Everything to do with space – POOL dives deeper with Tori Lawrence
Tori Lawrence’s film Österlen made together with Ellie Goudie-Averill, Cole Bjelić and Vicki Brown was part of the programme of POOL 24
28.11.2024
Article by Silja Tuovinen
Images from the archive of Tori Lawrence
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Movement that lives inside a space
American choreographer and filmmaker Tori Lawrence could have, in another space and time, found her way to working with architecture or design.“Growing up, I used to want to be an architect, because I was so interested in the design of spaces, how bodies inhabit them, what the duration of a place is, and what materials go into the creation of a built environment. I think spatial design often determines how bodies move and interact and become inscribed over time.”
I’m most interested in creating and researching unique movement vocabulary that has everything to do with the natural and human made environment – often tuning into and bringing more awareness to the interplay between the body and its surroundings.
Tori Lawrence, today based in the hilltowns of Western Massachusetts, is a dancer turned choreographer and through choreography she found film. She runs her own company, Tori Lawrence + Co. that creates both site-specific work and dance film productions. “I was always less interested in doing theatre format pieces and more interested in site-specificity. If I wasn’t making work outside, then it had to do with the architecture or composition of a space. I’m most interested in creating and researching unique movement vocabulary that has everything to do with the natural and human made environment – often tuning into and bringing more awareness to the interplay between the body and its surroundings.”
During her master’s degree in choreography Tori got more and more into filmmaking, borrowing all possible film equipment from the school and teaching herself how to use it. Today she is in charge of all the aspects of her films, which can be a complex palette to handle at times. “Sometimes I wish I had a crew or that there would be another camera operator. At moments I feel that when I’m filming, I lose the angle of the choreographer or the director. But I also like the agency and the ability to remain true to the choreography in every way… such as sensing how long a movement should go for before I cut and elements like that.”
Around the time of her master’s degree and graduation, Tori observed that it started to get harder to get audiences into performances. Filmmaking brought about a different kind of opportunity where creating with less potentially enabled more. “I felt like the medium of film allowed me a little bit more freedom in terms of where I could bring the audience. Even financially, it was not such a big risk. I felt I could do a lot more studies in different locations on a smaller scale.“
Making of the film Österlen – returning to the location
Österlen (filmed in 2018-2019, completed in 2024) – An eerie, soft and subtle black and white landscape with two bodies grazing through it and locating themselves as part of it. In the same way that the film invites the viewer to settle in and listen through both ears and eyes, so did the process of creating the film, which was not the easiest process for Tori. “I had a residency at Brunakra in Southern Sweden in the summer of 2018, and I didn’t really know what I was going to be making yet. I typically find inspiration from locations first, so the residency gave me a bike and a pickup truck to location scout. I would go out and explore the fields or go to the sea. I would sit with the land, listen, and imagine scenarios. From there, I would improvise, which is how I typically begin generating movement.”
The story about the process of making the film Österlen brings to view Tori’s skill and perspective toward taking time and listening to spaces in a cinematic and choreographic process. “When the dancer, Ellie, joined me at Brunakra, I noticed that some of the movement that we were creating didn’t seem to be of the place… it felt familiar, as though maybe it belonged on stage. At that moment I began questioning the genre of dance film and how/why locations are chosen. Why are we dancing here? Are we using these landscapes as backdrops? We often train in a studio setting and then when we go into a non-studio space and do the same thing, it becomes out of context. There’s no such thing as neutral space – each space carries its own history, function, and anatomy. This discovery really started shutting down my creative process because I began questioning all of my movement choices. I felt like I was forcing something onto the land, so I had to find a new way to enter.”
He moved in a similar way to the wind that was blowing or the grass that was moving, as if we were camouflaging ourselves.
That first summer, 2018, Tori filmed some things that were working and wanted to return to continue filming. The following summer, she asked Gustaf and Andrea of Brunakra to return and the team was able to come back to the location, this time also with the musician Cole Bjelić who was working with Tori on a live dance/music performance. “Every morning, Cole had this morning movement practice that he would do on the basketball court and the farm animals would follow him around. His pacing was very soft and subtle, really similar to the kind of movement that I was looking for in the film. He was also newer to dance training, and it felt a bit more real or raw watching him. I biked with him to one of the film locations and we worked with a score where I sculpted him one movement at a time. It felt like the softer delicateness of that movement was not competing with where we were. He moved in a similar way to the wind that was blowing or the grass that was moving, as if we were camouflaging ourselves. From there, I started to realize what movement might work in this space and allowed the land to become the forefront or the primary character. The land, sea, weather, and soundscape were conducting how the bodies were moving. And a lot of the scores turned into a slow build, tuning in rather than altering, silently folding.”
As Tori finished editing the film, she worked with composer Vicki Brown on original music for Österlen and completed the sound design using recordings from within the landscape. Vicki’s score followed the same rules and helped frame the natural, diegetic soundscape.
