Forgot to mention....
My companion at the theatre was a young man from the festival who I met on the tram. His name is Yan (Jan?) from Estonia. He's 27. He, like many Europeans at this festival, are professional dancers or choreographers. They can sustain this identity and lifestyle in Europe. They make enough money to do this, and not hold 3 other jobs at the same time. They are suitably paid for whataw they do.
After the show, Jan sees a fellow Estonian artist and leaves to greet her. Her name is Evelyn and she is a writer. She writes about performances for an Estonian paper and is paid adequately for this, too. I share these details for one reason:
Jan and Evelyn focus on performance or writing, respectively. They do these specific things alone and are supported to do them so that they may do them expertly. They investigate their identities in these roles entirely. I find this a lot with European dancers I meet. They perform full time. This is a full activity and a full life, emotionally, artistically and financially. I guess the last time I was in Europe as a 19 year old I didn't quite get this difference between Europe and the states. Now I get it.
A met a woman named Lilly, who is from San Francisco, and she is moving to Berlin next month. Go, girl. She REALLY gets it.
I continue to marvel at the scene in these theatre spaces. The dance performances are THE place to be! The houses are always packed, the energy even in the lobby is tangible. I feel myself smiling like a little kid.
Must go to bed now, tra la.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Jérôme Bel and other stuff...
Well, tonight at 6pm marks my 10th consecutive (and the last) class in five days. I'm tired! Everyday between my two classes we've been running around trying to see a new museum or another area of town. Today we took a much needed break from being tourists. Yesterday's visit to the Leopold museum was enough to sustain us for a day I think. Oh the art there! Schiele, Klimt, Kokoschka, Muehl...these secessionists were intensely talented and just intense period. They didn't shy from using vibrant colors, even with so many haunting images. Schiele's naked self-portrait for instance, features the artist without feet and with red eyes and a red belly button. It's the kind of work that struck me as both inimitable and the kind of painting that even though I thought I was done looking at it, I kept going back to view it again and again, teetering between fascination and fear.
Evie was of course, most interested in her soccer ball, which we played with in the lobby, Jeffrey and I tag teaming with her. Tomorrow, we'll attempt to hit the Schonbrunn palace. I think I remember reading there is also a zoo there, so Evie will be happy.
So yes, a week of heavy dancing after very little dancing has yielded some noticeable changes in my body. Lifting Evie hurts. My feet are banged up. I have bruises on my shoulders from rolling. My legs feel like anvils. I'm trying to feel like "water" when I dance (as one of my teachers, Marta, keeps shouting at us in class) but I'm thinking I look more like a peanut butter sandwich. Perhaps the seven day break will do me good before I go at it again for a two day intensive workshop next weekend.
Being a student here is the best. Being a student PERIOD is the best. I found myself explaining to one of my new Austrian friends, Sabina, that I felt like a big empty container before this trip and that this week has slowly been filling me up again...with new information, new perspectives, new commitments and new promises to myself as an artist. For one, it's time to be serious with a daily movement meditation or practice. Why is it so hard to carve out even 30 minutes everyday for my body? I must insist on it and keep this experience close to me for a long time. I already know that I will leave here inspired, motivated, and hopeful, and after savoring this fullness a bit for myself, I'll be ready to spill it back out to my students in some sort of new, transformed, 'Christina' way. Ultimately, this workshop was well timed for me- I needed this more than I think I ever have needed a new learning environment. Dancing and living in Vienna for three weeks has filled my tank with gas. And then there is seeing work here...
Last night I went to see French choreographer Jérôme Bel's recent work. He collaborated with former Merce Cunningham and Lyon Opera Ballet dancer Cédric Andrieux to create a 75 minute solo, performed by Andrieux. I know what you're thinking: a 75 minute solo? Really? It was beautiful! Andreiux essentially just narrated his life in dance...from sharing his love of the hit TV show FAME when he was 9, to demonstrating the warm up in a Cunningham company class, to performing solos he has danced as an adult by Cunningham and Trisha Brown. He began by introducing himself and reciting his date and place of birth. He is 33, like me. What different lives we have led. At age 16, he entered a conservatory in France where the school's system constantly pitted him in competition against his peers. Grateful to graduate at the age of 20 and leave France for a job dancing in New York City with Jennifer Muller, Andrieux only mentions a fixation with a male dancer in Muller's company as a major factor to help persuade him to take this job. In his performance, we follow many of these seemingly important life details along the way but in Andrieux's performance, they are like insignificant signs one passes on a long road trip and then promptly forgets so as to not miss the valuable road sign we need next. But in these details that pass us by, I wonder what gems are missed. We're following his life's map, traveling from his past to the current moment, where he stands on stage, and he is always navigating. As his passengers, we follow him through vulnerably beautiful, sad, exciting, funny, and unpredictable moments. Yet throughout these different stretches, Andrieux is so matter of fact throughout the work. Despite the bumps and difficult moments that extend throughout his prolific career as a dance student and professional dancer, there are also many celebratory milestones that are shared mundanely. For instance, we learn that Andrieux takes an open class at the Cunningham studio soon after arriving in New York. Merce happens to be observing this class and personally invites Andrieux to an upcoming company audition. Andrieux describes the audition only as "lasting two weeks" and then immediately we are in the throngs of his seven year career with the company. Andrieux begins the work by remarking that he was never naturally talented as a dancer yet the awards he received in school and important jobs he received early in his career might invoke some commentary. However, Andrieux only shares with his audience that he remembers thinking that so many dance successes happened rather quickly for him. Significant milestones such as these are never commented on by Andrieux however. He presents a dance excerpt or a costume change with the same even-tempo delivery as the person who asked for my umbrella at the theatre's coat check. He never makes different inflections in his voice to suggest how he feels (or how we should feel, for that matter) about a significant event in his life.
