No Move, No Write

The dancers are strong and centered in their approach to each other. The lyrics matter but I find myself less tuned to the story they tell of this pair than how the dancers themselves interpret. I like that the woman is muscular and strong in her movements. And I like that the man’s gestures are expressive and self-aware. The lighting accentuates their power, the physicality of their relationship, and their isolation. DJ Smart and Zola Williams, the dancers, are more than than their dancing. Their movement not only carries a tale, it makes them into vivid, if nameless, people, makes them into characters I might write of someday.

Jono Dry

The work of certain artists, specifically artists who draw, infuses my writing work. What I am looking for is the person in the motion. What I want is to pull that motion from them and transform it into a character and their story. Cape Town artist Jon Dry gives me that energy of motion. Dry creates large scale drawings in graphite. The images are stunning in their depth, expression, and technique. Equally stunning is the interior impetus for them. Dry has ADD and describes how he uses art to

“…reflect on mental illness and its metaphors. With these drawings, I explore how one can make the experience of a state of anxiety or depression visible, particularly when those states of so often seeming inexpressible in words.” [2]

Left: Separation          Center: Figure in  Frame          Right: In My Silence

A key character in the academic mystery I am currently working on is psychologically complex. In the planned second book we see they are also suffering from complicated grief due to a murder that takes place in Book 1. In that state they are tormented. Dry’s images speak to me of their inner anguish, what I think of as the movement of grief.

Dry himself inspires my creativity with regard to characters on a more general level. He creates videos of himself drawing. The videos are their own works of art. He uses an array of cinematic techniques—slow and fast motion, multiple exposure, still and in-motion lighting— to capture the experience, his experience. His use of water on paper is powerful and evocative. [3]

I can see that complex character of mine in Dry’s movements as an artist. Dry looks nothing like my person, who is nonbinary and wears their hair styled most dramatically and colored a brilliant turquoise. But I see them in his focus, his care, and in the unmitigated courage of his physical and emotional self expression. [4]

Peter Hamilton Dyer

I am old enough to have a small collection of vinyl LPs from the 1960s-80s. It includes a number of original cast and movie recordings of some Broadway plays of which I am particularly fond: Brigadoon, The King and I, The Music Man, Man of La Mancha, Oklahoma, and a few others. Besides adoring the music, I enjoy comparing the way different actors sing and interpret their characters via song. Darren McGavin in the 1964 Lincoln Center revival of The King and I gives Yul Brynner’s archetypal performance of the King a serious run for the money. [5] The onstage shows were staged when I was only a child, a child stuck in the Midwest no less, so I’ve never been able to compare the acting and, especially, the movement of actors playing the same role.

I’ve mentioned actor Peter Hamilton Dyer in a previous post in relation to listening and character development. Having seen the DVD of the 2012 production of Twelfth Night at the Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in which he played Feste the jester I was curious about how he used the instrument of his body in making Feste happen. [6] To do that I wanted to compare him to himself, as it were, to see how he did that in general. I found a showreel of him playing a modern and an early 20th century character—he does this curious angling of his shoulders in both (I must have a thing for shoulders(!). [7] But what really caught my eye, and which let me solidify my sense of one of the main characters in my WIP academic mystery, was a rehearsal video I came across  of Hamilton Dyer playing Turkish newspaper editor Can Dunbar journalist in the provocative drama #WeAreArrested staged by the Arcola Theatre in 2018.

As far as I can determine there is no publicly available video recording of the production, but there are a few rehearsal videos on YouTube. One especially fascinates: “#WeAreArrested – Movment.” In it Director Sophie Ivatts and Movement Director Ingrid Mackinnon discuss the role of movement in the play. Their challenge was how to tell Dunbar’s story as told in his book and make it work onstage. [8]

From the video’s transcript:

[Speaking: Director Sophie Ivatts] “The ways in which we thought about finding a theatrical language, moving away from prose and really looking at what is the toolbox that we as theater makers can bring to Can’s story to tell it in a different way to the book? Movement it felt like an obvious answer to that.”

