So here I am, weeks since my last blog post. So much for daily writing.
Where do I start after I so blatantly failed on the "dailiness" part?
Do I give excuses? Skip that and instead go right into what I've been doing? (Isn't that essentially one and the same?)
Or just start from here...right now... on Thursday afternoon, August 26 at 2:30pm and see what happens, realizing that it will likely be a combination of all of the above:
excuse-giving, recapping, and some other current, up to date ideas. (with some email-checking happening simultaneously, of course). Damn that email. It only means more work if I open it. But I can't resist the new messages!
Since leaving Vienna, Jeffrey, Evie and I flew to Boston, MA on August 9th where we were joyfully met by parents. What a homecoming and reunion. So lovely to see my folks and spend a restful week at the beach. Evie loved the ocean and the sand and everything the beach offers a toddler: sandcastles, sand in her hair, sand in her diaper, sand in her mouth...seagulls, chasing seagulls, feeding seagulls, shells, collecting them, throwing them, eating them. I love visiting the cape, and hope that life is filled with many summers where I can bring Evie there.
There was one attempt on my part to go to the Centerville public library and get on line to blog since my parents don't have a wireless connection at the house. My laptop settings were not jiving with the library though and so it was a futile attempt. But then it occurred to me. The cape was a vacation, and taking a vacation means taking time away from what we do normally. So writing about dance questions everyday, which I deem a normal activity, deserves a break when one is on vacation.
So now we are back, Evie is settling into a daycare routine, the cats have been de-flead of their fleas, the clothes have been returned into the closet that was re-designed when we were away, laundry and emails are more or less caught up, and the week long residency at UNCG with a great group of 12 grad students finishes on Friday. So its time to dive in...
Some thoughts on making a dance fast:
Making a dance in one week is challenging, certainly, but it also has some great merits:
1) decisions must be made quickly, and so you get better and eliminating something sooner in the process when it just doesn't fit. Rip the bandaid off. There is no time to coddle a section that might just need a swift kick out of your dance.
2) You are immersed in it day after day, so even though the amount of days is only 6 consecutively, you know exactly where you are, what material you have, what you need to do next. Even if you run out of time one day, there isn't a long wait until the next rehearsal. But even if you don't know exactly where you are or what material you have you don't have time to second guess yourself, so you have to remain confident, certain, and make decisions.
3) If your process includes dancers contributing their own material (which I can't imagine I would ever EXCLUDE from my process) well then, this material that is contributed is what you have to work with. There is certainly editing you can do within
it all but bottom line- your ingredients are your ingredients. This is somewhat terrifying yet also it is rather calming too. You can't bake a cake if you only have ground beef. With ground beef you know you're making a few things: you're making hamburgers. Or maybe tacos. Or maybe meatballs, but you'll also need breadcrumbs for that. Does that make any sense? I always seem to make analogies to food...
Some less meritorious details:
1) The dance cannot marinate. (food, again).
2) Do you really know what is good or bad/ right or wrong/ appropriate or unfitting for this dance in such a short time?
3) You've only begun. Then it's time to scatter.
4) You prioritize. Things like "cleaning phrase material" go away because you are still figuring out what music you should use.
5) A really important detail like what music you should use should not be saved until the end of a rehearsal period.
Fortunately for me, this dance will have 6-7 more rehearsals, for 90 minutes each. On Friday evenings at 5pm. Starting one week from Friday, Sept. 10.
I guess I wonder though- what will I do in that amount of time that will make it strikingly stronger than it is now?
Things I'm thinking about:
1) what the hell am I doing with music?
2) do we need a microphone?
3) how do these parts gel?
4) how do people speak about what they love in this dance?
5) how does the language of what we love in the dance stand against the other text parts that are less clear, less about love, and more just there because they developed in rehearsal?
6) what goes away?
7) what still needs to be there?
8) how do I incorporate these other theatrical parts I've been thinking about -
like the props in the wheelbarrow? (that word looks misspelled no matter how many times I look at it).
