Between Words is Silence

By Melissa Oates

This is a feature that I wrote in my Second year of University.

Credit  by Bethan Evans

Between Words is Silence is an hour-long contemporary dance performed by fysh, who are a dance collective dreamt up by Sofie and Yi, two second year dance students based at Falmouth University in the AMATA building.

Between Words is Silence is an exploration of internal struggles of self-presentation, ‘half-truths and self-identity’ another theme explored in the performance was how unspoken words can have a presence in the silence. This performance is part of a work in progress broken down into the Prologue and Chapter One.

The performance took place on Wednesday 28^th of November 2018 in Studio B of the AMATA building with a full audience that included students, parents, lecturers and friends.

A few days prior to the dance performance I contacted Yixuan Kwek who both choreographed and danced in the production. We met in a coffee shop in Falmouth and proceeded with an interview.

Speaking with Yixuan who prefers to be called Yi, she explained about the concept of the performance, her role within it and the title.

‘The title came from the book ‘a Field Guide to Getting Lost’ by Rebecca Solnit it led nicely into our themes and the idea that things left unspoken are often the most important.’

We spoke about her choreography:

‘the choreographic process was stressful! But it was a great chance to delve more into concepts and explore further with movement; it was also a really enriching process growing and discovering with the dancers.’

This comment in particular was demonstrates as each dancer in the performance discovered and grew with every step they performed, leaving the audience in awe,

I asked her if they decided to select the music first or choreograph the routine first.

‘We started with the concept first, then developed movement and music.’

She also spoke about the lighting:

‘We did the lighting in accordance to the piece and what it needed. We had clear ideas from an early stage of some of the lighting design but other parts we worked closely with the tch to try and get the right lighting’

This was definitely shown in the performance as the music they selected flowed with the choreography.

On the day of the performance we all took our seats with our programme booklets in hand. I sat there watching their contemporary dance performance, and it was great, each dancer performed brilliantly and in sync as well as each having some part in a small solo.

The main stars, both Yi and Sofie, both showed their passion and hard work though their dance, proving that their collective can go far.

Each movement was telling a story and the story is of course ‘Between words is Silence’, as we know the dance is a work in progress, but from what was performed it was a great start to imagine what is to come.

Once the performance was sadly over, free chocolate brownies were served in the waiting area, we waited for the dancers to appear from backstage to congratulate them on their hard work.

Yi was one of the last to come out from backstage, I caught her just before she went to celebrate with her other dancers. I asked her what is now planned for the future of fysh and this is what she had to say:

‘In the future we hope to rework this piece in some way, however our next project is working with a PHD student in January on a project looking at music and movement!’

I look forward to what is in store for fysh and wish them luck for their future projects.