Taking Inventory

46 Ziplock "Trace" bags plus assorted boxes and papers

9/7/10:
Craisins package
Clif bar--White Chocolate Macadamia Nut flavor
Plastic packaging from Sony Mini DV tape
2 film containers, one black, one gray
brown and white feather

10/7/10:
1 plastic fork

10/17/10:
Propel water bottle--Grape flavor
Plastic packaging from Sony Mini DV tape

10/31/10:
Many dark chocolate Hershey's kiss wrappers and Mint patties wrappers

11/9/10:
Thai Pavilion box: single serve Pad Thai
empty ziplock bag
Wheat Thins bag

11/19/10:
Birthday confetti

New Journal!

I've reached the end of my choreography journal, just in time for the end of the semester. My dancers probably think of it as another appendage, as it's rather omnipresent during rehearsal! I bought a new one the other day, bigger than the first. More space for thinking, mapping, a wider expanse to carry these pieces forward to the concert.
Some photo documentation of the original notebook (by Sinru Ku), and a photo of the new, still empty one:

Post-showing Percolating

Sorry for the long silence--the end of the semester has overwhelmed me. Grades are nearly in, the holiday break is almost here, so I'll be returning soon.

For now, I'll just say that last Tuesday was my end-of-the-semester committee showing, where I showed all my work to my thesis committee and other grads. It was great to see the dances all together, and to get a sense of how much we've accomplished this semester. Since then, I've been meeting with my committee members to get their thoughts and feedback about continuing to develop the work. It's been both harder and easier than I expected to hear and consider their responses (more on that later).

And even though I'm looking forward to a break from the weekly rehearsal schedule, I've also been...well, maybe "haunted" is the right word...by these dances. I can't stop thinking about them as I fall asleep, as soon as I wake up, in the back of my mind throughout the day. Problem-solving, considering new possibilities, imagining what we might try when rehearsals start again. I don't really mind--I WANT to be thinking about them--but I do wish for a few more hours of sleep unsaturated by dancing thoughts!

Here are a few photos from the showing, taken by Sinru Ku.

on Not Knowing....Yet

Recently, in rehearsals, in conversations with colleagues, in my own thinking and planning, I've noticed myself saying frequently, "I don't know what happens next yet," or "I'm not sure why this happens here, but let's see what happens."  I probably wouldn't have noticed so much if comments from a few others hadn't suggested that not everybody works this way (or says it out loud, anyway).  It feels so natural to me that I forget that I haven't always worked this way, either. 

At the beginning of the semester, one of my committee members said something to the effect that he hadn't expected me to be so comfortable with uncertainty, with holding that uncertainty and still going forward.  At the time, I wondered about this, too.  In everyday life (not just choreography-land) I certainly have known myself to want to KNOW things, know what I thought about something, even if what I thought I knew changed later.  I wanted to be certain about myself, my positions on things, at least for the moment.  I don't know when that started to change, but I don't think that's true for me anymore.  I do feel more comfortable with uncertainty, with not knowing, with trusting that clarity will come...sometime.  Not that this attitude is always easy.  The uncertainty facing me next year certainly gives me a fair amount of anxiety!  

In my choreographic approach in the past, I also wanted to know.  If I didn't know what happened next, I worked hard to figure it out right away.  I think I came in to rehearsal knowing.  Not that things didn't change in rehearsal, but I began with a very clear sense of what I wanted to happen.  Again, I'm not sure when that started to change, but in the last few years, that certainty has generally loosened into trust.  I hold a great deal of questions about each dance like a bunch of balloons, trusting that as we continue, the answers will start to come clear.  I trust that the dancers will make choices, will show through their embodiment of our ideas, what the dance is turning into.  I trust that when I see or sense the/a right answer to one of the questions, I'll recognize it.  I have a very clear sense this year of discovering the dance and its meaning(s), not necessarily creating it.  Or maybe it's more accurate to say, discovering what the dance is and what it does, rather than creating those things.  There is definitely creation and shaping going on constantly in the process, by me and by the dancers.