9) does the manifesto stay as it is?
10) (and this one is my favorite- thanks to my friend Larry who put it out there for me to consider):
if a dance is going to set out a promise at the beginning of itself, does it have to fulfill its promise? is that even possible?
more on this.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Working with words
Written notes, on a small piece of paper, that hold little statements of 'niceties'.
That's what we've worked with as a thread in our work with Lisa.
I find this particularly connected to what I'm doing with the grads next week.
How do we work with these statements?
Rather than just speaking them, we could "dance their rhythmic qualities" in material we create. This removes the literalness, or at least that is the hope.
Lisa is having us work with these little niceties in many ways:
they are on pieces of paper, handed back and forth to one another in a very informal way, they are in a pile, and recited after being picked at random, they are read privately and not recited...
OK, so what from here bears repeating/borrowing/stealing/morphing/thwarting?
Back for one more class with her and then tomorrow, we leave Vienna!
That's what we've worked with as a thread in our work with Lisa.
I find this particularly connected to what I'm doing with the grads next week.
How do we work with these statements?
Rather than just speaking them, we could "dance their rhythmic qualities" in material we create. This removes the literalness, or at least that is the hope.
Lisa is having us work with these little niceties in many ways:
they are on pieces of paper, handed back and forth to one another in a very informal way, they are in a pile, and recited after being picked at random, they are read privately and not recited...
OK, so what from here bears repeating/borrowing/stealing/morphing/thwarting?
Back for one more class with her and then tomorrow, we leave Vienna!
Saturday, August 7, 2010
the time, in fact, forces the devices
So after two sessions today with Lisa Race at Impulstanz, I see that there are curveballs thrown your way that you often have to deal with but forget about: like the fact that people may have to leave rehearsal to catch a train to another country. So how do you deal? These details affect the structure of a dance considerably. So does the level of people learning material in a group. When Lisa taught some new material to folks, it was really slow moving. So your time is gobbled to some extent this way. Or your plan to work with set phrase material needs to be altered in the work if it isn't in people's bodies.
This was good to see - how do you make fast decisions.
I also noted that the devices are around and it seems they need to be around when you work quickly like this and need to finish with a product.
So how do you come really uber-prepared, is the question but still make this a work that is shared in its give/take in the rehearsal process?
I also thought it was great Lisa had one of her recently graduated students there, shadowing, making decisions even. Makes me want to follow up with this more with Jen H. at UNCG. There are some good details with the short residency: an assistant can be present- who helps you AND gets to see this process from a new perspective and contribute to it, too.
This was good to see - how do you make fast decisions.
I also noted that the devices are around and it seems they need to be around when you work quickly like this and need to finish with a product.
So how do you come really uber-prepared, is the question but still make this a work that is shared in its give/take in the rehearsal process?
I also thought it was great Lisa had one of her recently graduated students there, shadowing, making decisions even. Makes me want to follow up with this more with Jen H. at UNCG. There are some good details with the short residency: an assistant can be present- who helps you AND gets to see this process from a new perspective and contribute to it, too.
So if I miss a day of blogging do I double up the next day???
It seems like the natural answer to this question is yes- it's so easy to punish yourself and be hard on yourself when you commit to doing something a certain way and you falter somewhere in there. It's like the military image of a lieutenant commanding his inferiors to drop and give him twenty (push-ups) as a punishment. I missed yesterday's writing so I will write twice today- ok, fine! But I don't want to make that the standard rule. If a day is missed, a day is missed. Bummer. life goes on and imperfection comes with the territory. So I'll just move on (I'll keep moving!) and write something interesting the next day. Or at least that's the goal. I might just have to do some push-ups too.
