BLUEBELLS 

THE SEI // MUSIC RELEASE 26.05.2023


Over the course of one weekend we gathered 5 dancers of different stages in their careers and lives at D-Light Studios Dublin to research a new choreography; B l u e b e l l s . Since we all live in different parts of Ireland, both urban and rural, we deicided to meet virtually for practice and rehearsals during a few weeks in advance. In this online presentation we invite you into the studio with us, and share some of the choreographic scores and process material. 


B l u e b e l l s . was created during our time as Dance Artists in Residence at D-Light Studios, supported by the 

Irish Arts Council, Dance Ireland, Project Arts Centre and DCC/NEIC 2020/2021. 


The music is released across all platforms with Paragon Records. (Spotify HERE)


Film by Stace Gill.

Choreography by Maria Nilsson Waller. 

Camera: Agata Stoinska, Stace Gill. 

Music: The Sei


Featuring: Sara Ezzell, Millie Dempsey-Daniel, Lucy Cassidy, Maria Nilsson Waller, Stace Gill. 



01



BLUEBELL Dance Score


Drop. 


Feel water travelling in to your feet, from the surrounding ground. Let it travel up through your legs, letting your knees be softly bent and gently meet. Roll up with the rising of the water.


Breath in and show us Venus; your right hand infront of your heart/chest and your left over your womb/genitals. Lift your shoulders up gently and softly make space inside your body.


Breath out and let your right hand grow out from your chest, swing out and back releasing your right foot into a fifth position. Finally, let your hand, top of head and entire spine curve over into the shape of a bowing bluebell. 


6 circles of increasing size starting with your right armpit, direction front and left. On the 6th one, push the space with the back of your left hand and swing around the spine to the left, allowing your right foot to come around to a slightly turned in parallell position. You are now resembling a bluebell-stalk with 3 flowers. Let your right arm grow into position slightly, before you let it take the shape of a bow. 


Drop and bow the flower of your left arm.

Drop and  bow the flower of your right arm. 

Drop and bow your head. 

02



BLUEBELL Dance Score


Imagine standing on the forest floor. Look closely at the bluebells around your feet. 


Gently brush the back of your hands through the flowers and shamrock, starting at your feet and travel out in to a v-shape for as far as you can. When you can’t reach any further start to grow, like a fern. Feel the back of your head and the back of your hands getting higher and higher above the ground. Come to standing, your palms at the level of your eyes. 


Imagine that you have three heads. (Right palm, head and left palm.) Split your conciousness into three, and lift all three faces in to the sunlight above. Turn your faces to the left and stand tall, finally arriving at a diagonal where your left head is lower than the right. 


Bow all three heads. 


Breath in and lift all three heads and chests to the sun above. Follow the path of the sun across the sky to the right, rotating on your own axis, like planet earth. 


When you arrive, spiralled around yourself, let your heads bow and open back up again in alternating order. Keep a sense of spaciousness in the joints. Let it become a play with rhythm, as if you were playing some kind of organ. 


Let the rhythm settle in to a repeating wave-pattern, that ripples into your spine and legs. 


Slowly bring the wave to front where it becomes smaller and smaller. 

Let the threefold rhythm of the wave settle in to a bipedal, even rhythm of a human. 


Let your arms swing forward into small circles, carried by the feet. Let these circles reach further, and include your chest and throat. Let it be playful, like waves of joy pulsing out of you. Or beams of light bouncing off your hands and wrists. 

03



BLUEBELLS DANCE SCORE (by stace)


Bow your head forward, and draw circles with your crown (about the size of a Swedish femkrona. )


Four times to the left. 

Four times to the right, and let your wrists float up to 90°

Four times to the left, and let your elbows float up to 90°

Four times to the right, let your hands face each other, like two bluebells bowing to each other. 

Eight times to the left, let the bluebells grow taller, until your entire arms and shoulders are lifted as high up as possible. Rest your head to the left. 


Let your arms spread apart, stretching your chest and heart open. Fold in your hips and continue all the way down, your arms spread apart like wings. 


Fold your elbow joints and let your arms rest on the ground. 


04




BLUEBELLS DANCE SCORE


Swing your right arm back, and your right knee forward, into a parallel passé. Swing the knee into turnout, and land in fifth position: arms swinging down and up, landing in a fifth position with your head facing forward. 

Contract and break your head back to the left. Let the contraction pull you all the way down to forward bend. (Thank you Martha.)


Soften your knees and back, and come into a squat position that turns and spirals around your left foot. Leave your arms behind, let them wrap around you like the wings of a baby bird. Breath in. 

Breath out, undo and unfurl the spiral, going beyond the original squat position sending your knees to the left of the arms. Walk one full circle, continuing the spiral to the left, rolling up along the left side of the body, leaving the arms slightly left behind, under the stylised position of the left shoulder. 


Send a ripple through your elbows, spreading your arms like waves or winds as you let your right heel lift and float into a fifth position once more. 

Shift your weight on to your right foot, push your right hip as far over your standing leg as possible, and push your arms until you stand in a soft, asymmetrical arabesque of a 1920´s ballet dancer. 



IMPROVISATION


Dancer MIllie Dempsey - Daniels, improvising around one of the scores. 

Camera - Stace Gill.


The Sun. We danced witn the sun, inside the building in the city centre. We rejoiced and recieved when it shone in through the windows. We waited and hoped it would play with us, grace us with her presence on what was mostly a grey weekend. 


.



EXTRACTs From workbook: Improvisation with text.


21.06.22, Stace


My name is Bluebell, Im a whale, I love my surroundings and my body sings.  Im not the only one.  I wonder why Im here sometimes, and for how long?  I’ve been lit up.  I don’t know the time, except where I should be.  I follow the sun and the force of the ocean.  My name is Bluebell, Im a trail, of life echoing in all directions.  I am my own home.  I dreamt a shell once, and wings. 



21.06.22, Maria


My name is bluebell. 


I came from far away, from the north. I travelled on the wind and on the sea. I used to be a lot bigger, and bumblebees used to love to come visit. They would tickle me on my belly and I would laugh. My laughter sounds like little silver bells they say, perhaps thats why they gave me my name. 


I am also blue. I can’t help it. In the moonlight my blue turns to almost fluorescent purple, glow in the dark. It’s like I have a light of my own in my colour. Like electricity. 


Here in Ireland my kind is a bit smaller, curlier and somehow of a different shape. I guess the sea, the forest and the winds are a bit different here.