as a story. Honestly, this is a life and I know everybody's life is a story. I was a little nervous because this might not be a story to some people, but it really is to me and I think you gave me space to be able to share that. I hope other people feel the way they are in the world is enough of a story, because it does help other people go. Oh well, actually, if that's a story, then mine's a story or this is what I value in life. This person values this and this is what I value in life. I think that's a beautiful thing you're doing here with this podcast. Thank you, thank you.

Daniela: 48:05

I think it's great that people could listen to your story and learn things that they wouldn't otherwise, because we're not in your world and we may never be. But hearing your perspective, I think that next time somebody goes to a show, they will be more appreciative.

Claire French : 48:17

That's great. I'm not speaking on behalf of all dancers and choreographers and I think everybody knows that if you are at all interested, then just Googling choreographers or just finding out, even on YouTube, interviews with choreographers and getting the wide, wide perspective because it is a wide, wide, wide world. It doesn't mean that we just do one thing or have one view or see the world in a particular way. We really do bring our whole selves to our profession. If you are at all triggered by this to find out more, then I suggest you kind of go and hear the contradictions that other choreographers will say to me.

Daniela: 48:53

Thanks, daniela. Thank you. Thank you, claire. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I am Daniela and you were listening to, because Everyone Has a Story. Please take five seconds right now and think of somebody in your life that may enjoy what you just heard, or someone that has a story to be shared and preserved. When you think of that person, shoot them a text with the link of this podcast. This would allow the ordinary magic to go further. Join me next time for another story conversation. Thank you for listening. See you soon.