Along the map of his dance-life journey, we stop at a rehearsal with the Merce Cunningham dance company. I was disappointed to not hear of some tribute to the recently passed Merce Cunningham, or some comments of his experience dancing for Cunningham. But for Andrieux, by taking us directly into the process of learning Merce's choreography generated from a computer program, we see that Andrieux is respectful of Cunningham, even if this reenactment shows Andrieux stumbling through Merce's nearly impossible physical requests. This rehearsal reenactment immediately brings Merce Cunningham back to life, and on stage with Andrieux. We follow their rehearsal together, a Merce Cunningham ghost, feeble bodied in his 80's and seated in the corner, asking Andrieux and his imaginary company members in the space to follow his concocted dance steps as though they are something we would read in a manual to connect a dvd player to a television monitor. This moment in the work is particularly powerful. I realize at once that I am both voyeur, giddy and delighted to be in on this rehearsal moment and yet it feels like a private and sacred event that actually becomes a beautiful and reverent tribute to Cunningham too.
As Andrieux transitions from a rehearsal moment like this one with his soft, almost-whisper like voice to the next place in this performance, he states: "I'm going to dance this for you now" and an excerpt of famous contemporary choreographer's work made for him takes place. Andrieux uses an attached microphone in the piece and as we watch him dance, we hear his breath amplified, or the microphone feedback from his arm swipe the cord attached to him. These moments are magnificent. The performance is not glorified, it is almost just an archive, a way for the body to remember these highlights, and for us to watch him relive them. We watch him dance and it is an opportunity to just observe a skilled dancer executing difficult movement. Certainly it is about Andrieux doing this movement but even more, his unassuming presence, dressed in rehearsal sweats pants, tee shirt and socks allow us to strip away the formalness of what this moment might have been at one point and instead admire the organization of these dances, the artfulness of their accumulated steps, the specificity of the dance's sequences. Ultimately, these dance excerpts allow us to focus on a choreographer's choices like we are using a microscope to see it. And more, we realize how special it is to see his interpretation of another person's choreography.
His pattern is consistent: he performs one beautiful series of movements by Trisha Brown, for instance, until it is finished. Now, after his dancing is complete do we really appreciate the hard work of it all. He takes as much time as he needs to catch his breath or drink some water. He walks upstage a bit, as if to shake off the remnants of this excerpt before he transitions back into storyteller mode. We wait for him to do these sort of things multiple times and it is never indulgent. He does not respond to the audience's applause. He does not add a joke, or a comment about his execution of anything. There is no lighting change to transition us, it is just him, reflecting on what just happened, and us, reflecting on his reflection. Where to next on his map? Andrieux is so even tempered and unassuming in his performance you begin to realize that even if there is a life altering event like a breakup, a death in the family, or an injury in the life of this dancer, it will not enter the performance with a big, dramatic entrance. It will simply pass by, like another road sign.
Bel and Andrieux's work made me think. Telling one's life story in performance, through performance is not a new performance theme by any means yet somehow, in the stripped down storytelling mode of this work, Andrieux's life is utterly human and poignant to anyone. Attending a dance class at Impulstanz the morning following the performance, I could not help but look around the studio crowded with dancers from all over the world and realize that each of us has unique dance stories, impressionable early dance teachers, humiliating moments at auditions or in performance; moments that translate into beautiful, vulnerable material. This collaboration was succesful first because of its simple, no-fail structure. Have a dancer tell his story with words and dance. It will be rich because it will reach all of our senses. We will watch, we will listen, we will viscerally experience it, we will empathize, we will crave certain moments, be jealous or relieved that we did not experience others, and we will leave the theatre in love with the dancing body and all it is capable of expressing. Thank you, Jerome Bel and Cédric Andrieux for reminding us of this.
Evie was of course, most interested in her soccer ball, which we played with in the lobby, Jeffrey and I tag teaming with her. Tomorrow, we'll attempt to hit the Schonbrunn palace. I think I remember reading there is also a zoo there, so Evie will be happy.
