To the Rivermouth is a dance about entrance; entrance into life, into chaos, into tranquility, into self-love and worth. To the Rivermouth is a dance about stepping into the rushing current and being swept away without apprehension. The current is sure and unstable, flexible and yet unyielding.
I am like the current. The studio is my riverbed and when I step into my rehearsal I let my currents go in the form of impulse. My choreography is a direct reflection of where I am on the current day and in working in this way I hope that the audience experienced the waves and eddies of my movement.
It was very important to me that the dance was visceral in the richest way so when I made up movement I cared more about how it felt within the body as opposed to the technique of the movement. When my dancers asked me questions about movement specificity I would often ask them what they felt flowed better within their own bodies. With this method I feel like I created the feeling of the movement very well. As I watched my dancers perform I was very proud of their performance quality and I have to believe that most of their performance quality came from the freedom I gave them with the movement creation.
A useful tool for me in this process was established in the very first rehearsal. We came in and spoke briefly then I got them moving with a phrase I made up on the spot. This was meant to introduce my dancers to the way I would be choreographing the piece, but it yielded another result. When I reviewed the video of my dancers performing this preliminary movement I really saw where they were in terms of technique and comfort level. I found this immensely useful because I knew we had a very limited amount of time to create this dance and this knowledge allowed me to choreograph to their strengths.
The ending product was more than satisfactory. This was my first ever produced piece of work and as I was both stunned and extremely proud to watch my dancers perform my ideas with stellar grace and sincerity. My emotional attachment to the piece hinders me from viewing it objectively at this point, but I look forward to looking back on this experience as a means of revisiting where I started.
How do I feel today? How does what I feel today relate to what I felt yesterday? Does that even matter? Who am I? Do I know myself? Do I care that I may not know myself? Is this real? What if it's not? Do I matter?
All of these questions were brought up in the creation of my solo, Bent Semblance. I chose this title as a result of the mostly finished product. As I watched my video I realized that I was trying very hard to represent my true self through movement, but conflictingly I was also trying to portray what I saw in other dancers that I would like to see in myself. This brought up the many battles of questioning my ability and my worth in the world as a dancer. Am I enough in being myself truly or must I be myself and my admire-es simultaneously?
In many ways, the creation of this solo was a direct confrontation between myself and my issues with self worth within the world of dance. In terms of ability, I never feel like I am where I "should" be. This is the root of the conflict. While I do not feel like I have resolved these issues, I am happy to have had the opportunity to look them in the face and recognize them completely.
The tensions of opposites makes me think of balance, and even more specifically, the fleetingness of balance in dance. Chapter seven of Fraleigh’s Dance and the Lived Body deals with the balance or tension between Expressionistic and Formalistic dance. Upon reading this the first time around I instantly said in my mind that I am an expressionist. This seemed obvious to me and I was almost appalled to even think of myself as a formalist. I felt as if being an expressionist meant that I was a free dancer and being a formalist meant that I would always have to work under the confines of a particular technique. As I took the reading forward I began to see that my views of expression were correct but not complete. A formalist can be expressive and an expressionist can be formal. One house of dance can exist while the other exists simultaneously.
I found relativeness with this in my choreography and in my approach to technique. In modern I feel more expressive in that I am free to interpret the movement more variably than I would in a ballet class, however, this does not denote that there are no formalistic qualities. In a grand battement in modern the energy of the leg should come from the brush of the foot plantar flexing against the floor. This is formalistic and objective because it is in keeping with the archetype of a grand battement in ballet. In the Limone technique the body swings and the arms swing and float. This is an example of expression coexisting with formalism.
In my choreography I find that I enjoy seeing both abstract and direct symbols of my concept. For my Junior Choreography Project, my concept image is of eddies in the water. I have made movement for my dancers that is very close to the movement of an eddie, and I have also made movement that is an abstraction of the movement of an eddie. I feel that this is important because I feel that in this setting of mixed audience, it is crucial to create a dance that is accessible by the majority of the audience. The abstract movements fit more under the roof of expressionism as the qualities of the movement are attributed by the watcher and this fact makes the movement subjectively (or individually) symbolic. The more direct or denotative symbols fit more under the roof of formalism as the movement is very similar to the archetype or symbol, but it contains a degree of difference that leaves room for possibility. Fraleigh describes the beliefs of Nelson Goodman and Susanne Langer that solidified my belief in the importance of the coexistence and balance of formalism and expressionism. “Goodman and Susanne Langer...hold that art does function symbolically--that it refers us beyond its immediate material.” (Page 115).
The balancing of Expressionism and Formalism also brings into question the material of Chapter 8: Mythic Polarity and Feminine and Masculine Archetypes. This whole balancing act of femininity and masculinity is especially present in my solo. I feel like I want to be masculine because I will be a solo man on the stage in front of an audience. This is of course my ego talking. What I am beginning to understand from Dance and the Lived Body is that dancing masculine or feminine does not necessarily mean dancing like a man or woman. Maculinity is associated with objective dance and femininity is associated with expressive subjective dance.
I am a shape oriented choreographer. I like for my movement to objectively look a certain way which is very formalistic. In my piece, To the Rivermouth, it was important for me to get all of the material out quickly so that I could get the objective shape of the dance. As rehearsals progressed and my dancers assumed the shape of the dance we began to talk about the feeling and emotion of the piece. This took a lot of practice because I do not think the underclassmen are experienced with this kind of subjective and expressive approach to performance. So the piece started out masculine and has now balanced out with a good degree of femininity.
