Swansong 1987

Swansong 1987

1. 3 Dancers

   • 1 Prisoner
   • 2 Prison guards

2. Christopher Bruce

   • Set
   • CHOREOGRAPHER
   • Costume
   • Accompaniment

3. Various companies

   • Includes Rambert Dance Company

4. Dance styles

   • Contempory
   • Physical contact
   • Ballet
   • Tap
   • Jazz
   • Folk
   • Vaudeville
   • Ballroom

5. Structure

   • 6 sections
     • 2. Tea for two
     • 3. First solo
     • 4. Slow trio
     • 5. Second solo
     • 1. Question and answers
     • 6. The cane dance
     • 7. Third and final solo

6. Theme

   • Human rights
   • Prisoner of conscience

7. Starting point

   • Work of Amnesty international
     • A worldwide movement of people who campaign for human rights.
   • Saying goodbye
   • The experience of Chilean poet Victor Jara
     • Arrested by military in 1973, tortured under interrogation and killed. The contrast between the themes of his songs, on love, peace and social justice and the brutal way in which he was murdered transformed Jara into a "potent symbol" of struggle for human rights and justice for all the victims of the Pinochet regime.
   • The novel 'A man' by Oriana Fallaci
     • A novel about Alexandros Panagoulis, a man who Fallaci had a relationship with, he was a figure in the Greek resistance. In 1976 had been captured, heavily tortured and imprisoned for his unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the dictator. Pangoulis died in 1976 under suspicious circumstances.

8. Accompaniment

   • Philip Chambon
     • Some unaccompanied interludes
       • Allows to hear tapping of feet
     • Electro accustic
       • Digitally sampled sounds, vocals, a reed pipe and popular dance rhythms
     • In collaboration with Christopher Bruce

9. Lighting

   • David Mohr
     • Overhead lighting
     • Diagonal shaft of light
       • Suggests natural light from upstage left
         • Window?
     • Footlights create shadows
       • Atomstpheric

10. Set

    • Christopher Bruce
      • Bare stage except a chair
        • Suggests cell
          • Interrogators always exit through right
            • Could be a door

11. Props

    • Caps
    • Chair
      • Symbolically used as a weapon, shield and shackles
    • Red nose
      • Used to degrade victum
    • Canes
    • Cigarette

12. Costume

    • Christopher Bruce
      • Everyday clothes associated with the roles
        • Uniforms for interrogators
        • Jeans and t-shirt for the victum

Images and files in the map