I'm working today with Lisa Race in a two day intensive called "Making a Dance Fast"- 10 hours essentially of making a dance, crammed into two days. This is especially intriguing to me as I approach the one-week long residency at UNCG- one week to make a dance for 12. I've always only made a new dance with my students in the semester long time frame. Twice a week, 2 hours or so each time. So figure 4-5 hours a week, for around 8 weeks -30-35 hours or so? In doing the math here, it seems like this whole dance-making thing can become a bit formulaic. I work in these parameters and the following results: a ten - twelve minute dance (my usual dance length), made for a college dance concert, generally attended by friends and parents of the performers, and my colleagues and friends who are good enough to attend (or obliged to attend). This dance will be one of 8 or so in a concert, nothing really threading these dances together other than a lighting change, costume change, and cast change. Oh, and some applause. The dance will feature anywhere from 4-12 students (my usual cast size).
It will be so good to be inside someone else's choreographic process, albeit a very condensed one like this. Working with different time limitations in a rehearsal process can do wonders to stir the pot of how you work, I think. For me, the same time frame has probably been a huge reason or crutch that has kept my dances looking pretty similar. I never thought about that but it seems inevitable, doesn't it? When you work within a certain time frame consistently, your body gets in a rhythm- it knows what and how to operate and thus, the product is probably pretty predictable.
So let me think about what my rehearsal processes have been like w/ my students at WFU.
The process is usually something like this:
I start with movement ideas...noodling about in the studio for a while renders some phrase material. This phrase material may have began with a certain image or idea that I am working with, or maybe it's just movement accumulating itself, for the joy alone of stringing movement moments together, and somewhere in that accumulation do I realize that the movement seems to have an "aboutness". Ah, I keep falling and coming back to my vertical. Ah, this seems to be about anxiousness. Or so it goes. Then as I keep accumulating do I keep exploring more of those ideas, or challenging them, or a bit of both. Music may or may not accompany me in this noodling stage. If music is around, it is almost never the music I will use in the piece. This material comes to the audition. I present it to the students to see "who gets it". I cast my dance. This is an artful negotiation, because 7 other choreographers are auditioning the same cadre of students. So I have a cast and we meet the following week.
I usually start without music when its time to make a new dance. I have always sort of worked this way because I think I've feared that I would become really complacent with the music, or get really bored with it, or both, and the movement would also, as a result, feel bored next to the movement. I think this stems from a couple of things. First, I don't have a music background, so my experience working with the music in rehearsal can only be so deep. Second, I have had adhered to this school of thought from readings, and the words of so many teachers along the way: working with set music first = becoming something you are enslaved to. In other words, you end up just sort of spitting out a movement score of what the music already does. A cheap and unoriginal replica. The audience isn't stupid- it can "read" the music without a visual accompaniment to translate. I don't want to do this, for heavens sake. So by avoiding music until later in the process, I've felt safer (in my mind) of these pitfalls. But if I think about this more now, it seems pretty escapist on my part. I think I am being sophisticated by not working with music until later, and I keep working away with the movement stuff, shaping something just with physical intuition to guide me. The absence of music is always there though, lurking in the rehearsal process, tapping me on the shoulder saying "uh, how much longer will you ignore me?" This is a habit, just like movement invention for me can be habitual and an unoriginal replica of something else too. In addition to the ignoring the music thing, it probably deters from my movement invention possibilites as a result too, not to mention it deters from the possibilities of what I can do with my dancers, too. I'm distracted because a really big chunk of this dance is missing! So now, without music, its sort of like proceeding with a blindfold on. There are so many possibilities for me to shape in the dance and the absence of music is like a dance without a map. So I just keep noodling. Wow, I never thought about it this way before. What am I saying here?
Well, there have been a few cases where I did start with music, as was the case with Schubert's Winterreise. But it is not the standard for how I work.
