dance process journal #19: lots of Philly Fringe footage

I thought about posting more than one full performance from our Fringe shows, since the dance was different each time -- but I've decided that might be a bit much!  So I'll just post one full performance, and two clips of highlights taken from several shows.

In this first video you can see the whole dance from beginning to end.  I really enjoy watching the dancers taking their individual movement phrases across the grass in the beginning of the piece, and the audience participation at the end of this one was especially good.

Next, a clip of audience moments from several shows.  I can never watch these without smiling... thanks to all who watched and danced with us!

While looking through the footage, I've continued to think about why I enjoy watching this dance and what I see in it.  The movement is repetitive and ever-changing.  There's not really a story, even though there are some dramatic and thematic elements.  In large part, this piece is "about" its movement qualities, its dynamic shifts, its continual variation of levels, pathways and points in space.  The dancers struggle with each other, with themselves, and with the environment but it is an abstract struggle.  For me the dance embodies something about living in the moment and adapting to changes.  At times I am simply observing the strength, beauty, creativity and commitment of the dancers.  They are all strong and interesting movers and maintain a very consistent focus throughout these performances.  They dance with strong intention and allow their emotional expression to happpen in response to the movement, rather than imposing preconceived emotions.  I like that the dancers come to each tree, bench, or dance partner and just have to find a way to do the task.  They don't know how they will achieve it until they get there; they just have to go for it.

In these Washington Square performances, perspective and distance affect the dance more than they have done in other environments.  The effects of distance become even more noticeable when framed by the camera's lens.  At times some dancers are in closeup when others are quite far away.  On the second day there were many more birds flying through the space.  The birds, wind, and moving trees are interesting to have in the dance, along with the people passing by or staying to watch.  Of course, in these Fringe performances the thematic material of the dance is underlined by the presence of the memorial to the Revolutionary War soldiers.  The grass and earth itself is a partner in our dance here too -- for many reasons, and specifically because the Square is a burial ground.

 

In the clip below I've collected a few more performance highlights that are not included in the first two videos.  I know this is a lot of footage and I doubt that most people will watch it all!  I just really enjoy watching the various  choices that the individual dancers make, and I wanted to share some more of those choices here.

dance process journal #18: short Philly Fringe excerpt

We performed our Philly Fringe shows on Sunday and Monday of this week, and I was able to record four out of the six performances.  It will take a while to look through and edit the footage but for now I'm posting a short excerpt from our Sunday shows.  In outdoor performances of this work, our encounters with audience members become a more visible part of the dance so I've chosen to have the dancers get closer to and sometimes more directly involved with the observers.  Even if people choose not to dance with us in the actual audience participation moments, they still become a much more visible part of the performance than they would be in a darkened theater, adding another spontaneous, unpredictable element to the piece.  In this excerpt two of our observers seem a bit unsure of how to react to the dancers working so close to them.  We also had a wedding party taking photos beside us on Sunday after we chased them off of the performance space; I don't know if they watched our dance! 

The dancers performed so beautifully and valiantly on this difficult terrain.  Dancing on grass proved to be more tiring than dancing on a flat surface and we were also covering a somewhat larger distance in this particular space.  The quieter, leaning moments became vital in helping the dancers to recover and prepare to reengage with the explosive pushing and struggling movement.  Some cast members had also danced in a very demanding show over the previous two nights, so there were varying degrees of physical exhaustion happening. I was so proud of them all for the focus and intensity that they maintained throughout our Fringe performances.

I was also truly moved by the number of spectators who approached us to make cash donations.  The park doesn’t allow a tip bucket, but many people came up and handed us contributions.  Unfortunately our IndieGoGo campaign did not reach its goal, but I am feeling grateful for the support we’ve received in this short time.  Our fundraising started fairly late in the game (IndieGoGo recommends a campaign of about three times longer) so I'm thankful that we have raised as much as we have even though it fell short of covering our costs.

dance process journal #17: Fringe Rehearsal 2 - the dancers discuss process and environment

We had our second rehearsal on the grass in Washington Square today.  The dance is looking much stronger now after two rehearsals in the park.  However -- I'm finding it nearly impossible to get the footage I had wanted to get for you while running the dance.  There were still just too many adjustments to make, and we don't have much time left before the show.  I needed to focus on rehearsing the dancers rather than running video.  If I decide to share my choreographic process for a different dance in future, I will really try to find someone else to run video because my first priority must be to work with the dancers.

