Moving Into Dance

Our Joburg Sketchers group was given kind permission to sit in on a practice session at Moving Into Dance, a professional company which develops and produces award winning Contemporary African dancers, choreographers, arts administrators and teachers, many from disadvantaged communities. It was exhilarating, not to mention exhausting (I know I know, sitting there on my derrière...) watching and trying to sketch the ceaseless movements of the young first year dancers - it's obvious they must have come a long way since January.
I thought perhaps there would be some repetitive practice movements that would give us a chance to capture postures, but those were few and far between as they flew, spun, stomped, twirled and leaped around the room, sometimes almost landing in our laps where we sat lined up on a bench at one end. So we had to do what we could... I drew with pencil as I couldn't find a gap in the action to even reach for my watercolours at the time, but added colour later to help define some of the frantic lines I put down - and to convey some of the energy of these beautiful dancers. Only 5-10 of them will go through into second year, and even fewer into third - heartbreaking I'm sure for the ones who don't make it, everyone is passionate and dedicated - how on earth do they choose?!

Greek Day at Rotary Arts Festival

 I cannot believe it's almost July! I have so much I should be doing but finding it hard to knuckle down and do any of it, including updating my blog (doggedly keeping it going though, as proof that I actually DO do something every now and then).

These sketches from a few weeks ago at the annual Rotary Arts Festival... I see this time last year I was thinking of having an Urban Sketchers display or stand there next time, which never happened.
We had fun though on the Greek-themed day, sketching the kids from the Saheti School playing bouzoukis, singing and dancing, as well as catching other scenes from around the shopping centre - over coffee in the bookshop, a life drawing session from the Figures & Form group, and a lone pianist who I hope realised his beautiful playing was appreciated even if he didn't draw the crowds. I stuck to simple contour line drawing after a brief attempt to take my watercolours out in a shifting, shuffling situation!

Joburg City Centre

Our small sketching group was invited to go and sketch in the city by a group of artists who are holding an exhibition called Joburg Joburg, which aims to engage its immediate surroundings and to promote the renewal of the city centre.

We have ventured to the edges of the city in Newtown a few times, but never really braved the inner streets until now. I started on one of Joburg's oldest buildings, Victory House, while we waited for everyone to arrive (finding architecture as difficult as ever!) - quite a crowd of nine when joined by some of the participating artists. We then walked along to Ghandi Square, which was fairly quiet on a Saturday morning, but a few shoppers and people waiting for buses.

We then tried to go to our next destination outside the City Hall, but found the roads closed and access denied as they were shooting "dangerous scenes" for the new Avengers movie! We did hear a huge crash while we were sketching nearby in the Library Gardens, where political and church meetings, ladies selling religious tracts and boys on skateboards were all on the go.

For the first time, the progression of a sketch of mine of a food vendor's stall was being videoed by a young photographer from Pretoria, when the owner of the stall came over, irate that we were focusing on his enterprise (we had asked someone who we thought was the owner) ...another first for me... so we had to reluctantly give up on that, after spending so long setting up angles and supports.

I sketched the skateboarders instead, who didn't mind at all! More sketches and photos of the day here....

Nia Dancing

While I'm not quite ready for any of the extreme activity I tried to portray in these sketches, I'm at least able to look at them again without wincing. Thank you for all the well wishes here and elsewhere, I appreciate them all so much and am recuperating steadily!

This was a Nia dancing 'jam' held at moyo restaurant at Zoo Lake on the first day of Spring last month. Barbara, Anni and I went along for some more action sketching. All and sundry were invited to join this stretching, energising class after the torpor of winter and we on the sidelines were tempted to discard our sketchbooks and join in, it looked so much fun. It was fun to sketch too, once we'd (well, I) got over stage fright - we were welcomed to come in, watch and sketch and the dancers seemed to appreciate us appreciating their agile creativity.

I've been asked again for tips on drawing moving figures so I've tried to analyse what I did here. It does differ with the amount and pace of movement - this was very fast in comparison to the Tango lesson of two posts ago, where the same actions were repeated over fairly slowly so I had more time to study the shapes of arms, legs, backs etc.

• Remember, none of these are definitive captures of a single pose or body position, as in a snapshot. They are the results of watching the movements of a group, scribbling down fleeting impressions of, for instance, outstretched arms, then watching some more and adding a torso, fitting it to what's been put down, looking again to catch a leg position - perhaps from your original subject, perhaps from somebody else who has moved into your field of vision - attaching as logically as possible to what's happening in the rest of the figure.

• Clothing, hair, head gear or scarves can help to create the impression of movement, flowing wavy lines or creases across a torso describing a sideways stretch or a swooping lunge.

• Try and relax into the movement of  your pen or brush - this may only happen deep into your sketching session - allow it to dance lightly around your page. I sometimes find myself 'conducting' the music in the air with my brush before lowering it to the page and constraining it into body shapes while keeping some of the swirling, twirling motion of my baton.

• Feel within your body the music, the rhythm, the big shapes of the dancer's bodies as well as the smaller ones of hands and feet - see this sketch with arms stretching upwards - by no means accurately drawn hands, but imitating the many fingers flickering together in the air. If you look at some of the individual limbs, hands and feet I've sketched, there are some weird shapes and renditions, but as a whole, give the impression of movement, stretches, lunges, etc.

• To analyse and store in your 'memory bank' some of the postures bodies can get into during sport or exercise, try pausing your TV during a programme like 'So You Think You Can Dance' (a favourite of mine!) and sketch what you see, you'll be surprised at the odd shapes limbs can get into in the middle of a pas de deux!

Does all of that make sense?... probably not, but I hope it helps somebody, somewhere, somewhat! Do let me know if so.

...Aaa..a..nd rest!!