Gary Clarke Company’s acclaimed dance theatre show, DETENTION begins its autumn leg of its UK tour this month. The show explores the devastating impact of Section 28 on the LGBT+ community, we sat down with the company’s Artistic Director, Gary Clarke, to find out more.
Gary, DETENTION is such a powerful title. What does that word mean to you in the context of the stories you’re telling on stage?
The title DETENTION came from the research I did about Section 28. I knew that pupils and staff at schools were hit particularly hard by Section 28, and my experience of it was very much in the school environment. When we think about detention we think about school and doing something you’re not supposed to, and being detained or silenced. Looking back over decades and centuries, gay men in particular have always been detained in some way; lots have been sent to mental institutions, conversion therapy, prison; in a way the community has always been in some sort of detention. It’s a sense of being oppressed and locked down by a higher power than you. It’s both a metaphor and a reality, I think.
This piece follows your earlier works, COAL and WASTELAND, which also explored pivotal moments in recent history. What made you feel that now was the right time to create a work about Section 28?
It was timely because of the trilogy and our plans as a company, we felt it just made sense to make a trilogy out of Thatcherism. If COAL was dedicated to my parents and grandparents, and WASTELAND was for my older brother, DETENTION was my story and my generation, and it was something I could 100 percent connect with. I started to look at Thatcher and what she had done in her tenure as PM, and I learned about Section 28 and realised I was directly affected by it, so I was compelled to make this show and shine a light on the hidden legislation that impacted so many people. The show is a way to inform and educate, while looking at world today and thinking ‘have we moved on? Have things changed?’ It acts as a tool to look back and look at now and how we can change things for the better.
Dance theatre can often express things words can’t. How did you approach choreographing something so emotionally charged?
I spent six months doing a very detailed and thorough research process, using a wealth of archives around the country, including Bishopsgate Museum and Manchester Library. I spent hours interviewing people and gathered a catalogue of information and distilled it into cohesive themes I was interested in exploring. From that, I built a timeline of events, which gave me a structure to work from. I could see cause and effect and was able to pinpoint pivotal moments, which I presented to the dancers and together we’d try and identify where the movement was. We started with action rather than emotion, thinking about what activates the body, and then get to heart of what it was about – and it wasn’t that difficult because a lot of the research was already emotionally charged. I specifically chose a company of highly emotional performers who could easily connect with a very honest place and brought them together to create the work.
Your company has a reputation for blending raw history with powerful movement. What has the rehearsal process been like for this particular show?
Enlightening. Shocking. Upsetting. Liberating. Educational. Powerful. Reflective. Horrifying.
As a director I was very careful to create a supportive and safe environment where we could all uncover the research and fully invest in it, knowing we all were held. We are all LGBT+ and we have experienced a lot of what the research was covering, – a lot of homophobia and stigma. We had regular in depth and lengthy conversations around being gay, coming out, family, and shame, as well as school years and growing up. The process was difficult but needed and we brought all that research to the present day and understood it all from a personal point of view. A big part of DETENTION is about us putting our own autobiographies into the work. We also did a lot of laughing and there was a lot of humour in the room, and we built social time with each other like going to pub after rehearsal. It was tough but fun and I think we all knew we were trying to create something really powerful and important, and that drove the process and kept empowering us to keep honouring the legacy of it.
You’ve spoken before about using art to give voice to communities whose stories might otherwise be overlooked. What do you hope audiences – especially younger generations who may not know about Section 28 – will take away from DETENTION?
One of our great strengths is we collaborate with local communities and people directly affected by the subject matter we’re exploring in the show, to bring lived experience to the stage. Our unique approach of integrating local people into the company gives the work a startling authenticity, so as an audience you’re looking at the real deal on stage. Having a wide range of ages and life experiences on stage and reflected in the work is very important, and as an audience you feel you’re looking at people rather than a company of dancers, so you should be able to connect with them as people. A lot of audiences are coming away with the authenticity of it, it feels like truth and that’s really important for us. I would hope audiences of all ages can really connect with it.
Gary Clarke Company’s DETENTION plays at Oxford Playhouse on Friday 26 and Saturday 27 September, before touring to Cast, Doncaster (Tue 30 Sep & Wed 1 Oct), Blackpool Grand (Wed 8 & Thu 9 Oct), and Brighton Dome (Tue 14 & Wed 15 Oct).