So yes, a week of heavy dancing after very little dancing has yielded some noticeable changes in my body. Lifting Evie hurts. My feet are banged up. I have bruises on my shoulders from rolling. My legs feel like anvils. I'm trying to feel like "water" when I dance (as one of my teachers, Marta, keeps shouting at us in class) but I'm thinking I look more like a peanut butter sandwich. Perhaps the seven day break will do me good before I go at it again for a two day intensive workshop next weekend.
Being a student here is the best. Being a student PERIOD is the best. I found myself explaining to one of my new Austrian friends, Sabina, that I felt like a big empty container before this trip and that this week has slowly been filling me up again...with new information, new perspectives, new commitments and new promises to myself as an artist. For one, it's time to be serious with a daily movement meditation or practice. Why is it so hard to carve out even 30 minutes everyday for my body? I must insist on it and keep this experience close to me for a long time. I already know that I will leave here inspired, motivated, and hopeful, and after savoring this fullness a bit for myself, I'll be ready to spill it back out to my students in some sort of new, transformed, 'Christina' way. Ultimately, this workshop was well timed for me- I needed this more than I think I ever have needed a new learning environment. Dancing and living in Vienna for three weeks has filled my tank with gas. And then there is seeing work here...
Last night I went to see French choreographer Jérôme Bel's recent work. He collaborated with former Merce Cunningham and Lyon Opera Ballet dancer Cédric Andrieux to create a 75 minute solo, performed by Andrieux. I know what you're thinking: a 75 minute solo? Really? It was beautiful! Andreiux essentially just narrated his life in dance...from sharing his love of the hit TV show FAME when he was 9, to demonstrating the warm up in a Cunningham company class, to performing solos he has danced as an adult by Cunningham and Trisha Brown. He began by introducing himself and reciting his date and place of birth. He is 33, like me. What different lives we have led. At age 16, he entered a conservatory in France where the school's system constantly pitted him in competition against his peers. Grateful to graduate at the age of 20 and leave France for a job dancing in New York City with Jennifer Muller, Andrieux only mentions a fixation with a male dancer in Muller's company as a major factor to help persuade him to take this job. In his performance, we follow many of these seemingly important life details along the way but in Andrieux's performance, they are like insignificant signs one passes on a long road trip and then promptly forgets so as to not miss the valuable road sign we need next. But in these details that pass us by, I wonder what gems are missed. We're following his life's map, traveling from his past to the current moment, where he stands on stage, and he is always navigating. As his passengers, we follow him through vulnerably beautiful, sad, exciting, funny, and unpredictable moments. Yet throughout these different stretches, Andrieux is so matter of fact throughout the work. Despite the bumps and difficult moments that extend throughout his prolific career as a dance student and professional dancer, there are also many celebratory milestones that are shared mundanely. For instance, we learn that Andrieux takes an open class at the Cunningham studio soon after arriving in New York. Merce happens to be observing this class and personally invites Andrieux to an upcoming company audition. Andrieux describes the audition only as "lasting two weeks" and then immediately we are in the throngs of his seven year career with the company. Andrieux begins the work by remarking that he was never naturally talented as a dancer yet the awards he received in school and important jobs he received early in his career might invoke some commentary. However, Andrieux only shares with his audience that he remembers thinking that so many dance successes happened rather quickly for him. Significant milestones such as these are never commented on by Andrieux however. He presents a dance excerpt or a costume change with the same even-tempo delivery as the person who asked for my umbrella at the theatre's coat check. He never makes different inflections in his voice to suggest how he feels (or how we should feel, for that matter) about a significant event in his life.
Along the map of his dance-life journey, we stop at a rehearsal with the Merce Cunningham dance company. I was disappointed to not hear of some tribute to the recently passed Merce Cunningham, or some comments of his experience dancing for Cunningham. But for Andrieux, by taking us directly into the process of learning Merce's choreography generated from a computer program, we see that Andrieux is respectful of Cunningham, even if this reenactment shows Andrieux stumbling through Merce's nearly impossible physical requests. This rehearsal reenactment immediately brings Merce Cunningham back to life, and on stage with Andrieux. We follow their rehearsal together, a Merce Cunningham ghost, feeble bodied in his 80's and seated in the corner, asking Andrieux and his imaginary company members in the space to follow his concocted dance steps as though they are something we would read in a manual to connect a dvd player to a television monitor. This moment in the work is particularly powerful. I realize at once that I am both voyeur, giddy and delighted to be in on this rehearsal moment and yet it feels like a private and sacred event that actually becomes a beautiful and reverent tribute to Cunningham too.