This weekend, as I plan for my Sunday rehearsal, I'll be sharing some of the questions floating around for that dance at the moment.

Progress!

After a period of stagnation, I finally feel like the new version of Every Falling Thing is moving forward. For this dance in particular, it seemed important to find just the right music, with just the right emotional tenor, just the right amount of instrumentation. I hoped that finding the music would jump-start the process of structuring the large amount of material we had created. It was quite an ordeal to find something that felt just right (or at least, right enough...). Finally, success! Instead of one track, I've found 4 separate pieces that I've arranged in a way that seems promising. I like the music quite a lot, and it has, in some ways, prompted a jumping into the next phase of the choreography. The music itself, while not really serving as a rhythmic structure for the dance, does have some distinctive moments, and I'm having a bit of a struggle with the musical side of myself. One of my aims for this piece was to loosen the relationship of the dance and the music; the first version seemed too tightly bound to the rhythmic nuance of the music. I haven't created the movement to this music (or any music, for that matter). But how much do I let the music shape the movement, now? Can I (how?), should I ignore the musical cues that are tempting me to highlight them with movement? In many senses, this becomes a philosophical question, surrounded by considerations of modern and post-modern dance, the relative values of dance and music, tradition, innovation, change for the sake of change, comfort of the audience. But it's clearly also an aesthetic question, as I decide what relationship between dance and music makes a stronger dance in this case (stronger how? stronger for whom?). I imagine I'll be wrestling with this one for a while...

Here's a tiny clip of a recent rehearsal for this dance (sans music), and just a glimpse of some of the movement we're putting together. The dancers are Kristen Lucas, Chelsea Flanagan, Lindsey Archer, Denise Murphy, Morgan Carroll, (and Jessi Tilden, not captured by the camera's reach).

Impressions

The works are developing. In fits and starts, sometimes, but all of the works are going somewhere. The process is simultaneously thrilling and agonizing, as I watch the dances take shape and wonder whether I'm making good/interesting/useful/important choices.

My own impressions of the works--their character, their "aboutness," a sense of their arc-- are coalescing enough so that I can solicit impressions from others. I had my first observers in rehearsals last week; on Tuesday, a member of my thesis committee who was also my choreography teacher for two semesters, and on Sunday, the chair of my thesis committee, both supremely perceptive and skilled observers and interpreters of dance. Since hearing their impressions (not really feedback, in the way of improving, but more: "This is what I observed and this is what it meant to me."), I've been thinking a lot about how these impressions affect or intersect with mine, whether others share those impressions, and overall, what do I do with them? How do they go into the continued development of the work? My current course of action: invite others into the rehearsals, ask dancers for their impressions, collect information. I may end up with too many different interpretations, too much information. I hope that it won't stifle the process. I don't really expect it too, however. Right now, I feel like I'll be able to choose the information that seems most important, and not feel obligated to satisfy everyone's interests or interpretations.

Already, the comments I've gotten from my two committee members have been quite revealing about my own impressions about the work, what it is that I've been thinking about. And it's even brought up something of a contradiction for me in how I think about and "do" choreography. I've been saying and writing and thinking about how important it is to me that my dancers are really individuals, not just any body, but these people. I solicit movement contributions from the dancers, and foster an individualistic approach to performing the movement. I generally welcome variation. And ultimately, it is important to me to be working with these particular people; I know the work would not be developing in the same way if I were working with others. However, I realized that in developing most of these dances, I've been thinking about how the movement interacts. What is the character of the movement? What is the movement communicating? In contrast, one of my committee members posed this question to me: Who are these women? And why are they moving in this particular way? My committee chair wondered similar things--why that dancer with the other dancers? What does it mean that those three people are doing something different than the rest? What is the relationship of the big group to the small group? What does it mean that these dancers belong to one group in this section and a different group in the next section?

I realized that I had not thought about the continuity of character, or the implications of these particular dancers in this particular combination. I'd been making sure the movement was seen in particular ways, or at particular intervals, as if the movement was the only thing communicating.

Big questions now, about how this new consciousness affects the choreography...

I hope to post some more video soon, so stay tuned.

Pictures #2