Rehearsal Footage

In my previous post, I mentioned that the installation included a video of rehearsal footage. Here is the video, broken into two parts.

Anne's Installation video part 1 from Anne Morris on Vimeo.

Anne's Installation Video pt 2 from Anne Morris on Vimeo.

It was really hard to cull hours and hours of rehearsal footage down to just a few minutes. When I mentioned that to one of my friends (also a dancer in the cast), she observed that that's essentially what the choreographed dance is--a relatively short product of many hours of rehearsal. In the same way, I've had to choose what to share with people outside of the process, and what is important to represent from those hours of rehearsal. How much is this dance for the dancers--so they can say, "oh, yeah, remember we used to do this section that way!"--and how much is it for the audience? Or even for some of you who haven't seen the "finished" versions of the dances?

Anyway, here's a glimpse of "behind the scenes" in the rehearsal studio.

In Process: An Installation

Whew! An exhausting, amazing weekend. I was fortunate to have many good friends and family at the performances this weekend, and was so proud of the fantastic cast of REcollection. I hope to continue reflecting on the concert and the process over the next couple of weeks as I write about it for my thesis defense.

For now, I wanted to share a few photos from the installation that accompanied the concert. It was pretty dark back there, behind the seats of the theater, so some of the photos are rather..."atmospheric." There were four main components to the installation: part that was set up to suggest a darkroom, with lines and lines of rehearsal photos hanging, red lights, and developing trays; a projected video of rehearsal footage; a display of baggies holding the traces I collected from the dancers throughout the year, each labeled with the date of the rehearsal; and a table where the audience could trace their own hands and write messages. Over about 3 weeks, I worked with the Department's tech director Mitch and the graduate tech assistant Brianna (also in my cast) to clear out the area behind the seats--easily 15 years of old props, forgotten items, and dust. The installation turned out just about exactly as I'd envisioned it would, and I was so pleased to have it be a part of the project. One of the best parts was sharing it with the dancers, who had a great time watching the rehearsal footage and perusing the photos. I'll be sharing the video of rehearsal footage soon.

Opening Night!

After a long week of tech rehearsals, the concert opens tonight! There's been a lot I've wanted to reflect on this week, but simply have not had time...and won't until after this weekend, I'm afraid. I've learned a lot about my dances this week, and about my choreography in general. A few months ago, I wrote about magic and choreography. I certainly think that tech week is one of the most magical times of the process. I don't mean just because there are costumes and lights, although that does sometimes transform the dance and the dancers. I think it's the rehearsals themselves; the boring lighting rehearsals that prompt the craziest conversations onstage (as choreographer, I wasn't part of them this time, but I could tell they were going on!), the extra measure of adrenaline and energy that somehow make the dance gel, the backstage time, the time spent waiting in the wings. Often, rough edges in the choreography--those counts that were always tricky, the spacing that was often just a little off, the connection between the dancers--get smoothed out during tech week, and I certainly found that to be true this week.
At the same time, it's an exhausting time, and I am happy to be past it and on to the performance itself.
During dress rehearsal last night, I watched the concert from the wings, since I'm performing. Suddenly, the dances sprang to life in a new way for me. Seeing from a different angle (since the dances became "dances", I've mostly been watching them from the front), being close to the dancers, and watching the ways the dancers communicate both onstage and off allowed me to really feel the dances and to experience them anew. It was an exciting and emotional experience. Magic, even.

Come see the show, if you're in the area.

Lighting Notes

Let Me Rephrase That...
Full stage, generally warm and fairly bright.
After 2nd reset (to corner), focus down/fade a bit
slow fade as they exit

First Sky
1. Side light on Chelsea--not group
no hard edges to corridor of light
2. As music starts, side light up on group
3. Running--starts to brighten. Coolish colors, but with warm coming through--early morning look
4. Shape clump has a different feeling--a little less whole stage, more isolated SR
5. Wedge through Jessi's fall needs something darker in tone (but not level), more complex and textured.
6. Fairly dim during launching, even with Kristen pulling away--maybe brighter SL where she's going?

On the Tip of Her Tongue
If possible--different colors for Allison and me. A clearly defined corridor for Allison that faces to a dim special/side light when she's in DR corner. She should be visible, but not fully lit. Clothesline is faintly lit (side light) until more general lights come up when music begins.
Cooler on Allison, warmer on me.
Lighting creates a boundary between us--signals we're in separate worlds.

Gather
I. Special DR corner for Abby and Jesse
Special goes out, sidelights or more general lights begin to fade up--we see Ally
(Warm colors, fairly bright, clear, not too complex)
Lots of side light thru 1st section
When Jesse enters, more of general coverage, fading down a bit as we follow Melanie--soft special DL corner.

II. More complex (richer?) palette for large group, but full stage.
A little dreamy, dusky? Like sunlight through dust/water?

III. Darker in tone as group leaves Brianna on stage.
Dim in UL corner
A different feel that II.

When group congregates DR, soft special/isolated quadrant, stay on for Erin's solo.

Full stage, warm, for sixes.
Last look: special DR for Lauren, side light elsewhere, but fairly dim.

Letting Go

Well, we're two weeks out. That sounds like an unbelievably short time when I say it out loud, but really, I think I'm ready. Or, I will be--in 2 weeks!