As Andrieux transitions from a rehearsal moment like this one with his soft, almost-whisper like voice to the next place in this performance, he states: "I'm going to dance this for you now" and an excerpt of famous contemporary choreographer's work made for him takes place. Andrieux uses an attached microphone in the piece and as we watch him dance, we hear his breath amplified, or the microphone feedback from his arm swipe the cord attached to him. These moments are magnificent. The performance is not glorified, it is almost just an archive, a way for the body to remember these highlights, and for us to watch him relive them. We watch him dance and it is an opportunity to just observe a skilled dancer executing difficult movement. Certainly it is about Andrieux doing this movement but even more, his unassuming presence, dressed in rehearsal sweats pants, tee shirt and socks allow us to strip away the formalness of what this moment might have been at one point and instead admire the organization of these dances, the artfulness of their accumulated steps, the specificity of the dance's sequences. Ultimately, these dance excerpts allow us to focus on a choreographer's choices like we are using a microscope to see it. And more, we realize how special it is to see his interpretation of another person's choreography.
His pattern is consistent: he performs one beautiful series of movements by Trisha Brown, for instance, until it is finished. Now, after his dancing is complete do we really appreciate the hard work of it all. He takes as much time as he needs to catch his breath or drink some water. He walks upstage a bit, as if to shake off the remnants of this excerpt before he transitions back into storyteller mode. We wait for him to do these sort of things multiple times and it is never indulgent. He does not respond to the audience's applause. He does not add a joke, or a comment about his execution of anything. There is no lighting change to transition us, it is just him, reflecting on what just happened, and us, reflecting on his reflection. Where to next on his map? Andrieux is so even tempered and unassuming in his performance you begin to realize that even if there is a life altering event like a breakup, a death in the family, or an injury in the life of this dancer, it will not enter the performance with a big, dramatic entrance. It will simply pass by, like another road sign.
Bel and Andrieux's work made me think. Telling one's life story in performance, through performance is not a new performance theme by any means yet somehow, in the stripped down storytelling mode of this work, Andrieux's life is utterly human and poignant to anyone. Attending a dance class at Impulstanz the morning following the performance, I could not help but look around the studio crowded with dancers from all over the world and realize that each of us has unique dance stories, impressionable early dance teachers, humiliating moments at auditions or in performance; moments that translate into beautiful, vulnerable material. This collaboration was succesful first because of its simple, no-fail structure. Have a dancer tell his story with words and dance. It will be rich because it will reach all of our senses. We will watch, we will listen, we will viscerally experience it, we will empathize, we will crave certain moments, be jealous or relieved that we did not experience others, and we will leave the theatre in love with the dancing body and all it is capable of expressing. Thank you, Jerome Bel and Cédric Andrieux for reminding us of this.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Questions for The Choreographer
I have much to blog about regarding the classes I'm taking: the organization and dissemination of a specific exercise, differing teaching styles, using recorded music in class vs. live music, how much deeper one can go in a two hour class vs. a 1 hr. 15 minute class and how do you still make it a full experience...
but first- some questions that buzz in my mind after taking technique classes that might be good companion questions for a student taking a release technique class at the same time they are taking a choreography class too:
1) make a series of movements that continually fall off the center axis of the body. Start vertical, fall off vertical but keep coming back to a long center axis, even if it remains off balance.
2) make a movement chain on the floor with one surface of the body always touching the floor. start and end on the ground.
3) create a series of winding up and then unwinding movements in a cohesive grouping of movement ideas.
More later.
but first- some questions that buzz in my mind after taking technique classes that might be good companion questions for a student taking a release technique class at the same time they are taking a choreography class too:
1) make a series of movements that continually fall off the center axis of the body. Start vertical, fall off vertical but keep coming back to a long center axis, even if it remains off balance.
2) make a movement chain on the floor with one surface of the body always touching the floor. start and end on the ground.
3) create a series of winding up and then unwinding movements in a cohesive grouping of movement ideas.
More later.
Day one.
Blogging
Blogging about Impulstanz (http://www.impulstanz.com/en/) has proven to be more difficult than I originally predicted. My daughter Evie’s week-long virus has not helped things; and living in a big city like Vienna has its challenges when you’re pushing a stroller and carrying diapers and everything else one needs for any sort of excursion with a one year old. I marvel at all the single parents in the world.
My husband Jeffrey, 14 month old daughter Evie, and I live in Winston-Salem, NC and we pretty much drive everywhere. The last week in Vienna reminded me of how much walking one does in a big city. For instance, we must walk 10 minutes to get to a tram that takes us downtown or I walk 15 minutes each way to Impulstanz classes. It’s wonsderfsul not having our car(s)! I also love operating without cell phones and all of the gear accumulates in our house-- different types of strollers, carriers, shoes, blah blah blah. Ah, to live a bit more minimally! One thing I’ve learned on this trip is that it’s good to alter your routine in a drastic way. It’s important to do this regularly and I need to remember that I don’t need to travel to Europe just to upturn the norm. Must walk or bike instead of always taking the car. Must accumulate less. Must travel more.
Vienna has inspired me on so many levels! To start off my blog (which is really a dance-themed blog) I must first begin with some things I've noticed about this glorious city the past week. Dance making and dancing, in general, requires paying attention to your environment, after all...