After making a number of adjustments to the piece, we took a break and I asked the dancers if I could record them discussing their experiences with the movement and how they approach working with this particular type of physicality.  I thought that I was recording them, but unfortunately the first great conversation that we had did not actually record.  We didn't have time to talk about those aspects again, so I just moved on and recorded a little bit of discussion about what it's like for the dancers to work with trees rather than walls to push against, and what it feels like to perform this dance in such an open space.  At the very end of the clip there's a bit of dance footage showing our current strategy for entering the performance location, and then a very short bit of the dancers beginning the conflict movement.  After that, I had to switch the video off and focus on watching so that I could give them feedback.  I think the discussion below will give you some insight into the dancers' interior monologue during this dance -- the mental/emotional/spiritual work that the dancers are doing along with their physical work.  It really takes their whole beings to create this dance.  I find their efforts quite beautiful and heroic.

Looking back at the experience of maintaining this journal, I really feel that I haven't shown you as much as I would have liked to have shown about the specifics of how the dancers are creating their movement.  In other words -- what do they have to keep in mind when they are partnering each other?  What physical adjustments do they have to make to each other, to the environment, and within themselves?  Dancing is such a complex and profound activity and even when the movement looks simple, as this dance might appear to be, the dancers are working on SO many things at once.  As most Graham dancers hear at one time or another, "tis a gift to be simple" -- but simple is not necessarily the same thing as easy!  Sometime in the near future, I will see if I can manage to get some video of the dancers talking about what they are doing as they move.

I was thrilled today, during one run-through of the dance, when three women came along behind me and stopped to marvel at the dancers' work.  They stayed for quite a while and continued to exclaim with delight at the dancers' various actions and skills.  I had to keep rehearsing, so I couldn't talk to them much about the piece but they were seeing so much for themselves.  It's exciting when observers can appreciate so much about what we are creating, since sometimes I wonder whether the audience notices the subtle adjustments that happen with each shift of the dance.  And I wonder how many viewers realize just how hard it is to do what these dancers are doing.  In the videos that I've already posted to this journal, I hope that you've been able to recognize something of the complexity that's involved in creating these movements.

dance process journal #16: help us cover the costs of our Fringe shows!

Since we will be performing for free in a public park, donations are the only means we have to offset our Philly Fringe expenses.  Although we aren't renting a theater for these shows, there are many other expenses to cover.  Among them:  Fringe participation fees, the permit to perform in Washington Square, studio space rental, transportation costs for the NYC dancers to come to Philly for the shows, and last but not least a stipend for each artist.  My dancers have given much time and energy to this work since last November, and some of them are missing other work in order to participate in the Fringe.  I would really like to be able to give them each a $100 stipend for these shows but I will only be able to do that if we meet the $2,000 goal of our IndieGoGo campaign.  As of today we're a little more than 1/4 of the way to our goal, with less than two weeks left in the campaign.  If you can help with a donation of any size (even $1 is helpful), please click below to contribute:

If you visit our campaign by clicking the box above, you'll see that we're offering a number of fun perks at various contributions levels.  And since we are sponsored by arts organization Fractured Atlas, your donation is tax-deductible minus the value of any perks that we send you.  Many thanks to anyone who is able to help us in this way!

dance process journal #15: a bit of costume silliness

We had our first rehearsal on the grass in Washington Square this week.  For our Fringe performances we'll need costumes that don't mind grass stains and dirt, and shoes that work for this terrain.  As with previous performances I'm going for something that shows the body's movement but also looks somewhat pedestrian and creates variety from dancer to dancer.  We can use some items from before, but an additional consideration is that temperatures will probably be in the 80s or maybe higher.  Plus a few things have gone missing! so I asked everybody to bring a number of options to rehearsal.  My dancers are nice enough to wear (almost) anything I ask, so there wasn't too much controversy when I asked them for their thoughts on the costumes.  But I can always count on them for some silliness :)

