WYOMING ANALYSIS Siobhan Davies

SOURCES There are 2 main sources of ideas that come together in Wyoming;  The Wyoming Landscape  Short Stories by Gretel Ehrlich that Davies read while in Wyoming.

THE WYOMING LANDSCAPE HAS; Vast, empty plains in which the horizon stretches as far in front as beside and behind. It is very different to anything Davies had experienced in Europe. She remembers that seeing another creature – human or animal – within that landscape provoked a particular sensation: a moving, animate mark against the hugeness of the earth and the sky; a sound breaking the silence; an acute awareness of its distance or proximity.

SHORT STORIES BY GRETEL EHRLICH Ehrlich, a Californian who had adopted Wyoming as her second home and workplace. She had won immediate acclaim for her essays and fiction, particularly with their intense evocations of the human experience of the Wyoming Landscape. The physical sensation and the personal solitude, the effort required to meet another person.

‘SPRING’ (THE STORY THAT INFLUENCED THE CHOREOGRAPHY THE MOST) In this story two people meet. Initially they don’t establish a rapport; they meet again later and this time they do make a connection. This is echoed in the choreography of Wyoming where Lizie Saunderson and Scott Clark meet twice; and in the film version there is a voiceover which provides a fragment of the encounter (there was no spoken text in the stage version).

THE STRUCTURE OF THE WORK ‘WYOMING’ The overarching structure can be broken down as;  Preface – a close up of Saunderson, with voice over from the story ‘Spring’  Part 1 – 5 solos that introduce each dancer in sequence  Part 2 – first duet, an ensemble dance (male trio and female duet), a trio and a second longer duet.

PREFACE  This has a function of an ‘establishing shot’ in the film – setting the scene.  It establishes Saunderson as a protagonist in the dance – an understated narrative element that recurs in the duets she has with Clark, and to some extent in her own solo (the only solo to have a voiceover).

PART 1 – THE SOLO’S Each solo is built up of long phrases, with various repeated motifs The dancers had improvised with elemental images that Davies had brought from her experience of the Wyoming landscape.

PART 1 – THE SOLO’S CONTINUED These could be related to earth, sky, space or to qualities of light. Each has a very textural feel to it – a sense of the floor, of the air around the body, the contrast between movements that brush the ground and those that extend in space. The solos give a sense of different, solitary beings inhabiting the landscape.

PART 2 - DUET The short duet of Clark and Saunderson provides a narrative anchor following the more impressionistic solos – an encounter between two people. Clark’s lifted arm gesture is like an offering, an invitation to engage – but Saunderson remains static.

PART 2 - ENSEMBLE The following ensemble dance and trio are variations on the solo material for each dancer. In formal terms, Davies explores the way that the solo phrases interlock and interact with each other, forming moments of contact, support and push. In more personal terms, these sections allude to the difference that the encounters make, the impact and influence of other beings, the effects of proximity, distance and contact.

PART 2 - TRIO In this trio there is more lifting, tilting and reaching, giving a more intense dynamic to the interaction. There is a sense of loping over and striding out, of covering distance and cresting boulders.

PART 2 – FINAL DUET Clark and Saunderson begin with a reprise of their earlier duet. This time she responds to his lifted arm gesture. Their duet contains, for the first time in the dance a lot of unison material, which mixes phrases and elements from both of their solos.

COMMENT In the final duet Davies uses a formal device – mixing movements from earlier solos – to communicate a personal effect: the coming together, the communion between two separate beings. Throughout the dance the performers have developed their own solo material, which read like their individual ‘histories’. In the ensemble and trio, those histories come into contact with each other. Without loosing that sense of individual distinctiveness, in the final duet – for the first time – the material is shared (there is a moment of unison).