The discoveries of this chapter have been really helpful in allowing me to understand this conflict I have had with shape oriented dance versus expressive dance. I also feel like I have a better hold on my identity as a dancer and choreographer which has always been a high priority of mine. Now that I have found this idea of balancing the two houses of dance I am excited to experiment with the amount of the presence of each one in my choreography. I feel that this would get me out of my comfort zone and allow for unlimited possibilities.
Friday, April 15, 2011
It took me a while to understand that Fraleigh was never going to talk about muscle tension in chapter five. After I realized there would be no talk of muscles, I was confused as to what she meant by the tension of opposites within the lived body. To understand this I had to first understand the way Fraleigh believed the Universe to be comprised. “Early Greek cosmology posits a simple view of the unity of the cosmos through oscillation of opposites.” (page 78). With this quote, I begin to understand the use of the word tension as a way of describing the pull of the cosmos inward so that they may revolve around each other to create unity. In the section before the previous quote, (page 78), Fraleigh writes that she sees the lived body as a “Microcosm” which holds in itself the same kind of oppositional tension. Unlike the cosmos, the body does not hold nearly as many structural or physical oppositional tensions as the cosmos, but there exists “creative tensions -- Cosmic and phenomenal, historic, aesthetic and mythic.” These exist in me as a dancer and choreographer and are displayed in everything I create.
This then led me to look at my dance in search of the creative tensions that brought life to the movement. The most apparent to me within the rough draft of my piece is the tension between emotional creativity and sophisticated creativity. I have want to create work that is emotionally evocative and sophisticated as well as I feel that I work emotionally and sophisticated in the studio. I notice the emotional creativity in my concept and in the contact I have choreographed with my dancers both physical and focal. The sophistication is not showing as well as I would like it to show at this moment, but I know it is there in my intentions with the movements. I have tried to give the dancers movement that fits the concept as well as movement that is well received in their bodies. In doing this I hope that the audience will objectively receive the movement well so that they may feel the movement.
My concept of water eddies comes from another kind of tension. I am having a difficult time naming this tension because it is natural and spiritual, but not necessarily religious although there is a degree of worship that comes with it. I feel that nature is a beautiful gift and so I am very spiritually connected to images of rivers, lakes, trees, and flowers. I feel that the most appropriate name, while still not perfect, would be Natural Creativity. If I held inside myself a solar system, Natural Creativity would be next-axis-neighbor to emotional creativity.
“...grace may possess some constants, such as centeredness in action, movement from a gravitational center, and absence of self-consciousness, which Heinrich von Kleist portrays as its essential qualities. “
The previous quote comes from page 99 of chapter six and resonated deeply with me as grace is such a monumental portion of my life in general. Of course Fraleigh (and Heinrich von Kleist) are describing grace in terms of dance, however I cannot help but to relate every aspect of this section titled “Grace and Change” to all aspects of my life. A general theme of this section is that grace is seen as “ease of motion”. In the studio this could mean approaching movement with a calm mind so that I may easily execute a movement to my fullest range of motion. In my life outside of the studio this means that I carry out my actions with a calm and centered mind so that I may execute each intention...intentionally. For example: I have to interact with my roommate, Chase, every day. We share our groceries as well as our appliances and almost everything else. When I wake up in the morning to eat breakfast I go into the kitchen where Chase has usually made a pot of coffee. When I open the refrigerator I grab some fruit and other items. Grace comes into play in this act of taking food from the refrigerator. I must look at what we have collectively, and select a FAIR amount of each of our groceries. Being fair is graceful. If I was to take a large amount of his fruit then he might come into the kitchen later wanting the things that he bought upon this time we might have a conflict between us. This simple daily task must be carried out gracefully so that my apartment and my relationship with my dear friend may have better harmony. No matter what the situation in life or the quality of movement in the studio; grace is “the achievement of spontaneity and fulfillment of intention when movement attains surety of purpose.” (page 99).
Shelley Cushman always ALWAYS talks to us about intention in Performance Theory. “Where does the movement come from and where is it going” -SC. She never lets us get away with cutting the movement short and she tells us things like “NO! STOP! Go back to (some point in the movement) and REALLY GO THERE before you move on.” This is very relative to the way Fraleigh describes grace. I feel that intention in movement is something I do very well, but no matter how good I am now, I can always be better. We can always take the movement farther and further. Farther into, through, out of, and around the space, and further out of our bodies from the inside through our intentions.
I come into the studio every day with the same goal: To achieve what I perceive to beautiful within myself and within the movement that I give to the dancers that I have selected. Within this goal I have to be consistently honest with myself about who I am in this time. What am I feeling today and how is it different and simultaneously relative to how I was yesterday. As I change day by day so does my perception of beauty.