Working in this new environment was a big adjustment for all of us.  I really had to focus on observing and directing the dancers rather than videotaping the movement.  I'll try to get some footage from upcoming outdoor rehearsals once we are better oriented to the terrain, although I am also not sure how much video I want to post here before the shows.  I don't want to spoil it for the people who are attending, but I'll try to get a little something up next week if I can.  We have rehearsals scheduled in both Philly and NYC next week -- as long as Hurricane Irene leaves us with somewhere to dance!

dance process journal #14: sharing some source materials

Our Philly Fringe page is now live!  Go here for more details about our upcoming Fringe performances of We the People on the afternoons of Sunday and Monday, September 5th and 6th.

Over the next few weeks we'll be rehearsing specifically for the Fringe while figuring out a new version of this dance to perform in Washington Square.  These performances will include some (optional) audience participation and I'm still deciding whether to include the "Spirit of 76" song in this version.  If we do use the song, we'll probably integrate it into the dance somewhat differently from how we used it in the theater last April.

I've been visiting Washington Square again for further inspiration and wanted to share some footage of the Square with you here:

The eternal flame monument is dedicated to the unknown Revolutionary War soldiers, hundreds of whom are buried in the Square.

During the creation of this dance I have been revisiting several of Philadelphia's historical sites and thinking (and learning) more about the founding of the United States.  We might think that America has become more politically polarized in recent years, but polarization is a challenge that's been with us from the start.  In his farewell address, George Washington gave a strong warning about the dangers that political parties posed to the new country:

"I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on Geographical discriminations.  Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party, generally.

"This Spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind.  It exists under different shapes in all Governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.  But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.  The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an Individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

"Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of Party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it."

(He says a lot more too, of course!  You can read the full address at this link.)

While exploring further throughout Independence National Park, at the northeast corner of 6th and Market I came upon a piece of public art created in 2003 by Alison Sky.  This text-centered work, Indelible, incorporates a number of moving quotations on liberty from Sitting Bull, Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, Yan Phou Lee, and others "representing those left out of the 'all'" in statements such as "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence and other founding documents.  Indelible highlights the robust condemnation  of slavery in a passage which was written by Thomas Jefferson to be part of the Declaration of Independence but which was struck out of the final version.  The impact of Indelible is further intensified by the fact that it is now located right across the street from a recently opened exhibit about the slaves who worked in Washington's household while he was President.  You can see some photos and read more about Indelible on Alison Sky's website here.

dance process journal #13: ReVision Series footage; Spirit of 76 (song for We the People)

So here is the "something else" that I've been working on -- I have just now released a recorded version of "Spirit of 76 (song for We the People)," out today on iTunes, CDBaby and Bandcamp.  I wanted you to be able to hear this better version before posting the ReVision footage, since we used this song in the dance for those performances and the audio quality isn't very good on that video.  You can listen to the new version below:



I've also written a little more about the song on my regular blog.

So, finally -- some footage from our Re:Vision shows in NYC!  

In adding the live singing to this dance, I wanted to move through the central space sometimes and not always stay on the edge, but I didn't want to distract too much from what the dancers were doing.  So I waited until they had danced for quite some time before I entered, and performed as a statue singing onstage and only occasionally drifting through the action.  Overall I felt this worked well with the dance.  The Tank stage wasn't very big and I was a little challenged trying to keep my feet from getting snarled up in the fabric, so I don't really like how I'm walking here!  I would try to find a better solution for that next time.  The dancers all did a great job and, since they used the side walls often, the stage didn't seem as small as I had feared even though we had 6 dancers on it plus myself.

Having the dancers "write on the parchment" background was an idea that came at the last minute, but I felt it added a strong layer and would definitely want to include that in future performances in theater spaces.  Next time I would get the projection to show as portrait rather than landscape, though.  We also changed the ending of the dance after this performance, just in a small way, by having a few of the dancers hesitate and then come straggling offstage after the rest of us.  I don't really like how we exit in one big clump in this video; it works better to have a few stragglers, which is how we did it on Saturday.

This was my favorite of the two performances, so I posted it even though my camera was a little crooked!

