SEKE CHIMUTENGWENDE WORKSHOP
“How much of that was improvised?”
A workshop on the relationship between improvisation and choreography with Seke Chimutengwende.
“How much of that was improvised?”
People often ask me this question after seeing me perform. And sometimes the answer is “all of it”, “some of it” or “not at all”.
In this workshop I will draw on the ways I work across both improvisation and set choreography in my own work, as well as in the work I’ve done as a performer with companies like DV8, Lost Dog and Forced Entertainment. These perspectives will be offered as a means for participants to interrogate their own making practices, both in terms of how they already work and how they might want to work in the future.
What happens when you use sets of instructions or rules to create a dance instead of choreographed sequences of movement? What are the “pros and cons” of setting material versus leaving things open? What happens when you take an improvisation and turn it into set material? How important is it that a performance is the same or different every time? And what does the audience need to know about how you are working?
I aim to create a non judgmental environment in my workshops. Participants should come expecting to move, use their voices and work with others. There will be the opportunity to watch each other in our explorations.
ABOUT SEKE
Seke is a choreographer and performer based in London and working internationally for over 20 years.
Seke uses choreography to experiment with alternative approaches to authorship and governance; crafting processes and forms that dislodge hierarchies and release new modes of collectivity. His recent work It begins in darkness (2022), looks at ghosts and haunted houses as metaphors for how histories of slavery and colonialism haunt the present. Seke has also recently choreographed a work for Candoco Dance Company, In Worlds Unknown (2022). Seke’s new work, The Last Quartet, which imagines a “last work” or “last attempt” at choreography, inspired by TS Eliot’s Four Quartets, will premiere in autumn 2026. Seke is concurrently researching a new choreography for six dancers set to Miles Davis’ groundbreaking 1972 album On The Corner. It will premiere in autumn 2027.
Alongside his choreographic work, Seke is currently touring Long Solos: long solo improvisation performances of 50 to 60 minutes and works as performer with Forced Entertainment having previously performed with companies such as DV8 Physical Theatre and Lost Dog.
Seke has taught in a variety of contexts, including London Contemporary Dance School, Trinity Laban, The Rambert School, Northern School of Contemporary Dance, P.A.R.T.S. and Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.