Chapter 3: Dance and the Self is all about the convergence of the objective and the subjective as the experience. I objectively see myself and I objectively see my dancers before me. Subjectively I feel and sense my space and the qualities (or aesthetic values) of my movement just as I subjectively sense the relationships of my dancers. More simply put, I see and feel simultaneously, and this way of perceiving creates my experience that day in the studio. Herein lies a substantial conflict between my subjectivity and that of the four dancers I have cast. I may demonstrate a movement in a way that I FEEL is very clear because it is intrinsic to me and the dancer will SEE me move and try to imitate, however the way they feel the movement is often observed as that which I do not want. This problem is specifically occurring with Lorone as he often tries to perform the movement I give him in a very bound quality when I would like it to be performed in an direct-yet-free quality. A solution to this problem could be that I have to verbally explain the aesthetic intent of the movement that I give him. For example: There is a part of the dance where I have asked Lorone to sequentially drop his upper body down laterally until he reaches his maximum stretch upon which time he would contract frontally and turn in the direction he leaned. He has consistently made the movement into a bound snaking motion in which his head leads him in a swiveling pattern that is not at all what I wanted. What I intend to do in the next rehearsal is to talk to him about the way it should be seen by the audience and the way it should feel in his body. In doing this I hope he will begin to understand in his body how the movement should feel.
I was very intrigued by Fraleigh’s explanation of Aesthetic Intent as the purpose of the movement. “I have held that the aesthetic is the affective.” (Page 43). The affective is everything because it is what moves the audience. The affective is the Iliopsoas of the work and as such I, as the choreographer, have to be articulate enough to show and explain my intent clearly and effectively to my dancers so that they may also be clear. If I succeed in this, then my piece may be objectively observed very much in keeping with the way I intended. Having said that, I must also know that my piece will be experienced subjectively differently by each of my dancers, and I must accept that as an inevitable existential truth.
My hope for my piece is that my aesthetic affective (intent) is effective enough to move the audience. This is, in essence, the purpose of the purpose as stated by Fraleigh. “I am proposing that the aesthetic, defined as the affective, is a quality of being moved, in the sense that when I say ‘I am moved’ I mean, “I feel something,’ and in fact my sense of feeling has been increased.” The intent of my piece should make the audience move inside in that kind of unexplainable way. Just as the eddies of the creek our insides spiral when we watch a dancer spiral turn in such a complete and appropriate way. This is what I want for my piece.
The latter wish brings up the subject of audience perception. Just as the way I see and feel myself and my movement, so does the audience see and feel my movement and the movement of my dancers. In Chapter 4: Dance and the Other, Fraleigh claims, “The aesthetically effective arises...when the full body consciousness is vitalized...but I am not engaged in dance as art until my dance is expressed for others and its values are realized between us.” (Page 57). This is such a simple and beautiful idea. It is to say that the expression is art when there is a communion between the dancer and the audience. This word communion brings up religious images primarily of the people of the church coming to the spiritual leaders to receive some sort of symbolic representation of that which they worship. Looking at this image in a more basic way, there are people who come to a place for the purpose of bearing witness to an event or lesson, and during this happening, there is a dialogue between the actor who is to be witnessed and the people who are to witness. Fraleigh puts this in terms of dance by stating, “A good dance moves the dancer and the audience toward each other.” (Page 61). There are no separate parties. Despite the fact that the dancers are noticed and the audience unnoticed (most of the time), the interaction and participation of both groups makes the expression art. The Dance does not exist on the same level if the audience does not exist.
The audience receives the dance objectively and subjectively. They see the aesthetic values and receive them effectively when they are related to another objective source. This could be anything that exists in the past experiences of the individual audience member which is why each individual will receive the dance subjectively differently. What is seen is then related and is finally felt.
As I come to better understand Fraleigh’s theory of Existentialism in dance, I find that the way I view my own choreography is shifted. We all come from different experiences and thus we receive in different quantities and in vastly different ways. Because of this, my creation must be both a representation of the sum of all of my experiences and a universal work from which any audience member may feel moved even if only slightly.
These eddies are the concept image for my piece. They are fast and erratic and yet they have a calmness about them.
My first rehearsal was exciting to say the least. While it was not my first time acting as a leader in the studio, it was the first time that the entire time in the studio was subject to my decisions. To begin I decided to get to know the underclassmen in my piece. Allie comes from a drill/ hip hop background, Lorone comes from a Color/Winterguard background, and Amanda comes from a drill team background. I have known Lauren for a while and I already knew she would be a great influence on the underclassmen as well as a flawless example from which they could learn. It is important to me that this experience be as enriching for them as it is for me.
After I learned a little about them I decided that we should all start moving together so I could see their bodies and get an idea of what their strengths and weaknesses. What I noticed was very exciting. The combination was very swingy and loose in the lower body and very airy and light in the upper body. Amanda and Lauren really connected to these two qualities in a very similar way. It could have been a duet very easily. I then noticed that Lorone and Allie are very similar but in a vastly different way than Lauren and Amanda. Lorone and Allie are very strong in their lower bodies and very bound in their upper body. The possibilities of the two duets are all really exciting but I know that I will not be able to have a lot of unison movement as the two duets have many differences between them.
I enjoyed the combination that I taught them that day. It was not premeditated and so the freshness of the movement was really nice. The transitions were organic and simple and the movement was emotional even though the dancers did not know it was. I feel that this kind of spontaneity in rehearsal will be essential for me. I am so much more comfortable with this than with coming up with movement outside of rehearsal. I feel that this idea relates to the repeated idea of Fraleigh’s phenomenological existentialism in that my past experiences from years ago and just earlier that day are being portrayed in the spontaneously created movement in the studio. I really like this idea because it instantly makes everything I do relative to my identity. On the opposite side I feel that premeditated choreography often looks contrived and forced. I feel that if I were to choreograph this way the movement would become a little too idealistic and non-organic.
