East Wall: Storm the Tower, a site-specific work at the Tower of London, has been in the works for approximately four years. The piece was organized, curated, and ultimately directed by Hofesh Shechter. Shechter teamed up with the East London Dance Company to organize East Wall, and worked to find choreographers to collaborate with on the project. The final work was choreographed by three choreographers: Becky Namgauds, Duwane Taylor, James Finnemore and Joseph Toonga.
East Wall had many successes, including giving an amazing voice to four relatively new choreographers, exploring the use of live music for dance, and incorporating professional and amateur dancers alike into the production. Unfortunately, it failed to fully realize its sub-title of “Storm the Tower.” The piece was originally billed as being set inside the tower proper; even the trailer has dancers running through the tower grounds and interacting with (or purposefully ignoring) the beefeaters. The final product, however, was relegated to the tower’s moat, with only two direct points of contact to the tower itself. The first was the use of up-lighting on the tower wall directly behind the stage, and the second was when the percussion section from The Band of the Irish Guard appeared on the walls above the stage. Regretfully, neither of these interactions proved very successful and left the tower seeming quite un-stormed.
The up lighting was simply not a good use of the wall, both on artistic and technical level. Technically, the units appeared underpowered, and the sun was also too bright. They provided a nice texturing of the wall when they were close to an incandescent “no-color” hue, but when they changed to a more saturated color, they became a weak line of hazy coloring. The beam pattern of individual lamps also became visible, neither of which felt like they achieved the highest potential of visual impact. These strips of color also clashed with the beautiful simplicity of an all black stage lined with booms of sidelight, which showcased the power of the dancers and costumes. The wall of the tower absolutely should have been lit in order to pull it into the world of the show, but it should have been done with something closer to no-color lights, to really allow it to be in visual conversation with the rest of the piece.
The second, more upsetting, failed storming of the tower came when the Irish Guard percussion section appeared high above the stage on the walls of the tower. Prior to this, the performance had not directly interacted with the tower itself. Obviously, I would have preferred a bit more interaction on the whole (it would have been AMAZING to set this truly inside the walls) but installation and site specific work is full of trade offs. Setting the piece in the moat offered numerous benefits, including vast stage space, lots of pre-existing seating on the terraced walkway, plenty of space for additional constructed seating and food stands. It allowed for an impressive number of great sight lines and quality audio coverage, not something to be taken for granted at site specific work. It also boasted a great view of the tower for the backdrop. The moat also carries all the clout of the Tower of London and the Historic Royal Palaces organization. The setting thus signaled their acceptance and approval of this project, an important and easily overlooked statement. I was thus happy to accept the rule that the show would occur in the moat. All that changed when the Irish Guard appeared on the walls. Suddenly the Tower was in the picture, and the dancers were not being allowed in. The only people who were allowed to be on the tower proper were the people who had always been allowed there: the British army. This image seems to be in direct conflict with the published message of East Wall, where the idea was to give voice and agency to groups often excluded from classic London narratives. While the ability to have anybody on the tower wall was interesting and exciting, it is important to ensure every stage picture contributes to the intended impact of the piece, which this moment failed to do.
East Wall: Storm the Tower Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOHoDCeBDjQ
East Wall Warmup (The 2016 piece organized as a trial and proof of concept) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_SwssfmpAY
East Wall: Journey to the Tower (Start of a video series detailing the process of making East Wall) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qajES5djgo