1. This city is old and beautiful. Its architecture is ornate and incredibly jaw dropping. The Austrians did not hold back on making a bold statement about their city’s grandeur and power; this is reflected in the old apartment buildings as much as it is in St. Stephens cathedral.
2. People here are out with their families, in the thick of it all. They push their kids in strollers everywhere and I never hear another child crying. If a baby is crying, it's usually Evie... In general, The Austrian's are happy.
3. Healthcare. Evie needed pediatric care twice because of a high fever that persisted for over 5 days. Following the fever, she had a rash all over her body for two days. All of this sucked. (And from this point forward, we will refer to the those seven days as the "lost days"). We visited a children’s hospital (St. Anna's kinderhspital) twice. Both times, the cab getting there and back to the apartment cost as much as the visit itself. Evie had a blood sample analyzed on the premises (no off-site lab) and 15 minutes later, it was determined she had a virus. We were given a prescription for some nose drops. This cost 3 euro at the local drugstore (about $4.50). We did not have international insurance. This was the out of pocket fee! In the hospital waiting room, we never waited more than 15 minutes for a doctor, and both doctors we met with spoke nearly perfect English. What are we waiting for, America? (To quote my friend David Ford's motto for change)...
4. Very few people here are obese. Very few people are homeless. I have spotted only two destitute homeless men since arriving. Both held a Gosser (local beer) in their hands and although they were both very unclean and ragged, they did not ever feel threatening. They also were not asking for money.
5. This city is immaculate. There is no garbage. Anywhere. It is also a very green city. The Viennese recycle paper, plastic, glass and aluminum, and there are clearly marked bins throughout the city to dispose of these. ALL Viennese bring shopping bags to the grocery store. (We shop at a BILLA store two blocks away, or at the famed outdoor Nascht Markt). There is no “paper or plastic?” question at the checkout counter. There is also never an individual buying a ridiculous amount of anything or multiple things in general. Grocery shopping is a civilized affair. One buys enough to eat for a day or two and then returns when this process needs to be repeated. I wonder what they would make of our obsession with Costco…
Oh, and mayonnaise here comes in a tube, like toothpaste. How smart! No need for the jar and knife and messy hand...
6. The city transit system is phenomenal. It is rare to wait more than 5 minutes for the trams (above ground rails). Also, the transit system works on an honor system. No one is there inspecting your ticket or waiting for you to pay. A week long unlimited pass is 14 euro. This is our preferable way to go. If you use it only once a day roundtrip you’ve gotten your money’s worth. Certainly, Vienna is a walking city so if one prefers that, cool. But most locals seem to prefer the bike. Every main street has a dedicated bike crossing lane with stop and go lights. Bikers and pedestrians carefully intermingle with cars, and there is always a mutual respect in the world of traffic.
7. Vienna is a multigenerational city. Old and young mingle alike.
8. Vienna is a multicultural city and Vienna is an international destination. Americans are far from the primary tourist population. I see and hear Greeks, Turks, Arabs, Africans, and Asian people everywhere and they are holding up the same Vienna city maps that Jeffrey or I hold. It’s nice to spend some time in a foreign place and not glaringly be an outsider, or glaringly be the token American tourist. One striking detail: I see many women wearing burkas here andcarrying Louie Vuitton bags. These women, who, from my ethnocentric position I would assume are unhappy, look quite content to me actually...
9. Vienna can be hot hot hot in July one day, and then rainy and cold for several days following that. I did not bring enough warm clothing.
10. Austrians do not scoff at you when you reply in English. Many speak English. Even the cab drivers are nice and do not try to take advantage of you.
11. Art and performance is not a happy side dish in Vienna. It is the main course. The museum quarter is the heartbeat of the city. Surrounding all of the stately buildings in the MQ, there are multiple museums, with multiple theatres nearby. Surrounding the theatres are open air restaurants where people wait either to enter one of these sacred spaces or talk about them after the fact with friends over a beer or a coffee. Music, dance, opera, and theatre posters are everywhere. Impulstanz posters cover public transportation spots. Everyone knows about this festival.
With this, I begin by presenting a little bit of the scene at Impulstanz. Simply put, it is international, international, international.
I began here with a two day workshop in improvisation/writing/composition with Vienna based artist Sabina Holzer. The workshop participants were from the following countries: Austria, Romania, Holland, England, France, Japan, Egypt and oh yeah, me from the US. What a gift to be around dancers from all over the world and hear about their backgrounds. All of these people spoke English in addition to their home language too. (Incidentally, the workshop teachers all speak English in class and if a student doesn’t understand, they usually can muster something recognizable in that person’s language. This makes me think how important it is to be bilingual. This also makes me realize I must practice my Greek and Spanish somehow! But I’m getting distracted. Back to Sabina’s workshop later…I’d like to instead talk about the 5 day release technique class I’m taking this week with Marta Coronado.