In Dance and the Lived Body, Fraleigh writes about her time at the Wigman School with Frau Mary. “She taught me that both my individuality (which is unique) and my human condition (which is universal) are inescapable present in my dance – because I am there.”(page xxiv). I really enjoyed this idea because it directly relates to the way I view choreography at this moment. The movement that I create is a portrayal of who I am and in turn when someone else performs that movement, their individuality shines through. This is beautiful to me that two identities can coexist within the same solo performance.
In terms of my own identity, I see movement similar to the way it is shown in William Forsythe’s Synchronous objects in collaboration with ART-TEC. The body acts as a generator and transporter of energy lines that are sent into other parts of the body, other dancers on the stage, or out into space to extend on into infinity. In thinking of this as it relates to my potential choreography, I decided that a concept image would be more effective that a concept statement or narrative. Air and water are perfect images for energy tossing. More specifically, gusts of wind hit each other and create a tornado and when you run a paddle through water little whirlpools are created. Two energies come together in such a way that sends both forces into a spiral. These images are very much in keeping with the way I view my own dancing and so in this way I am making myself present in the dance.
In chapter two “Dance and the Self”, Fraleigh writes about Gabriel Marcel and his theory of being present in the dance. “To say ‘I exist,’ Marcel states, is to ‘put myself forward,’ to actively exclaim myself to ‘produce myself.’” (Page 31). When I read this I got a little bit giddy inside like I was avidly listening to a testimony in church. It’s such a beautifully simple concept. I put myself in this dance and so this dance is a portrayal of my self. It’s like an instant starting point; no wordy intellectual process, just begin.
Today I am going to try to get a solid beginning done using the images of the water and the air. My initial ideas are to ave Lorone and Allie performing a morphed and slow motion version of the movement I taught in the beginning rehearsal. I feel that this will play to their strengths of being bound. I am thinking that Lauren and Amanda will act as the paddles and/or the opposing gusts of wind that will create the whirlpools and tornadoes. I also want to play with different ways of counter-pulling to create really fast spirals. I want them to take as much risk as possible so that in the movement's simplicity there will also be excitement.
The Tar Bagelled Hammer is a sectional chance dance with no deep concept. There is no symbology or significant motif, and there is not a political statement to be observed. This dance was composed on the idea that if you give (experienced) dancers rules to follow, something will happen. I released all choreographic control that I have had in previous pieces and approached this composition in a relaxed manner. Page 139 of Dance Composition charts the Phases of Composition the first of which being the "Impulse to Create." Whereas Annable's phase 1 came a year before the product (pg 141), my impulse for my first step came from a spontaneously found image in my head of paper being thrown into the air. This image was appealing to me in that literally everything was up to chance.
Phase 2: Working With the Medium
Dance Composition describes this process as a creators response to stimuli and impulses that yields some kind of raw product like a motif, an appropriate sequence, music, colors, etc. My impulse came from the above mentioned image of the flying paper. The paper became the medium in which I began to work. I wrote down all of the phrases very clearly with all of the pathways drawn out and the rules stated. I left these pieces of paper unfolded so that they would float more freely and indirectly through the air. I then wrote the names of all ten props on equal sized pieces of paper and crumbled them into equal sized balls. I took the unfolded phrase sheets in my hands and stood in the middle of the Mac Lab studio. I threw the papers into the air with much force and watched them float down in side to side and sporadic spastic ways as they fought with the air flow around them. When all four had landed I took note of their sequence letting them keep the order in which they had fallen from right to left. I then took the ten prop paper-balls in my hands and threw them in the air over the four phrases. Without unfolding the paper-balls, I arranged them on top of the phrase sheets that they had landed closest to. I was very careful to not pay attention to how many props each phrase had gotten as to maintain the release of control. I then unfolded the props and took note on which props went with which phrase. Dance Composition makes Phase Two seem like a process of gathering and organizing materials in order to start creating. This means I have to find music for my piece or at least get an idea of what I would like to use. To be frank, I did not like anything I heard by anyone on the list. I searched for music for at least two and a half hours before finally realizing that the only song that would work for my piece is John Cage's 4'33. The silence was perfect because I did not enjoy anything else by Cage, and the concept of the music was perfect because Cage was making the sounds of my dance become the music. I then decided to save materials by asking Jake Bone to perform this song live on the symbol.
Phase 3: Realizing the Final Form
"Although far from the final form, processes of structuring occurred from this point." (page 146).
I knew that I had more work to do before the final form was physically seen, however I was ready to start moving away from the gathering of materials, and towards the execution of the structure that was to hold the dance together. To go on further, I took all of the information gathered from the paper-throwing and began to start making some sense out of it. I had to figure out how to work the props into the phrases without changing the rules of the phrases, and then I had to choreograph transitions between them.
The Results listed in the order in which they fell.
Phrase 1: Bound
Every dancer learns the bound choreography. Beginning at the upstage left corner all members play Rock Paper Scissors to figure out who will do the choreography across the stage to the downstage right corner with the orange scarf wrapped around them. As the soloist travels, the rest of the dancers play the Once Upon a Time game where the first person says "Once Upon a Time" and then the rest of the dancers each say one word to make a completely random "chance" story.
