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).