Performed by:  Loren Groenendaal, Lacy James, Rebekah J. Kennedy, Kumiko Nasu, Virginia Pedicord, Katherine Kiefer Stark, Barbara Tait

"Spirit of 76 (song for We the People)" credits:
Lyrics, music, vocals, cellos, electronics: Lacy James
Cover design: Mereminne Productions
Lacy James photo used by kind permission of Bill Hebert 
Liberty Bell photo used by kind permission of Tony the Misfit through Creative Commons

Philly Fringe festival; updates coming soon

We've been taking a few months' break from this dance since our ReVision performances and I've mostly been working a lot on music lately.  That said, I will be posting video from our NYC shows very soon!  I've been holding off on that a bit, as I think the videos will be more interesting coming along with something else I have in the works.

In the meantime, a bit more news --  we'll be performing We the People several times over Labor Day weekend as part of the Philly Fringe festival.  I'm really pleased to announce that all of our performances that weekend will take place in Washington Square, which is such a fitting location for this piece.  Our shows will be happening Sunday and Monday, September 4 and 5, and we'll run the dance three times each afternoon.  You can find start times and more information on our website calendar here.

dance process journal #12: all-terrain photo diary

We've been so busy with performances over the past few weeks that I've only now managed to sort through all of the amazing photos that Bill Hebert took during our first all-terrain showings in Philadelphia.  There are so many great ones that it was hard to choose just a few!  I've posted lots of them on a new page on my website, where I've written a bit about each location.  You can see those photos here.  In this blog, I'll express some of what I experienced as a choreographer reflecting back on the day as a whole.

It was fascinating to watch as We the People transformed itself in each environment -- and the dance also transformed each environment in which it happened.  I particularly enjoyed the busier historic areas where the dance offered an additional perspective to people who were already visiting and thinking about the founding of America.  What is freedom, who is free, how do we achieve a functioning society given the extreme range of opinions and beliefs?  Philadelphia was created as a place where all would be free to worship as they chose.  The struggle to reconcile diverse political views and ideals has been with the United States from its birth.

photo: Bill Hebert

Showing the dance next to the Liberty Bell was especially poignant to me.  I had the dancers begin by looking through the window at the bell and reading the information posted about it by the window, as if they were tourists themselves (which in a way we were) and then to begin dancing out from there onto the plaza.  As you can imagine, this was quite a surprise for the tourists.  We had a lot of people taking photos and watching the dance with interest.  Some of the dancers had not been to these places before, and I felt that their performances were influenced by their encounters with the locations.

photo: Bill Hebert

Even in a theater, once a dance is being performed onstage it is out of the choreographer's control (and even more so with improvisation).  When we arrived at each spot, I gave a few general guidelines for how I would like the dancers to use the location but once they began I mainly just let them go.  I had to accept that many things would happen that I might not have envisioned, and I was also curious to see what new ideas might arise from the dancers' encounters with these spaces.

photo: Bill Hebert

Throughout the process of making this dance I have questioned my own choices more than I normally do.  This dance is created via improvisation, but I do give the dancers many directives and limitations.  I often ask myself why a certain choice by a dancer does not seem to fit this dance, and I consider whether maybe it does fit if I shift my perspective.  What is the audience seeing, and how much does it matter to the audience what choices I make choreographically?  How far can I allow my own instincts and perspectives to be shifted by other ideas before the dance becomes an entirely different piece, and how much should I allow that to happen?  I have been asking myself these questions, while at the same time I do feel that it's still important to listen to my own instincts about what works and what doesn't.  This choreography is a dialogue between my own ideas and the things that are introduced by the dancers, the environments, and/or the onlookers.

photo: Bill Hebert

This was the first day that we debuted our audience participation ideas and we didn't know whether our onlookers would be willing to join in or not, but it was so much fun!  I was highly impressed with my dancers for being encouraging (without insisting) and we had some delightful audience participation in a couple of the more feasible locations.  I look forward to doing more with audience participation in future performances.

photo: Bill Hebert

There are lots more photos from each location on my website; click here to see more of Bill's beautiful shots!