TRANSITION: As soon as Soloist makes it to the downstage right corner, one member of the dancer chorus says "The End." The soloist then throws off the scarf and Airplanes around the space. Everyone else follows and as soon as everyone makes one complete revolution they all run to different corners. The odd man out take the glasses, cat hat, and pink thera band and does a ribbon dance as the other dancers laugh at her.
Phrase 2: Indirect
The dancers in corners cover their eyes with one hand and search for the other dancers with their other hand. As soon as they reach another dancer they do a counter-pull spin to the floor.
TRANSITION: The Ribbon dancer runs around the stage left edge of the stage. The other dancers follow her pathway exactly as they run to the back and grab the gray scarf, the green thera band, and the white glove.
Phrase 3: Direct
The two people with the gray scarf place it over them and slowly reach in similar directions through it. The two people with the thera band reach in opposing directions. The person with the glove puts it on and holds it in front of them and stares at it as they begin the OM sound. The other dancers OM. When all dancers feel resolved, the OM collectively stops and the dancers sit in still silence for five seconds.
TRANSITION: After the silence the dancers seductively take off their props and throw them off stage. The person with the glove runs to get the purple thera band and wears it as a headband. The dancers advance to downstage center seductively as they clear their throat obnoxiously.
Phrase 4: Free
The dancers split abruptly as they sing the National Anthem. As the dancers run they are not allowed to use their arms. I gave the dancers a specific spacial pattern to stick to and when the two groups met at upstage center, they give each other limp armed high fives. The dancers twirl vigorously around the edges of the stage and run to the center. The first person to the center names the category for the Category Game. This game comes from the drinking game Waterfall. When the players run out of names the game is over and they retrograde the twirling pattern. They run down center and collapse.
Phases 4 and 5: Performance and Presentation, Evaluation and Reflection
"The way is it presented and performed can effectively determine how the composition is read..."(page 148) This quote was especially true for my piece as it relied on the performance qualities as well as the ability of the dancers to make clear decisions that keep the piece flowing and unified. The piece was different every time but I feel that it was a success.
This was one of the first practice runs of the piece.
The end product of this study was a comment on the magnitude of the difference of equality you have with the person sitting "Six Feet to the Right" of you. Amanda sat at the top of the bench giving her more room between her and the floor. The closest to heaven. The audience can see she is a white female in America. While women in America still have issues with equality (especially in the work place), it would not be bad to be a white girl in the States. Shannon sat in the middle of the bench slouched against the wall using no muscle whatsoever to stay exactly where she is. She represents the middle class pretty girl. The mid-class girl-next door can walk out in public with her head held high and yet she has done nothing to be so proud. She sits effortlessly on her chair to receive the men, money, and comfort that come to her, often in that order. She does not worry about being hated for her skin color, sexual orientation, upbringing...etc. She is at the top of the middle class food chain. I represent myself....and every other so called "minority" that has been labeled and tagged. I sit on the edge of my seat. Stable in my stillness and ready to get up and march at any second; ready to stand up for not only the LGBT community, but for everyone who has been given a name for which they are punished even slightly. Equality cannot be only for two or three types of people it has to be for everyone. All people should have a spot on the bench and every person should have respect for the person sitting Six Feet to the Right.
My process for this study was simple and similar to how I come up with movement for everything. The big difference here was that I decided to put the movement first without having a clear choice in concept. I put myself in my dancer's position and waited for the first impulse. When the impulse takes me the next step flows from it and becomes the second step. This continues in a fluid way yielding a brief but solid outline for what could be this dance. Once I had the skeleton I asked Amanda to learn the movement and show me. Seeing her body doing my movement made me take certain things other directions. I wanted to make Amanda look good and yet stay true to the original impulse. So we went back and forth. I put myself in the situation, then placed Amanda in it to repeat what I felt would be the next steps. In this pattern I got about 45 seconds of choreography done. I decided to break from the movement and try to find the music and text that would inspire meaningful changes and an ending to make the dance whole.
I found it difficult to select music for this piece because I like almost all minimalist music. I loved Steve Reich's marimba pieces, and I loved Brian Eno's ambient music and so it became a battle between these two composers. I initially chose Brien Eno's "Music for Airports"
This song fit the quality of my movement and could be easily manipulated by whatever text I chose afterward.
The text was even more difficult but for a very different reason. I did want to use spoken word poetry but it was important to me that it did not sound like verse or song. I feel like "sing-song" poetry can get a bit cliche and make a choreographer seem like he/she is trying too hard to be an artist. So I started with a recommendation from a friend. Buddy Wakefield is an AMAZING spoken word poet who has an emotionally evocative piece called "Hurling Crow Birds and Mocking Bars" that is about forgiveness. Forgiveness is a word that resonates deep inside of me and this poem literally put me in tears. Instantly I said yes to this poem and began to try to find a section of it to use, but as I listened I noticed that it just did not make sense unless it was a whole.