Marta Coronado’s release technique class moves at a slow but steady pace. She takes care to explain herself and her exercises with great precision and wonderful accompanied imagery. She is so enthusiastic. She speaks about her movement the same way she demonstrates it: passionately. After the first day of her class, I recall thinking: she is so clear, and English is not even her first language. The first day of class began with two reminders. This week is about having fun and dancing with less effort than usual. For release work, “less is more” is often an underlying concept but teachers often cannot articulate what they mean by this. Coronado does. We repeat the same exercises many times, getting faster as we go. There are never counts, they are not needed. We move together as a group, guided by moments to "go!" and execute a specific action, usually the beginning of a new chain of movements. Coronado accumulates much of the same material which is a gift. By repeating a set warm up for instance, the body can ease into the floor work with more elasticity, breath, and confidence each time. For me, I notice that I just seem to be getting longer, better stacked and aligned, my joints feel more gooey, and my presence is much more focused with each repetition. In essence, it DOES take less effort with each pass at an exercise. My body remembers the material so my mind can focus less on the sequence and pay attention to the natural pathways, directions, and initiations that naturally follow in the body and in her exercise. Class becomes profoundly intuitive, actually. I love this! This is the mark of an exceptional teacher...a post-class "high" is always a gift in any circumstance and with Coronado, I have it consistently, regardless of what state of mind or body I was in before class began. I want to give that kind of class to my students! Marta is a former Rosas dance member and regularly teaches their repertory. Her knowledge is vast. She is sparkly, incredibly energetic and yet very even with her teaching style. She is always in control of this huge morning class and her voice never gets frenzied or nervous. It’s funny how I notice these kinds of things- perhaps setbacks in my teaching style? After 2 days in her class I’m also amazed at Marta’ ability to share only 3 exercises, essentially, in a 2 hour class period and yet it is so full. So far, the class structure is the following:
1) She essentially begins with her long extended floor exercise (which she adds small changes to each morning). By the end of the week, we'll know it all. This begins with a really generous body scanning activity, which we do standing. It moves into the floor at a super slow place; pausing along the way to stretch or just breathe at key places. This exercise is then repeated 3-4 more times with speed increasing incrementally twice, and a handful of leg swings being eliminated along the way. As a result, you execute a really full floor phrase more than just a “warm up exercise.” It is dynamic in speed, effort, tempo, direction changes, and momentum. It begins standing and continues with many seated, rolling, roaming, tipping, body/floor massaging, flying, compacting and releasing, rolling, and circular journey places along the way. There is much weaving, swinging, spreading and suspending and yet little muscular effort. I hope I remember it entirely and can make it part of a movement ritual for myself. I also hope I can use it as a base and model something similar for my next technique class. What can I borrow from here and change to include in my class?
2) The second exercise is a fuller-moving standing exercise. It is more full bodied, more multi-faceted in the space it covers vertically and more for the legs and feet and how they connect to the spine. Monday’s exercise was a release in the trocanter sort of aim; with direction changing weight shifts in the feet that follow an undercurve and over curve quality. Tuesday’s was an arm swiping, figure eight swinging, coming in and out of the floor thing…familiar terrain yet still new for me! So anyways, these get repeated multiple times, with direction changes, and often with a partner to guide the initiation of something on another person’s body.
3) The phrase. It is short but complex and detailed and she takes the time to review all of the precise moments that the phrase demands. It can always be clearer. She also frequently breaks moment by moment down so that groups are facing in different directions, and are forced to see one another.
4) There are some frequent reminders about connections in the body that she repeats often:
Heel/ sitz bones
Pinky carving/side of foot carving in spirals
5) She also is a fan of retrograding material and working with the diagonals in the body in her full phrase material. So for instance, as the leg reaches across the body, the arms go in the opposite direction. This yields an opportunity for momentum of something else. As a result this momentum comes naturally, it is not forced. Her release class is economical. Big movement happens because the body is placed effectively to make it happen. It is not forced or willed, it just happens because all of the body's ducks are in a row.
6) Marta frequently talks about students elaborating movement for no good reason. Elaborating an action's functional reality is a choreographic choice but not what she wants nor is it at the core of the technique she is sharing. The pathway of the arm, for instance goes up and then down, it doesn’t flourish beyond that. I see dancers take this correction and others continue to do it "their way". Habits die hard. I may be an older dancer in this group of young people but I know this correction by now and that feels good.
More later.
Blogging about Impulstanz (http://www.impulstanz.com/en/) has proven to be more difficult than I originally predicted. My daughter Evie’s week-long virus has not helped things; and living in a big city like Vienna has its challenges when you’re pushing a stroller and carrying diapers and everything else one needs for any sort of excursion with a one year old. I marvel at all the single parents in the world.
