Mutism and Mutability was produced as a part of Wingates MA in choreography at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London.
Earlier in her MA she made an untitled piece based on research into group improvisation. This was the main improvisation score used in Mutism and Mutability.
In the improvisation score the dancers have three ways of relating to each other; to follow, to take a suggestion or to do their own dance. An important part of the score is to drop or to let go of what you were doing, to then make a new choice of following, take a suggestion or making your own dance. The dancer is asked to not think of the consequence of letting go of what they were doing. Stopping them from stringing the pieces of dance together consciously creating “choreography”. It is a system of behaviourism (not form) that by being repeated would create a choreographic structure.
Mutism and Mutability was the first dive into the themes later explored in more depth in Kill a Cat Show. And the the starting point for the development of the subject in Mutism and Mutability was the idea of sexy. Not as a personal corporeal expression, but as a sign signifying the common idea about the sexy woman. It was a process of finding out her history and how much were we a part of her. From this exploration a physical and emotional material emerged somewhere in-between the empty impersonal myth of the woman and ourselves real complex woman. The aim was to, through using improvisation as a method, find and define materials that then would be told through the score we had previously explored. The subject of the choreography is subjected to the choreographic rules of the score.
During her BA and MA studies Wingate collaborated with dance artists Ina Dokmo, Lena Kimming and Rebecka Ohlsson.
Alexandra Wingate 