So the search reluctantly began again. I thought about forgiveness and what it meant to me personally. I started thinking about what grudges I was holding onto. What was I angry about? Equality. From the beginning of my adult life as an "out-gay" man I have been perceived as different and sometimes lesser than others. There were these expectations then put on me especially as a dancer to be overtly feminine and submissive. I vigorously beg the question, Am I not a man because I choose to love another man? Why is it that in my creation something was perceived to go wrong? No nothing is wrong with me, I just like guys. And so it became incredibly clear to me that I need to address equality in the context that fits me best. I listened to speakers at rallies and marches to finally discover Staceyann Chin. She is a beautiful woman with this gorgeous afro hair that shakes when she talks because she means business. After listening to her public speeches I stumbled across her piece on Equality and our March.
She has this fire inside of her that spoke to me. I knew no matter what section I chose, her message would be easily perceived. The problem was now with the music. Music for Airports just does NOT have the drive that Staceyann possesses. So I went back to Steve Reich and discovered his Clapping Music from 1972. This song behind the text was absolutely perfect for my piece which had just now become about equality. With the addition of the music came the clear dynamics of the movement, and it just made so much sense to have all three of us on the bench at the same time which gave birth to the title "Six Feet to the Right".
I decided to have my audience standing on the opposite bench simply because of the angle. I believe a dance should be aesthetically striking no matter what the concept, and the upward angle showed more of the movement's dimensions.
I was really inspired by the section on "Improvisation and Exploration" in the Dance Composition text. I feel very comfortable in this way of creating because there is so much freedom given as to what can happen and why it is happening. "It is difficult to say exactly when the process of exploration becomes improvisation because exploration of an idea or range of movements is often effected through improvisation to examine the potential, to try out and feel practically, what is right." (Page 80). I have been using this process in each study without knowing it. It is perfect for me because I like to jump into the studio and create on impulse. In this way I feel that I am always being true to myself even as I change day to day. I come in to the studio with a blank slate and through the cocktail of exploration and improvisation, the dance flows forth in stages. First it is a skeleton, second it is a shadow, third it becomes meaty, and in time it develops this meaningful wholeness that is set, and yet has room to grow, breath, and expand to become whatever is true for the current day.
"Interrelationships" discussed on page 106 in Dance Composition directly describes the kind of relationship I wanted to be held by this trio. There is no way for there to be a relationship between the dancers in a direct way as only one dancer is moving at one time. I used intense focus and proximity as a way of making Amanda and Shannon address each other and then Me. Interrelationships are described as, "alternative chance relationships between the number of dancers as solos, duos, trios, and so on." So by placing the dancers in a row, I created these interrelationships. Amanda slid slowly down into the pigeon lunge as she gazed forward at Shannon, and then Shannon did the same to me. Amanda slid slowly down the bench touching her head to Shannon's leg as Shannon did the same to me. I feel that these interactions between us created the sense of community that is conducive to my concept of equality.
Noisy Fixation was inspired by the poem "Silence" by Bradley Hathaway; a spiritual poet and performance artist with a gentle yet effective voice.
Upon starting the composition process, Audrey and I discussed what we enjoyed in terms of music, poetry, and gestures. We both enjoy duets, trios, quartets and other small groupings of instruments as opposed to solos. It was important to us both to have a poem that was substantial and passionate but not cheesy or melodramatic. When we discussed what we liked and what we would like to see for this piece we found a poem then divided to search for the other materials. We both found music options, gestures from the poem, and general ideas for where we thought the piece should go.
We reconvened the next day to show what we had gathered and decide what to keep and what to scrap. I had brought a beautiful song Opus 35 No. 22 in B Minor composed by Fernando Sors even though it is a song for the solo guitar. This was not something either of us anticipated wanting, but we both felt that the emotions evoked by the song matched and complimented those evoked by Hathaway's poem. There is a sense of longing and nostalgia to the song set by the minor notes and chords and the running strums. It struck me as sensual and something tragically and sometimes painfully beautiful. I feel that there could be very few songs that would have worked better for this piece than Sors Opus 35.
Creating movement for the piece was interesting because I have never approached a project in this way before. Audrey and I both came into the studio and discussed the words of the poem and listened to the music. We then split and created short ten second phrases that we later showed to each other and discussed what we would do with them. I also had the idea of starting the dance skin to skin so using that idea, we started the dance with a few gestures from the phrase I had created. Upon creating the first minute of the dance we were given notes from Prof. Leanhardt that the spacial design of the dance was severely lacking. To fix this, we decided that every pathway we had thought about would need to be exaggerated and intentional. When I watched the video of our performance I felt that this problem was patched fairly well. Had we more time to practice, I would create more complex spacial patterns as we almost always stuck to diagonals.
Audrey had created a phrase that we decided to vary in speed between the two of us. I did one set of the movement in the time that she took to do three or four sets as she made a jagged angular shape around me. She finished by jabbing me in the side and I fall away and return to her as she leans back on my chest. This was to represent the relationship between us as one listens and the other laments. Sometimes we even hurt the people who listen to us and help us, but somehow they come back to support us anyways. This could be anyone, it does not have to mean God or Jesus or any other deity.
We decided to then locomote the phrase I had created and put it in a basic cannon. We traveled the first half to the upstage right corner and when we reached the resting position there, I became the on leading the cannon to the downstage left corner where we finally find complete rest.
