‘Critical Pathways’ – Training and Investigating the Art of Choreography-Making with Rosemary Butcher

Abstract

This article discusses the pedagogic practice of British choreographer Rosemary Butcher (1947–2016) with a particular focus on the ways she mentored dancers and choreographers as part of her self-curated workshop series Critical Pathways, programmed over a number of years at Independent Dance in London. Drawing on archive materials, personal research notes as well as practitioner interviews, the article draws out some of the idiosyncratic pathways of dance training that practitioners encountered as part of the series, and the ways these continue to influence their ongoing practice. The writing thematises Butcher’s signature use of language and conceptual tools for choreography-making, as well as her approach to teaching and mentoring dance practitioners, which was inextricably tied to her choreographic practice. Never seeming to settle on a formula that had worked before, there was an arguably timeless and endlessly adaptable inexhaustibility and curiosity to her approach to making that are key qualities of inventive practice. The article further discusses the ways that Butcher instigated processes of critical self-reflection and approaches to reinvention as part of a continual investigation into what dance and choreography might be.

Keywords:

• Rosemary Butcher
• choreographic practice
• dance-making
• mentoring

Interviews conducted by the author

Kirsty Alexander and Lauren Potter, July 2020

Rosemary Butcher, 2014

Harriet Latham, July 2020

Yuka Negoro, July 2020

Heinz-Dieter Pietsch, January 2016

Carolyn Roy, July 2020

Susan Sentler, July 2020

Notes

1 These include long-term affiliations with the University of Surrey, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and Middlesex University in London.

2 The term ‘life-writing’ is attributed to Virginia Woolf who in 1939 highlighted issues of conventional biography-writing and foregrounded ‘invisible presences’ such as a person’s memories or awareness of others as key to the biographic lens (see Lee 2015, 124).

3 Ethical consent to publish this material has been received from each practitioner.

4 In a few instances my own background as a performer led me to participate in her classes, the experience of which has considerably informed my understanding of Butcher’s teaching and choreography-making. The many conversations we had over years framed not only by our working relationship as colleagues but also by a close friendship has provided me with insights into various intangible aspects of her practice.

5 Riverside Studios was run by artistic director David Gothard at the time who offered support for Butcher to develop her choreographic work.

6 In 2013 Butcher stated in an introductory talk as part of Critical Pathways that it was in its fifth year. However, an archived document held at Independent Dance states that the first iteration took place in 2007. Butcher’s archive remains unsorted to date, which makes a detailed investigation difficult at this stage.

7 I am grateful to Gitta Wigro and Claudia Tonietto at Independent Dance for sharing an archived funding application related to Butcher’s Critical Pathways workshops, in which these approaches are clearly outlined.

8 As part of this engagement a complex array of perspectives and involvements were at play on my behalf, merging aspects of participant observation with approaches from the area of practice research.

9 Butcher spent time in New York City in the early 1970s where she met and also worked with many of the practitioners that had formed part of the events at Judson Church a few years earlier. In 2015 she stated that while the movement influenced her strongly, she always retained her own sense of an aesthetic (see Butcher in Gareis 2015, 1).

10 Roy attended morning classes as well as the Critical Pathways workshop at Independent Dance in 2014.

11 Memory at Work: Rosemary Butcher in the Present Tense, event curated by Kirsty Alexander, Lauren Potter, Stefanie Sachsenmaier and Independent Dance, Siobhan Davies Dance Studios, London, 17 December 2016.

12 See again Lee (2015, 129).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stefanie Gabriele Sachsenmaier

Stefanie Sachsenmaier (PhD Middlesex University, DEA Sorbonne Nlle, MA Goldsmiths College, SFHEA) is Senior Lecturer in Theatre Arts at Middlesex University and Programme Leader of BA Theatre Performance and Production. Her research centres on the processual in creative practice, with a particular interest in the ways that performance extends into the socio-political context. She co-edited Collaboration in Performance Practice (Palgrave 2016) and published a series of writings related to her long-term research with British choreographer Rosemary Butcher. She has a background as a performer and is an experienced practitioner of Wu Style tai chi chuan.