I'm still playing catch-up a bit in this journal, since we have already gone on to perform in the Re:Vision Series in NYC.  We had an amazing time there too and took the dance to another level, and I have lots to share with you about that.  I think I'll have some video and performance photos soon but for now, a few backstage pix are here.

dance process journal #11: take it outside!

We took the new dance out for air this past weekend and it was so much fun!  It was our first day working outside, and also the first day that we had this many dancers (4 dancers from Philadelphia, and 3 from New York).  We danced our way east across Center City Philly visiting six different locations.

Even though it was our first time outside, we invited people to come and see us.  Since we didn't know what the weather would be like, or how well each location would work, I decided to play things by ear and post each location on my Twitter page shortly before we arrived in that spot.  I chose quieter, out of the way spots for our first few locations before going to areas where I knew we'd have more of an audience.  Between tweeting, directing, and trying to capture video, I felt that I was not able to do any of these things as well as I would have liked!  But overall, the day went really well.  It was truly wonderful to see the surprise and delight on the faces of many of our onlookers.  I was thrilled that some people even joined in with the dancers when invited to do so.  Unfortunately I didn't get any footage of the audience participation.  I will really try to get some of that next time!  I couldn't record nearly as much as I wanted to, as my cell phone battery was taxed to the max and I had to save enough power to tweet our locations... and I needed to observe the dancers some, too.

Here's a clip from one of our first locations.  This day was kind of like an open rehearsal, since we're still making the dance, so you'll hear me giving directions to the dancers.  We still need to work on some things but my wonderful dancers (Loren Groenendaal, Rebekah J. Kennedy, Darcy Lyons, Kumiko Nasu, Virginia Pedicord, Katherine Kiefer Stark, Barbara Tait) really threw themselves into this and did an amazing job.

We faced different challenges in each location.  Sometimes the dancers had nice, tall walls to work with but very little open space, and/or more cars, or more pedestrians.  In other spots they had more space to spread out, but not much in the way of a wall.  I would have liked to have stayed longer in each location and to have spent more time making adjustments in how we used the features of each different environment.  However, this day was mainly about our journey across town and trying out a number of possible spots, rather than exploring one or two spots in depth.  We'll definitely revisit some of these places.

The clip below is from our final location of the day and by this point, the dancers were exhausted... at least they were still laughing!  And they managed to perform once more, before we called it a day.  This was another one of our out-of-the-way spots but by the end you'll see that we still drew a bit of a crowd. 

In some ways I wish that we had gone outside the first time without announcing the locations at all, so that I could have focused more on directing the dancers and getting a bit more video.  I didn't get any video footage of my favorite two locations, historical landmarks where we had much more of an audience and some great audience participation.  We did have the wonderful Bill Hebert along with us taking photos all afternoon, so I may have some still shots of those locations to share with you soon.  In any case, I hope that we'll be dancing in those busier spots again.

What a fun day... and we'll be doing it again before long!  We plan to do several more outdoor showings over the next few months, both in Philadelphia and in NYC.  However, our next performance will be in a theater, in the Re:Vision Series in Manhattan's theater district on April 15th and 16th.  I do plan to be singing for both of those performances and it looks to be quite an interesting show.  Tickets and more info are available here.

dance process journal #10: first showing/open rehearsal

Last night we had our first public showing of the new dance and I was really happy with how things went.  I have written a new song for this dance which we debuted in this performance; I'll write more in another post soon about how we are integrating the song with the choreography.  In this post, I want to show you how the dancing is developing as we begin to perform it in public.

This was the first time bringing together some of the Philly and NYC dancers.  We only had a short time together in the space beforehand, and it quickly became clear that we would need to make a number of adjustments in order to do the piece with more than 3 dancers.  We worked on some of those changes before the show, but I felt we weren't quite ready to perform it with everyone so I decided to show the dance with 3 performers first, and then right afterward to present an open rehearsal with all 5 dancers so that the audience could see some of our choreographic process.

