Rethinking the Gaze in Dance: Katie Gathercole’s ‘Doing It for Attention’ Workshop
- Elspeth Chan
- Oct 25
- 4 min read
Katie Gathercole’s recent workshop, Doing It for Attention, unfolds at the edges of physical theatre and immersive performance, where the boundaries between performer and audience gently dissolve. Conceived as a playground for movement exploration, the session invited participants to probe the power dynamics of attention: how do we demand it, surrender it, or redirect it? What happens when attention itself becomes the choreographer?
The Potential of Attention
Throughout the workshop, the word “potential” lingered in the space. Katie urged us to consider how curiosity and playfulness might unlock latent expressions — how “flirtation”, stripped of romantic undertones, might describe our relationship with the possible. One exercise had us look closely at our palms: the veins, scars, quiet movements beneath the skin, as acts of attention toward what the body usually hides.
When she guided us to imagine the unseen spaces, the backs of our knees, the shifting pelvis, we were reminded that expressiveness often lies dormant in overlooked places. One participant shared that he tried making an angry face with a relaxed body, a discovery that provoked wider questions: How much do facial expressions dictate bodily truth? When does acting cease to act?
Mirroring and the Hidden Self
In a later exercise, we mirrored each other’s movements. Participants enjoyed becoming creatures. Withdrawal was encouraged as much as imitation; participants could pull out at any point. This gentle non-commitment reshaped the act of watching: attention became less about spectacle and more about threshold moments: the buildup and the fallout. It is suggested that the essence wasn’t in the performative act but in surfacing the subconscious selves that hover just beyond awareness. As I observed, it felt like a quiet unmasking, an intangible pull to meet the self that usually hides behind the consciousness.
Witness and Energy
Partner work deepened this exploration. In the first round, one danced while the other observed only when prompted by Katie’s clap. In the second, the witness could open or close their eyes freely. When I was the observer, I could sense my partner’s energy; his approximate position, his rhythm, despite the blindness. When it was my turn to dance, I felt liberation in his closed eyes, yet paradoxically found myself performing for those eyes, seeking attention that might awaken at any instant.
I experienced that attention is not a fixed direction but a fluid exchange: inward when self-aware, outward when desiring recognition. This dynamic recalls the discussion upon dancer as subject and dance as object, and perhaps also introduces a third aerial gaze, viewing ourselves as others might. The presence of any entity in the room was palpable, even when no one was watching.
Music added another current to this flow. A pop track seemed to elicit performative gestures, while a later, more meditative rhythm invited participants to “channel positive energy” rather than seek visual validation. Attention became energy, not gaze.
Habits and Disruptions
We moved next into the “Sandwich exercise”, an intriguing investigation into habitual movement. In pairs, one described a beloved or despised sandwich while the partner was advised by Katie to deliberately show indifference, avoiding eye contact. Afterwards, the observer named three habitual gestures they noticed. This simple task exposed how performative our “natural” communication is, and the thin line between instinctive and performative habits. The moment we sense disinterest, our bodies amplify: hands reaching, posture expanding, as if to reclaim attention.
From these gestures, each created a short phrase of movement. As the exercise expanded to the group, a collective hesitation gave way to chaos when one participant leapt forward, clapping and making noise in the centre. Laughter rippled through the room. Soon, others joined, copying, disrupting, reclaiming. Attention ricocheted between us through eye contact, breath, and the architecture of space. Katie’s verbal prompts like “Who is leading?”, “Who’s interrupting?”, “When does the climax occur?”, spurred us to notice how collective attention shapes the shared worlds.
Two spontaneous clusters formed. One pulsed like a germinating seed, driven by audible breaths; the other flowed softly, their hands folding outward like blossoming petals. Each drew from the same exercise yet manifested distinct textures of energy — proof that attention, even when collectively distributed, individualizes experience.
Writing as Movement
The workshop closed with a quiet writing task: “I like attention because…”. Each person’s words became fragments of movement. In trios, we transformed these private confessions into miniature performances guided by Katie’s prompts on physicality: “extension and contraction,” “almost touch,” “focus on small detail.” What emerged were short scenes layered with nuance: humour, hesitancy, intimacy. Contexts were withheld, but the meaning flowed through bodies.
These performances were small miracles of transformation: humble yet resonant, born from the same source question that began the workshop. Attention had turned into awareness.
Between Confusion and Magic
Katie’s use of the word “disruption” did not mean disarray, but rather curious confusion as a deliberately unsettling force that propels imagination forward. Her exercises, rooted in the realities of social interaction and bodily habit, revealed that dance can emerge from the faintest of daily gestures when paired with an openness to “not knowing”.
Artistically speaking, it evoked a sensibility akin to magic realism, where the ordinary grain of an idea or an unnoticeable habit dissolved into the extraordinary through embodied imagination. However, what lingered for me was the re-sensitisation to choice: where to direct our gaze, what we claimed as presence, and which selves we allowed to surface.
Interestingly, such embodied awareness lies at the very heart of Dance Movement Therapy. Perhaps this is the truest offering of Doing It for Attention, a reminder that movement begins, always, with noticing.