As Feste Hamilton Dyer dances intermittently, sometimes as a direct part of a scene. At one point (Act IV, Sc. 2) as he exits the stage, the moment he goes through a side door, he does a kind of skipping leap as he says his final line, “Adieu, good man devil.” It was that instant that my mystery’s character came to life, with that flippant line, in that somehow self-satisfied leap. (Whether Hamilton Dyer was actually doing it that way didn’t matter. My sometime-loner academic MC appeared!)

The role of movement in #WeAreArrested is used to structure the play rather than create character but how the three actors move belies who they play. Movement Director Mackinnon talks about movement and magic. At one point she steps up onto a large table that forms a central position on stage. You can see Hamilton Dyer watching her intently. At another point he is on the table himself, as Dunbar, walking and gesturing. Voila! There was my professor again. This time I could imagine him in front of a group of students or debating, as he does at one point in my narrative, the issue of conscientious objection.

~ * ~ * ~

When I began drafting this post back in October, I was inspired by the Halloween season to title it “Stealing Bodies.” For isn’t that what I am doing in a way with my notion of movement and character development?

I had my body stolen by a writer once. The author was SF author Sheri S. Tepper writing a mystery series under her pseudonym of B.J. Oliphant. [9] Her amateur sleuth, the intrepid rancher Shirley McClintock, is something of a badass. She is also tall which Tepper wasn’t. She and I corresponded briefly and I had the opportunity to visit her at her New Mexico home. She told me later that she borrowed my body and that of her farmhand, an equally tall woman, and put us together to create McClintock. I have to say I was mighty honored by her thievery.

If you have a question or comment for me, drop me a line via my Contact page.

© J.A. Jablonski 2022. All rights reserved.

HOW TO CITE THIS POST

Jablonski, J.A. (2021, Dec 13). No Move, No Write. Blog post. J.A. Jablonski (website). https://jajablonski.com/2021/12/13/no-move-no-write

IMAGE CREDITS

• • Man holding microphone. | Photo by Benjamin Wagner on Unsplash | Image reversed & color modified.
  • Man in black leather jacket. | Photo by Adrian Ordonez on Unsplash
  • Wooden artist’s mannequin in running pose. | Photo by Laårk Boshoff on Unsplash
  • “Love in the Dark” (2016). Choreographer: Will B. Bell. Dancers: DJ Smart and Zola Williams. Screenshot from YouTube video.
  • 3 drawings by Jono Dry (Separation, Figure in Frame, & In My Silence). From Prints section of Dry’s website.
  • Cover of B.J. Oliphant’s book Death in the Scrub. From Amazon.

SOURCES

[1] Bell, Will B. Dance videos on his YouTube channel:

• • “Love in the Dark” https://youtu.be/bypimNgHymI (2016, May 17). [This is the video shown above.]
    
  • “All I Ask” https://youtu.be/A4kXbBHSA9w (2016, Jan 5).
  • “Din Daa Daa” https://youtu.be/OTvGLd7NLyg (2014, June 28).

[2] Dry, Jono. (n.d.) Interview. Culture of Creatives website.

[3] Dry, Jono. (2021, Sept 8). Pencil Drawing Timelapse – ‘Figure in Frame.’ YouTube video.

[4] Dry’s work and commentary can also be accessed via his website.

[5] The King and I – Music Theater of Lincoln Center Revival. (1964). Info, photos, and playlist at Masterworks Broadway website.

[6] Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre: Twelfth Night. (2013). Opus Arte. IMDB info page.

[7] Hamilton Dyer, Peter. (n.d.). Actor page. Spotlight.com. Showreel link on page.

[8] Arcola Theatre. (2019, Nov 12). #WeAreArrested – Movement. YouTube Video. Video content by Laura Clifford.

[9] Oliphant, B.J. The Shirley McClintock Mysteries may be out of print but copies can still be found. The titles are

• • Death in the Scrub (1990)
  • The Unexpected Corpse (1990)
  • Deservedly Dead (1992)
  • Death and the Delinquent (1992)
  • Death Served Up Cold (1994)
  • A Ceremonial Death(1995)