Overall with the time restrictions and all the juxtaposition of the schedule with all of our classes, I feel like Audrey and I had about a majority success. The other students seemed to enjoy watching it, and many of them mentioned that they found a narrative quality to it even if the story they found was not one that I wanted them to see. The things I would change about our piece are: spacial design complexity, more abstraction of gestures, a high energy climax, and a longer stillness when i curl up on Audrey's back. I feel that these aspects of the dance greatly influence the relationship between Audrey and I. The most influential change would be the abstraction of gestures. I feel that this would get us away from the undesired romantic narrative quality.
In the Dance Composition text there is a very relevant section on Auditory Stimuli. In the section it talks about how the music can create a frame work for the dance. Like when a building is in the primary stages of progress and all that stands is the wood frame. It can dictate so many things if a composer should choose to submit to it. Style, length, mood, and phrasing are just a few examples of the structural qualities music brings to the piece. These four aspects were definitely present in the composition of Noisy Fixation. The style of the dance was smooth, the mood was nostalgic and hopeful, the phrasing was continuous with a sparse accents and moments of stillness and silence, and finally the length was perfection as it was a two minute section of Opus 35 with a clear resolution.
I was very glad to find the section on Visual Design. For some reason I could not find the proper words to describe what I was enjoying about certain pieces of work. I kept trying to say that the design aspect of the dance was really nice and people did not know what I meant. It made sense to me because many of my friends have graduated from the Communications Design program and for them "design" means the way something physically looks. They design an ad for Starbucks and what you see on the paper is a design like a picture or a pose. I was trying to tell people that I liked the pictures created by their dance the way it physically LOOKED without complete reference to the concept. This does not always mean that the piece was movement for the sake of movement or that it lacks concept, it just means that the separate aspect of the visual design was pleasing all on its own. This section of the Dance Composition text really helped me understand what it was that I was trying to explain.
I did not have an inspirational dance piece for this study, however I was inspired by the voice of Bradley Hathaway when he performs "Silence" live. I had the pleasure of seeing him perform in a very intimate theatre space. His voice dances. It rises and falls in tone and inflection as he feels what he is saying. It's like the words are coming not from his throat but from some place deep in his diaphragm or lower even. As the words emerge his face lights up with the energy that came up with the words and his focus is searching yet intentional. He is so powerful and yet so gentle. It was important for me to show these qualities in this piece.
The main idea with which I connected in the Introduction of the book was the statement that "The composer must be fully aware of the nature of the elements so that he/she may be the best judge how to select, refine and combine them." I'm sure the reason this resonated with me was because my main critique from Ellie was that the individual elements of my piece needed more attention. As I reflected on my video, I realized this for myself. I saw many things that could have been altered even slightly so that they might have been better received by the audience. The intro also spoke about this in terms of music. "a composer cannot write notes ad hoc, they must have a relationship to each other to create melody." Next time I choreograph I will probably use a similar process as I did with this project, but after it is all over with, I will go back to each phrase and really think about the relationships between the movements.
The first chapter of the book talked a lot about how the audience receives gestures from the choreography which spoke to me as an audience member. There is a description of movements on page 18 and 19 that describe a dance that may be seen as a religious or moral struggle. I liked reading about how real gestures that we use in our pedestrian lives are put into choreography in an abstracted way. I feel that abstracting the gestures is important because constantly watching someone do a pantomime of how they feel would get stale and lose its artistic value. Part of what I love about dance as an art form is its freedom of interpretation.
In general, I found this first assignment EXTREMELY exciting. I feel that the lessons learned were vast and monumental in my life as a whole, which is amusing to me because it was only a week long process that this piece came into being. Initially I was apprehensive of choreographing a solo on myself, but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. My process was very simple and I was lucky enough to find a Dominic Walsh video that was not just inspirational, but also relevant to how I felt about my own choreography.
I did not have a fancy process like I have experienced with other choreographers. When I started my piece I felt that it would be best to start with a gesture that felt good to me selfishly and that was relevant to my concept of self-worth and identity. The gesture was the low lunge where I put my hands against the skin of my neck and face. From here I tried to really get into the sensuality and emotion of it as a means of leading myself kinesthetically to the next step. It was vital for me to keep this kind of mind-set as I believe it took my choreography and performance to a stage-worthy level. My process met a hiccup when I decided to create another separate phrase as the beginning. Upon meeting with Ellie we both discovered that the dynamic of the new phrase was not appropriate as a beginning. The relationship of the two phrases did not make any sense. To solve this problem I switched back to the original phrase as the beginning and I made the transition bigger and more important. I decided to end with my tactile gesture slowly traversing across the floor back to my original spot as my life seems to go in loops; always revisiting familiar areas in different ways and often as a different person.
The solo body has the possibility to be a really important part of an ensemble dance and has the potential to very clearly display a message in a solo piece. Regardless of the perceived quality of the solo body, most audiences will remember the solo before they remember the ensemble, and if they don't remember a solo I think it would be safe to assume that the solo dancer did not earn their pay check. Having said that, a successful solo can completely integrate all parts of a piece. More specifically, in an ensemble work such as Blessed by Bebe Miller there are usually many things happening on stage at one time and then all of the sudden there is a solo (testimonial as Bebe and Sarah Gamblin have called it) that very clearly affirms the lyrics of the music as well as relates it specifically to the experiences and emotions of the dancer. Without these solos, the ensemble would either be dancing ALMOST arbitrarily to what the lyrics are conveying OR the ensemble would be spouting out so many diverse phrases that the "specialness" of the intention created by Bebe would be completely lost and the audience would be overstimulated and later bored.