Otherwordly palette
Tori’s view on filmmaking embraces the possibility that the film medium so generously opens up, to play with time and allow the audience to enter another time-space. “My films tend to be otherworldly – not of this time, not of this space as we know it. Things are a bit shifted. I create worlds that re-code the expectation of what could happen.”
Tori’s films are not referencing a particular era or our contemporary world. “The design elements of Österlen make it feel timeless or like a memory with the wool swimsuit and muted clothing, picturesque coastal villages, simple shots, and the film being black/white. The slow pace and meditative images allow the eyes to sit with the simplicity of it all, highlighting the horizontal breaks between the sea, sky, and land.
I guess it was a shame to lose the color, but we don’t always need all of that information in a picture. Sometimes it’s nice to constrict the frame to allow the imagination to consider what else there is.
The decision of making the film Österlen black and white underlines the otherworldliness of that film universe. The act of camouflaging, mentioned by Tori earlier when discussing creation of movement material, becomes particularly striking. “When I was editing, the flowers in the crop fields were such a beautiful yellow, and the Baltic sea was a stunning shade of blue, but the film still just had to be black and white. I guess it was a shame to lose the color, but we don’t always need all of that information in a picture. Sometimes it’s nice to constrict the frame to allow the imagination to consider what else there is.”
An aspect of the otherworldliness is created through movement material. “I use improvisational scores to create this hybrid between set and non-set material. I’m interested in the complexity and density of multiple pathways coexisting, which subverts known movement patterns and creates nuance through improvisation.” The dancers might learn a sequence of movement, but are then asked to integrate other scores on top of the first sequence. “Maybe I take them to a landscape that is full of obstacles like boulders and cacti. While they have to do the existing score (let’s call this ‘a’), they also have to run and hurdle over all of these obstacles (let’s call this the second derivative of ‘a’). I like to keep transforming the function of movement, similar to an equation, adding in different variables and changing orientation. The dancer is constantly trying to navigate: How do I do this? It’s like an insane math problem. Watching dancers try to figure out the logistics of achieving the multiplicity of the movement is maybe arduous to them, but it’s so beautiful to look at because you witness the effort and realness of the task. It becomes less presentational.”
Keeping up with the experimentation
Next to her own practice as a choreographer and filmmaker, Tori also teaches dance film. When asked about the kind of advice she would give to her students, she shares her hopes for the genre to continue experimenting, and for the makers to really pay attention to the spaces and their needs. “I think the biggest advice I have is to go further into your research of movement and how the body is collaborating with the surroundings. Finding new ways to investigate site-specificity rather than using methods that we traditionally use in more neutral studio or theater settings.”
It’s a good reminder that you can use the non-linear abilities of video and of editing to do something that you cannot do live and to transport the viewer somewhere else.
Tori’s practice and view of filmmaking encourages makers toward exploring new areas, going outside and taking time listening to natural landscapes and architectural spaces that speak to you. “As I watch the genre unfold while technology is developing at such a fast pace, the aesthetic is becoming more sleek… I even find myself going more towards that. That sometimes makes me miss the process that live performance can sometimes take you on as a viewer. Some dance films become presentational or flat. Sometimes I question how different these films are from the documentation of a theater work. Is this film really playing with time? Is this playing with space? Is this playing with our expectations? Is the medium continuing to push us? It’s a good reminder that you can use the non-linear abilities of video and of editing to do something that you cannot do live and to transport the viewer somewhere else.” Entering into a delicate dialogue with space through movement without an expectation of particular visuality can challenge the assumptions and logics of our current visual culture, making us imagine the world not only of today, but perhaps of a time that never existed, or never will.
Tori Lawrence
Tori Lawrence is a choreographer, filmmaker, and educator who creates site-specific multimedia performances and digital/analog dance films. Her environmentally-based work inspires an imaginative and sustainable way of looking at, thinking about, and using space. She has been on faculty at Smith College, Bennington College, Middlebury College, Keene State College, and the University of Kansas where she has taught courses in dance film, improvisation, and contemporary technique. Recently she’s been working on a new dance/film/music project, SJØRADIO, in Bergen and Trondheim, Norway, where she was in residence at Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder, DansiT, and USF Verftet. Her choreography and dance films have been presented by the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Dance Projects, Dance Films Association (NYC), Movement Research at the Judson Church (NYC), Dock11 (Germany), USF Verftet (Norway), Brunakra (Sweden), Lisbon Screendance Festival, Stockholm Screendance Festival, Agite y Sirva Screendance Festival (Mexico), amongst others. Awarded artist residencies and fellowships for her choreography include: Yaddo, Djerassi, Volland Foundation, Playa, Chez Bushwick, Charlotte Street Foundation, Dance Ireland, and Budapest’s Workshop Foundation. She recently collaborated as a dancer and filmmaker with choreographer Sara Shelton Mann on a new performance installation with residencies/commissions at Space 124, Counterpulse, Fresh Festival at Joe Goode Annex, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, and Dock11. She is also the co-founder of Atland, a new space for dance festivals, artist residencies, and retreats in rural Western Massachusetts.
torilawrence.org / atlandresidency.org