The first video below is an excerpt from what we showed with 3 dancers.  You'llt notice that if the hat falls off of the "hat person," everyone now goes into their personal/individual movement.  You might also notice that you can hear the dancers breathing more heavily in this clip; I think that this is due to the energy of performance.  Performing a dance in public usually gives a dance a heightened energy, along with some amount of unpredictability.  One audience member commented to me that she enjoyed hearing the dancers breathing and I agreed... this was a small, intimate space so the audience was very close to the performers and could really hear and see many details.

I was very excited by what happened in the open rehearsal (below).  I am speaking throughout this video so you will hear me describing our work to the audience.  For one thing, we had to figure out how to adjust the pushing and other improvisations now that the dancers are not just working in pairs.  When we first tried 2 or more people pushing one person, it just looked like they were all struggling with each other and it wasn't clear that someone was being pushed (you will see in the video how we made that more clear).  I also decided that the hat person must now split their focus and make sure to go back and forth relating to all of the dancers, in order to tie the piece together.  The dancers quickly incorporated the changes that I asked for, and by the end things got pretty thrilling.

I think/hope that the audience enjoyed seeing some of our rehearsal process.  Thanks again to the dancers who performed in this show:  Loren Groenendaal, Rebekah J. Kennedy, Gessica Paperini, Katherine Kiefer Stark, and Barbara Tait -- you all did a wonderful job!  We still have some more changes to make but I think we will be able to figure them out next weekend, when dancers from both cities will be performing together again.  It will be a real adventure since that will be our first time taking the dance outside.  I'm sure that I will have a lot to write about here next time!

dance process journal #9: costume peek

We have our first showing coming up this week! We will be showing the dance as a work-in-progress and I've added more dancers, plus a few other additions that you'll see next time. Hopefully I'll have some footage to show you from the performance. For now, this short clip gives a peek at our costumes:

We have several showings scheduled in the near future; you'll find dates and details at Mereminne Calendar.

dance process journal #8: the New Yorkers

So here's another reason for the video journal:  I'm mostly working in Philadelphia right now, but I also wanted to bring in some of my NYC dancers.  This online journal helps the New Yorkers learn the structure of the piece, so that when I do rehearse in NYC we can move much more quickly.  Since they will both know the "game rules" of the dance, the two groups will be able to perform together sometimes even though they rehearse separately.  This is only the second rehearsal with the NYC dancers but you'll see that they're almost caught up with what we have been working on in Philly.

 
We have some performances coming soon in which both groups will dance together and I'm excited to see how that goes, since the movements of this piece require the dancers to become familiar with each others' bodies and movement styles.  I'm also looking forward to exploring what we can do with this structure using a larger number of dancers.

Dancers:  Rebekah J. Kennedy, Kumiko Nasu, Virginia Pedicord

dance process journal #7: working it

My dancers are giving so much of themselves in this demanding piece.  Now the dance is really coming together, so the dancers' performance level becomes more intense and takes more out of them, and they are doing a really great job.  I am suddenly feeling a tremendous responsibility to do them justice by making effective and interesting choreographic choices going forward.  We've done a lot of work so far and they're dancing it so well; now it's up to me to take this dance further with the next things that I will add or change.

In each of the 2 clips in this post, we are working for about 10 minutes and incorporating all of the elements we've been working on.  We've spent the past 2 rehearsals refining the details and rules of precisely HOW the dancers need to perform these different movements, and they've gotten the hang of it all pretty well by this point even though there are still a few tweaks that I want to make to this material.  But already, there's a lot of good stuff happening in these videos.  In the next few rehearsals with them, I'll begin to add a few more new elements to the piece.

You'll notice that we're trying out a new way of starting the dance; at the beginning, the dancers perform their own personal movement phrases, which you haven't really been able to see in our previous videos.  Now that you can see those phrases more clearly, you might notice that the dancers are also using them later on in the dance at times.

dance process journal #6: the hat factor

Now we are working on adding a new layer to the dance; here are clips from our last 2 rehearsals.  After setting up some basic guidelines for the hat behaviors, I just need the dancers to start moving so that I can take a look, even if things are still rough.  I need to see them working with the information they have so far, so that I can figure out what else I need to tell them.  My concept for the movement comes partly from my instincts as a performer, and isn't always verbal in my mind... I'm sensing I what I feel viscerally when I imagine the movement happening.  But as I work with the dancers, I have to find ways to put more of that into words.  In watching them work with the material, I find out what I need to clarify verbally, what limitations I might need to add or remove, and what we might need to change altogether.  Unexpected challenges and questions arise.  Sometimes there's a lot going on at once, and it takes time to address each detail.  We still have a lot of refining to do but I think you will see that the "hat person" choreography starts to come more into focus by the end of this video clip.