In a situation like this assignment where the solo is the whole piece it is important that the dancer command the space and I felt really challenged by this as I am often not given the opportunity to have the stage to myself. Something that was just as important to me as keeping true to my intention was taking risks with my movement. The risks I took were mostly related to looking like a fool. For example, during the beginning of my piece I do a lot of off-center movement which is risky because when I push it to the maximum, the likeliness of me falling is very great. This might not be such a big deal to other people. Many dancers say that falling is exciting to do and to watch, but this was my identity piece and as I have confronted my issues with being pretentious in life, I also must confront that pretentiousness in my dancing. I hope that as I grow as a person and as a dancer that I will be able to take more and more risks without fear of looking like a fool as a means of captivating the audience. This will not only show my intention clearly, it will show my intention with a fire under it. This is my main goal as a choreographer.
I understood at the beginning of this project that there would be areas that would need improvement even after the rehearsed and finished product. Areas in which I could improve specifically include my positioning within the space as it relates to the way that the movement is seen from the front by the audience. The example of this was the spinal articulation that I did a few times traveling upstage. The easiest way to fix this would have been to make the movement travel on a shallow diagonal. An alternative way to fix it would be to make the movement's intention different. When watching my video I notice that the spinal wave made my head fling back quickly like the end of a whip. This could have been the true intention of the movement and so I could have just flung my head back as I advanced upstage.
Another area that needs work for me is my phrasing with the music. I get very rigid when I dance and I think that rigidness translated into my choreography as rushing the phrases. I just need to remember that I must first resolve one thing before moving on to the next. Shelley has said to me before to "really make the movement a thing." Which I perceived to mean that every moment has to be a complete 100% moment or else it is thrown in the garbage. This will probably be the primary change from this first project to my next project because it is really starting to make sense to me in all areas of dance and even my outside life.
So i discovered my weaknesses at the end of my performance and as I watched my video I also saw my strengths. I felt that my intention was clearly stated by my motifs and my choices of dynamics. This may not be as clear as I am thinking it is because I cannot watch it as a fresh audience, but I do believe I choreographed very clearly. I also noticed that many of the students in class enjoyed my spatial patterns and felt that they made sense and were exciting to watch.
My inspirational video is posted in the entry below. I admire this Walsh piece because there is not doubt that the movement stems from ballet, but Walsh has this kind of bravery with his movement that says to me ballet can be conceptual just as modern can. The clarity with which Walsh choreographs is precise and exact within his dancers as well which is another reason I was inspired by this piece. There were no parts in the dance that were missed by the dancers and so there was no part of the dance missed by me; the audience. The clarity is so important to me as an audience member and so I hope that I may possess this quality as a choreographer and as a dancer. (this video is posted in the blog post from a couple of days ago)
The challenge with this assignment was making a difference between the like me and "not like me" movement. Just because I put something on a list...does that make it not like me? I've definitely done some of these things before so labeling them as not like me is very difficult. When I got started I finally had to say to hell with it and just get to work. I put movement in my work with which I am normally not comfortable that included fast percussive jabs into the air and flailing movement. As far as not me movement was concerned, this was good enough for me.
Like me:
1. Direct
2. Bound
3. Expansive
4. Light
5. Sustained
6. Flexible
7. Undulations
8. Dense movement followed by vertical stillness
9. Large traversing movements (ex. leaps across stage)
10. Tactile
Not Like me:
1. Free
2. Floppy/flailed/thrown movement
3. Constantly closed in
4. Extremely fast
5. Small/midrange movements
6. Stillness without growth
7. Feminine
8. Movements directed to my front
9. Dense "floor" choreography
10. Uncontrolled movement
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
I chose this picture for many different reasons. I like that it is a bald man because it makes the picture more about the body and the shape the man is making instead of implying a specific style or identity. Hair can be so definitive of a person and this man is a blank slate which is very relatable. I relate very much to the position of his arms. One extended reaching diagonally down and the other one curled around it as if restraining it from really expanding. This represents the conflicts I feel within myself. I want to move freely but am cautiously bound to my control.
Within my first choreographic study there are positions that are bound and held which is "like me" and there are shapes and movements that are visited that are more free and indirect which would be "not like me." ....although I hope that this not like me movement becomes part of my natural and authentic vocabulary.
Dominic Walsh has this great ability to create a dance that is completely recognizeable. He uses a strong ballet foundation with a modern influence and I feel that even though I see very basic ballet steps within his choreography, I can still understand parts of what he is trying to say. This is inspirational to me as I hope to develop a strong ballet foundation as well as the ability to display a message within my choreography.
I have seen too many "contemporary" ballet pieces that are very beautiful, but say very little. I do not mean to say that making a dance purely for the beauty of it is wrong, but this is not my desire.
Over the break I did not dance...this was by choice. I needed to take a break from dance and I'm not sure as to why that was, it just felt like it was needed. This yielded an interesting result when I picked back up at the beginning of the semester. I feel that the intense yoga program I did really helped me integrate some of the changes that were initiated last semester. I found it easy to reconnect with things I had been working on and I found that connecting to the mind-state of authentic movement was very natural.