My husband Jeffrey, 14 month old daughter Evie, and I live in Winston-Salem, NC and we pretty much drive everywhere. The last week in Vienna reminded me of how much walking one does in a big city. For instance, we must walk 10 minutes to get to a tram that takes us downtown or I walk 15 minutes each way to Impulstanz classes. It’s wonsderfsul not having our car(s)! I also love operating without cell phones and all of the gear accumulates in our house-- different types of strollers, carriers, shoes, blah blah blah. Ah, to live a bit more minimally! One thing I’ve learned on this trip is that it’s good to alter your routine in a drastic way. It’s important to do this regularly and I need to remember that I don’t need to travel to Europe just to upturn the norm. Must walk or bike instead of always taking the car. Must accumulate less. Must travel more.
Vienna has inspired me on so many levels! To start off my blog (which is really a dance-themed blog) I must first begin with some things I've noticed about this glorious city the past week. Dance making and dancing, in general, requires paying attention to your environment, after all...
1. This city is old and beautiful. Its architecture is ornate and incredibly jaw dropping. The Austrians did not hold back on making a bold statement about their city’s grandeur and power; this is reflected in the old apartment buildings as much as it is in St. Stephens cathedral.
2. People here are out with their families, in the thick of it all. They push their kids in strollers everywhere and I never hear another child crying. If a baby is crying, it's usually Evie... In general, The Austrian's are happy.
3. Healthcare. Evie needed pediatric care twice because of a high fever that persisted for over 5 days. Following the fever, she had a rash all over her body for two days. All of this sucked. (And from this point forward, we will refer to the those seven days as the "lost days"). We visited a children’s hospital (St. Anna's kinderhspital) twice. Both times, the cab getting there and back to the apartment cost as much as the visit itself. Evie had a blood sample analyzed on the premises (no off-site lab) and 15 minutes later, it was determined she had a virus. We were given a prescription for some nose drops. This cost 3 euro at the local drugstore (about $4.50). We did not have international insurance. This was the out of pocket fee! In the hospital waiting room, we never waited more than 15 minutes for a doctor, and both doctors we met with spoke nearly perfect English. What are we waiting for, America? (To quote my friend David Ford's motto for change)...
4. Very few people here are obese. Very few people are homeless. I have spotted only two destitute homeless men since arriving. Both held a Gosser (local beer) in their hands and although they were both very unclean and ragged, they did not ever feel threatening. They also were not asking for money.
5. This city is immaculate. There is no garbage. Anywhere. It is also a very green city. The Viennese recycle paper, plastic, glass and aluminum, and there are clearly marked bins throughout the city to dispose of these. ALL Viennese bring shopping bags to the grocery store. (We shop at a BILLA store two blocks away, or at the famed outdoor Nascht Markt). There is no “paper or plastic?” question at the checkout counter. There is also never an individual buying a ridiculous amount of anything or multiple things in general. Grocery shopping is a civilized affair. One buys enough to eat for a day or two and then returns when this process needs to be repeated. I wonder what they would make of our obsession with Costco…
Oh, and mayonnaise here comes in a tube, like toothpaste. How smart! No need for the jar and knife and messy hand...
6. The city transit system is phenomenal. It is rare to wait more than 5 minutes for the trams (above ground rails). Also, the transit system works on an honor system. No one is there inspecting your ticket or waiting for you to pay. A week long unlimited pass is 14 euro. This is our preferable way to go. If you use it only once a day roundtrip you’ve gotten your money’s worth. Certainly, Vienna is a walking city so if one prefers that, cool. But most locals seem to prefer the bike. Every main street has a dedicated bike crossing lane with stop and go lights. Bikers and pedestrians carefully intermingle with cars, and there is always a mutual respect in the world of traffic.
7. Vienna is a multigenerational city. Old and young mingle alike.
8. Vienna is a multicultural city and Vienna is an international destination. Americans are far from the primary tourist population. I see and hear Greeks, Turks, Arabs, Africans, and Asian people everywhere and they are holding up the same Vienna city maps that Jeffrey or I hold. It’s nice to spend some time in a foreign place and not glaringly be an outsider, or glaringly be the token American tourist. One striking detail: I see many women wearing burkas here andcarrying Louie Vuitton bags. These women, who, from my ethnocentric position I would assume are unhappy, look quite content to me actually...
9. Vienna can be hot hot hot in July one day, and then rainy and cold for several days following that. I did not bring enough warm clothing.
10. Austrians do not scoff at you when you reply in English. Many speak English. Even the cab drivers are nice and do not try to take advantage of you.
11. Art and performance is not a happy side dish in Vienna. It is the main course. The museum quarter is the heartbeat of the city. Surrounding all of the stately buildings in the MQ, there are multiple museums, with multiple theatres nearby. Surrounding the theatres are open air restaurants where people wait either to enter one of these sacred spaces or talk about them after the fact with friends over a beer or a coffee. Music, dance, opera, and theatre posters are everywhere. Impulstanz posters cover public transportation spots. Everyone knows about this festival.
With this, I begin by presenting a little bit of the scene at Impulstanz. Simply put, it is international, international, international.
