The Plan

In the process of planning our MFA thesis concerts, the grads make different decisions about whether to create entirely new work, or revisit some previous work, whether to make a continuous, evening-length work or to show several separate dances. I've chosen to go back to some work I've created previously in this program as well as to make some new work. The pieces are definitely separate works, but for me, the ways I'm working on them as well as some of the content seem related. I don't know yet whether those through-lines will be clear to the audience or not.

Previous work:

I'm returning to a work I created for 7 dancers in Spring 09 called Every Falling Thing. When I made that dance, it felt like a dance that I just needed to make. In fact, it practically made itself. Afterwards, however, I wasn't entirely pleased with how I had developed the work. The original ideas were still interesting, though, so I'm going back to the source of my inspiration and seeing where else this dance can go. At this point, it seems that this will not be a reworking of Every Falling Thing, but a completely new dance; it just happens to stem from the same source. That source is mostly a poem, by Li-Young Lee, that has captured my imagination and elicits a strong physical and emotional response.

I'm also coming back to Conversation Piece, created last Fall (09). This work for 5 dancers grew out of a number of improvisations and explorations about communication, sending and receiving, transfer of information and of movement from one body to another. This time around, I've got most of the same cast, with one new addition (one of the original dancers graduated). We are working on reviving the material, mostly from memory (rather than video), and finding new interactions, new possibilities in how we can work with this material. I'm totally excited to see how it turns out. We're still playing a lot with the material, not "rehearsing" but creating, trying to get a read on what this dance is or can be, a year later.

I'm planning to perform in my own concert, although I still have mixed feelings about that. I'm going to be doing a work, originally a solo, inspired by my grandmother's with Alzheimer's disease: On the Tip of her Tongue. I created it last summer, and haven't done much with it yet. However, I am exploring adding another dancer to the work. I'm imagining this not so much as a duet as this second dancer adding imagistic support to the dance.

New work:

I'm still figuring out what this new work might be. I'm thinking of it as a dance in at least three sections, maybe like a triptych in that the different sections are related but not exactly focused on the same thing. What's really driving this choreography is the concept of "drift." What is the nature of a gradual evolution from one thing (movement/word/image) into another? When is the balance of this incremental change significant enough to change the meaning of the thing? When does it stop being the first thing and start being a new thing? What essence, or trace, of the original continues on? What traces are left behind?

I'm taking these questions into the whole creation process, as I'm revisiting old work, seeing how it's drifted, seeing what still remains, what seems to be its essence, even as it is created anew.

Finally, the last component of the production is an installation that I plan to create. This will be set up for the audience to walk through on their way into the theater. I envision the installation providing a tangible sense of the traces left behind in the process of making the concert. I have been collecting "traces" of my dancers' presence in rehearsal--disposable water bottles, granola bar wrappers, receipts, broken hair ties--that will make their way into the installation. I have also arranged for two photographers to document many of our rehearsals throughout the year; these traces--created, not collected--along with video recordings of rehearsals will also be a part of the project. I don't intend for this to be a display that explains the steps of the process, but more of an experiential component that the audience members can make sense of in their own ways. I also hope it will be meaningful for the dancers to witness the tangible evidence of their presence.

So, that's the plan. I have a fabulous cast that I'm thrilled to be working with. The whole cast is 17 dancers plus 2 photographers, and I'm honored to be working with these folks. I can't wait to see what we create.