As the preparations are wrapping up (I had my last real rehearsal last night), I'm starting the process of letting go of these dances, and of the concert as a whole. I'm handing the dances over to the dancers, knowing that my role is winding down, even as the dancers are taking on even more responsibility for the life of the dance. Each cast has to make their dance live. The dances might change, they might come to mean something to the dancers that I couldn't have foreseen. I'm grateful that I can trust my dancers enough to let the dances go and be whatever they're going to be. It hasn't been too scary, so far. In fact, it feels like a bit of a relief. Lying in bed the other night, I even started choreographing a scene of a new "someday" dance.

I'm also realizing I have to let go of any control over how people will view and make sense of the concert. Throughout the process, I've been very clear that people will find meaning (or not) in my work that might be very close or very far from the meaning I find in it. I'm ok with that. However, I had a bit of a jolt the other day, when I realized that the press release I agonized over had been seriously edited, completely changing what I hoped to be telling people about my concert. After deciding I wanted to highlight the creative process of the concert more than the actual dances in the press release, I discovered that the release had been edited down to ONLY the information about the dances. No mention even of the visual art installation that I'm planning alongside the concert. I'm grateful to have my concert publicized, but I was unprepared to give up control over the "message" just then. Now, I'm getting ready. Soon, there will be student essays discussing my intentions for the choreography, and friends and family making sense of the stories and images they uncover, and faculty members negotiating their memories of my work in process, and the dancers learning something new about the dance each night. Out of my control. I'm still working on the relief part for this one...

Speaking of publicity, however, I've been lucky to have a little throughout the University. Here's my press release in its entirety. Or, take a listen to a radio interview I did through WUAG, the campus radio station.

And below is the final version of the poster, designed by Denise Murphy. It's all really happening!

17 Things

Tips for Surviving the Last Month (or more) 

(Notes to Self)

1. Trust your dancers.

2. Trust yourself.

3. Remember to breathe.

4. Ask for what you want.

5. Write down your to-do list.

6. Don't let the length of the list stress you out.

7. Remember to breathe.

8. Ask for help.

9. Ask your dancers.

10. Eat something.

11. Take a break.

12. Remember that small accomplishments count, too.

13. Don't let the anxiety cloud your vision--really watch your dances!

14. Remember to breathe.

15. Stop counting the weeks and days.

16. Trust your dancers.

17. Trust yourself.

Problems and Solutions

It probably goes without saying that putting a dance concert together is essentially one big problem-solving session. Or maybe endless smaller problems to solve. I've certainly had my share of creative problems in this process, questions and puzzles I've racked my brain about, stayed up late thinking about, solutions that just don't seem to fit, no matter how much I turn them around.

Lately, though, I've been battling a couple of seemingly mundane problems--not as creatively weighty as putting choreography together, perhaps. And yet, in their way, they bring up many of the same questions.

First, I've been frustrated, week after week, by a technical component in one of my dances: how to maneuver multiple long lengths of rope while maintaining the tension in all of them at all times, never letting them lie slack on the floor. We tried looping the ropes, we tried tying them to different body parts, we tried bungee cords. No luck. Finally, picking other people's brains in desperation, we arrived at a retractable mechanism (like one of those dog leashes that pulls out and winds itself back in). I ordered them, they arrived right away, we tried them out in rehearsal... Success! Whew. Although it may seem peripheral to the choreography itself, the problem was really mired in fulfilling my vision for the piece. If I couldn't find a solution, I would have to compromise the image I wanted to create, and I wasn't ready to give up on that image! Not so peripheral, I guess.

Next up, titles. In many ways, I love titles. I love the extra layer of meaning they can add to an artwork, and the ways they offer me to enter a dance. But choosing just the right title can be an agonizing process, for me, anyway. I'm generally pretty particular about how much I want a title to reveal (answer: just the right amount...whatever that means), and I like the words to be significant and true. It's kind of like writing a poem. And I do think I like a poetic sort of connection to exist between the title and a dance--suggestive, subtle, sensory, imagistic. Sometimes I get annoyed at myself for worrying too much about the title, since I don't usually feel that knowing the title is necessary for understanding the dance in some way. Anyway, I've been titling my dances this week and last, and finally settled on a title for the concert a couple of weeks ago. So far, all of the titles of the dances, except for one of them, are sitting well with me. They feel right.

Finally, I've been writing up the press release for the concert. This might seem straightforward, even easy for a writer who loves to write about dance, who has written numerous press releases before. But I've never written one about my OWN work, and that seems to make all the difference. First of all, what do you say about your own work? Do you talk about it the way you perceive it or the way others describe it? How do you refer to yourself in the third person without feeling ridiculous while doing so? ("Throughout the creation of this concert, Morris has been...") And then, there's the "just enough, not too much" problem like with the titles. What is the balance between giving enough information about the concert that people are interested in coming to see it, without telling them what the dances are "about"? I have been really resistant to put forward any interpretations about the dances, or even qualitative words, descriptive words that might overly influence a reader into seeing the dance a certain way. I want them to make their own meaning, find their own words to describe the dances. I opted to write mostly about my process in approaching the project, with just a very little bit about each of the dances. I didn't expect a press release to help me express my artistic philosophy! But it was actually quite helpful for me to write a bit about what the concert as a whole has become, not just what my ideas were going into it.

Wish me luck in finding solutions to the host of creative and production problems I'll be up against in the next month, as I get my dances performance-ready and deal with the logistics of the concert!

Oh, and here's the title I settled on for the concert: REcollection: anchor. drift. filter. frame.