I began here with a two day workshop in improvisation/writing/composition with Vienna based artist Sabina Holzer. The workshop participants were from the following countries: Austria, Romania, Holland, England, France, Japan, Egypt and oh yeah, me from the US. What a gift to be around dancers from all over the world and hear about their backgrounds. All of these people spoke English in addition to their home language too. (Incidentally, the workshop teachers all speak English in class and if a student doesn’t understand, they usually can muster something recognizable in that person’s language. This makes me think how important it is to be bilingual. This also makes me realize I must practice my Greek and Spanish somehow! But I’m getting distracted. Back to Sabina’s workshop later…I’d like to instead talk about the 5 day release technique class I’m taking this week with Marta Coronado.
Marta Coronado’s release technique class moves at a slow but steady pace. She takes care to explain herself and her exercises with great precision and wonderful accompanied imagery. She is so enthusiastic. She speaks about her movement the same way she demonstrates it: passionately. After the first day of her class, I recall thinking: she is so clear, and English is not even her first language. The first day of class began with two reminders. This week is about having fun and dancing with less effort than usual. For release work, “less is more” is often an underlying concept but teachers often cannot articulate what they mean by this. Coronado does. We repeat the same exercises many times, getting faster as we go. There are never counts, they are not needed. We move together as a group, guided by moments to "go!" and execute a specific action, usually the beginning of a new chain of movements. Coronado accumulates much of the same material which is a gift. By repeating a set warm up for instance, the body can ease into the floor work with more elasticity, breath, and confidence each time. For me, I notice that I just seem to be getting longer, better stacked and aligned, my joints feel more gooey, and my presence is much more focused with each repetition. In essence, it DOES take less effort with each pass at an exercise. My body remembers the material so my mind can focus less on the sequence and pay attention to the natural pathways, directions, and initiations that naturally follow in the body and in her exercise. Class becomes profoundly intuitive, actually. I love this! This is the mark of an exceptional teacher...a post-class "high" is always a gift in any circumstance and with Coronado, I have it consistently, regardless of what state of mind or body I was in before class began. I want to give that kind of class to my students! Marta is a former Rosas dance member and regularly teaches their repertory. Her knowledge is vast. She is sparkly, incredibly energetic and yet very even with her teaching style. She is always in control of this huge morning class and her voice never gets frenzied or nervous. It’s funny how I notice these kinds of things- perhaps setbacks in my teaching style? After 2 days in her class I’m also amazed at Marta’ ability to share only 3 exercises, essentially, in a 2 hour class period and yet it is so full. So far, the class structure is the following:
1) She essentially begins with her long extended floor exercise (which she adds small changes to each morning). By the end of the week, we'll know it all. This begins with a really generous body scanning activity, which we do standing. It moves into the floor at a super slow place; pausing along the way to stretch or just breathe at key places. This exercise is then repeated 3-4 more times with speed increasing incrementally twice, and a handful of leg swings being eliminated along the way. As a result, you execute a really full floor phrase more than just a “warm up exercise.” It is dynamic in speed, effort, tempo, direction changes, and momentum. It begins standing and continues with many seated, rolling, roaming, tipping, body/floor massaging, flying, compacting and releasing, rolling, and circular journey places along the way. There is much weaving, swinging, spreading and suspending and yet little muscular effort. I hope I remember it entirely and can make it part of a movement ritual for myself. I also hope I can use it as a base and model something similar for my next technique class. What can I borrow from here and change to include in my class?
2) The second exercise is a fuller-moving standing exercise. It is more full bodied, more multi-faceted in the space it covers vertically and more for the legs and feet and how they connect to the spine. Monday’s exercise was a release in the trocanter sort of aim; with direction changing weight shifts in the feet that follow an undercurve and over curve quality. Tuesday’s was an arm swiping, figure eight swinging, coming in and out of the floor thing…familiar terrain yet still new for me! So anyways, these get repeated multiple times, with direction changes, and often with a partner to guide the initiation of something on another person’s body.
3) The phrase. It is short but complex and detailed and she takes the time to review all of the precise moments that the phrase demands. It can always be clearer. She also frequently breaks moment by moment down so that groups are facing in different directions, and are forced to see one another.
4) There are some frequent reminders about connections in the body that she repeats often:
Heel/ sitz bones
Pinky carving/side of foot carving in spirals
5) She also is a fan of retrograding material and working with the diagonals in the body in her full phrase material. So for instance, as the leg reaches across the body, the arms go in the opposite direction. This yields an opportunity for momentum of something else. As a result this momentum comes naturally, it is not forced. Her release class is economical. Big movement happens because the body is placed effectively to make it happen. It is not forced or willed, it just happens because all of the body's ducks are in a row.
6) Marta frequently talks about students elaborating movement for no good reason. Elaborating an action's functional reality is a choreographic choice but not what she wants nor is it at the core of the technique she is sharing. The pathway of the arm, for instance goes up and then down, it doesn’t flourish beyond that. I see dancers take this correction and others continue to do it "their way". Habits die hard. I may be an older dancer in this group of young people but I know this correction by now and that feels good.
More later.
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