I gave the dancers a number of movements and gestures to use while wearing the hat, and they also have guidelines for how to approach the other dancers and how to interact with them.  Within these guidelines there is still room for spontaneity, and anyway since the pushing movement is somewhat unpredictable, the hat person cannot perform their interactive actions the same way each time.  The dancers now have even more directives to remember while they are performing, and they also have to remain open to spontaneous choices and adjustments. 

For these rehearsals we are also working in a much larger studio than before, and the walls are somewhat different to the other studio's walls.  Because of these environmental changes, we can now also begin to figure out how far apart the dancers can get from one another, and how to bring them closer together at times so that they can interact.

dance process journal #5: wall walking

I want to thank my dancers again for trusting me to share our rehearsal process here.  Many beautiful things happen in rehearsals that no one else usually sees, and it's a special thing to be able to share these moments. 

In the last few rehearsals we've been finding different ways of going up the wall.  Today, we started to intertwine the wall walking with other elements:  the pushing action/conflict phrase; the "stepping on" or "treading" action; and the "leaning" improvisation.  Each of the dancers also has a personal movement motif that they are sometimes mixing in here.  I haven't shown you very much of their personal movement yet but you'll see more of that soon.

It's so exciting to see this movement language becoming second nature for the dancers.  They are beginning to use it almost instinctively and to take it in new directions on their own.  That's the goal; since we'll be performing this dance in many different environments, it needs to be adaptable. 

What you see here represents the basic foundation of the dance.  We're creating a way of moving, but the specifics of what happens will be different each time.  For me that's so much of what is interesting about this piece.  The dancers have an objective and they have to figure out how to achieve it -- but they have to invent things anew each time, because each time they dance it they face new challenges.  So, the movement stays fresh and spontaneous.  This work demands continual creativity from the dancers and they must also maintain a strong sensitivity to one another.

This foundation will continue to develop -- but now that we have the basics established, I can start to bring in other parts of the dance.  I needed to create the foundation before I could see how the other (very different) parts of the dance will relate to this base.

dance process journal #4: push

For this dance I want to build movement that is continually changing and yet still maintaining a strongly distinctive nature.  To create this structured improvisation, I must figure out what limitations to give the dancers in order to shape the flow of their movements.  I also need to figure out how to communicate clearly -- to the audience, and to the dancers.  The dancers interpret my directions as best they can, and then I think about what else I might need to say in order to guide them more specifically.

I don't want to write too much here concerning what this dance is "about" (and some of that is still to be determined), but by now you may have noticed that conflict is an important theme in the dance.  Today, we spent most of the rehearsal developing some of the movement for that theme.  I asked one dancer to push the other across the floor using any part of their body except for their hands.  When they reach the wall, they each work alone pushing against the wall.  At a certain point they will begin to feel tired and then they come together with leaning.  Then they go back into the pushing improv across the floor.

At about 7 minutes into this video clip, I add a new element.  The dancers continue their pushing improv -- but now, at some point while crossing the floor, they must also include the simple conflict phrase that we have worked with in previous rehearsals.  Their investment into the process and their wonderful creativity makes this so beautiful and interesting; well done, dancers!

dance process journal #3: dance baby dance

My favorite rehearsal so far! We had a fabulous guest artist with us, and were highly impressed with her contributions.  It was fascinating to see how she involved herself in our dance.  We didn't really work on some of the things I had planned, but we'll get to them next time.  We took time for the dancers to develop their individual movement themes, and then I just wanted to watch for a while as we mixed those with one of our specific action ideas (stepping/standing on each other).  At the end we worked a little bit with the hat again but we are going to have to set aside more time to work that out!  When something doesn't work, it helps to show me what might make it work.  Thanks dancers for running with all of my crazy ideas!