Dijana’s rehearsal

In the making of their piece for the Dear Children, Sincerely performance, Dijana and Ivana utilised some of the techniques in the repertoire of Dah Teater, and shared by many practitioners from a European tradition of the avant-garde. All rehearsals were opened with physical exercises that promoted concentration on the body and encouraged the young actors, Chloe Atkinson, Eleanor Kingsford and Ruby Mcilroy, to be somatically present in their performances.  In keeping with the overarching theme of the performance, Dijana asked all of the actors to write a letter to the next generation, a letter which would then be cut down, cut up, moved around and mixed together to create a fractured piece of rhythmical poetry. The reassembled text was then set around a number of physical sequences that had developed from games and prompts: ‘come into the room and grab our attention’, or ‘dance to be happy’. The student performers reflected that they were never quite sure of the end result of the process, what it was that they were making, but that under Dijana’s steady and nurturing leadership, they never doubted that they weren’t heading in an important and meaningful direction.