Back to process:
I come to the first rehearsal with movement phrases we saw at the audition. We repeat these and for no other reason than "this is the first set of ingredients I have", these movement ideas become a base. The next subsequent rehearsals become the following: more noodling (so the creation of new material), and then manipulation of the earlier phrases with these newer phrases. Dancers contribute material in there too, certainly. I usually pair them up, give them a movement problem, and they solve it in various suitable ways. In there, I serve as the editor of their problem solving, tweaking moments by asking them to repeat something, slow something down or speed it up, eliminate something else, or turn it somehow into...a trio, a solo, a more physical version of itself, a version that involves more contact, etc. Essentially, these ideas are textbook for me and everyone else - they are part of the formula that I have followed. Many of these ideas emerge from what I think the movement ideas need to feel more complete, other things come from impressions I have held onto from others' work that I have been a part of. I edit, and then hope material is remembered. I rarely, if ever, videotape. Some of this is laziness, some of this is simply "is it really that good that if it is lost, it will be a tragedy?" This editing process is something that I know my students, when they rehearse their own material, work with too. These ideas or some similar version of them are transparent and then appear in their work. So it goes. On and on. When I have something new in this rigmarole, I work with it, and they'll apply some watered down version or interpretation of it somewhere in one of their dances too. Original ideas are hard to come by.
So yeah, essentially, if the above description is stage two of the dance process (the editing) and stage one was the initial creation of material to be edited, then stage three is the putting it all together: the music comes in, the dance finds itself organized into a 10-12 minute package: a series of phrases with transitions essentially. The dance is subdivided into sections that the cast and I have labeled certain things along the way: "mother wind" for instance, was a section in my dance "Postponing Descent". I think I like the title for this section more than I like whatever the movement looked like in this section. But I digress. Back to the formulaic dance. It has sections, they have been edited, transitions come last, music is added, music is often edited, the relationship of all parts together is investigated and determined, costumes get finalized (we always have beautiful costumes, thank you Lisa Weller) and then we are in tech week. Now the dance gets its legs, so to speak, and it becomes a familiarized and comfortable thing for the dancers more and more. It is essentially their dance now, not mine. I sit and watch and find moments that are interesting that I didn't notice before for a long week in the theatre. The dance has its own powerful way of doing that- having moments- split second ones often- that are better than its creator is responsible for. These moments are few, but I love them. Then the moments that I, the creator, did spend some serious time thinking about, crafting, organizing and categorizing in a time frame, with thought given to the tempo and moments that preceded and post-ceded them, seem less interesting to me when the whole package is up there. But I'm fairly certain I'm the toughest critic when it comes to the stuff of those moments. I also sit and take copius final notes: someone's arm pathway was different and distracting, someone was late on an entrance, the section called.... was really tight tonight. The dance happens 4x - one long weekend- and then its over. We have a good video documentation of it, and I promptly never watch this. I'm not sure I've made a dance I really want to study again. I do think I keep making dances that get clearer and more interesting each time. The next dance is a slightly better version of the one that preceded it. But in terms of why, or what it is that makes them slightly better, I am unsure. I do know that I am hopeful and excited over and over again with the beginning stages of each new dance. I get giddy and passionate and delighted that I am making something new. Then I get lost, wonder what the hell I'm doing, wonder why these people keep coming to rehearsal and trusting me. Then something gels, and I feel confident that yes, this dance will be complete and will be punctual. Then I sweat it out, dream and think about the dance and its potential incessantly. Then I share frustrations with the cast, and ask them to help me figure things out. They always do. They love helping, as well they should. They have big investments in this! Then we have a throw away rehearsal some where in there because it is important to not always take this so seriously. Or maybe because I'm tired, spent, creatively depleted, or all of the above. Or maybe they are. So we eat candy and talk about whatever, usually. These rehearsals, I am convinced, help shape the piece, yet I cannot say for sure HOW exactly. Then we have rehearsals where we run the hell out of these dances and I keep changing things. They oblige, every time. Then there are rehearsals where dancers make suggestions to be more efficient. They, in the doing of this dance, know where the dance needs an oil change. I listen, and the changes almost always make sense so we apply them. Sometimes, something fairly significant gets altered in rehearsal, just because I'm usually nervous that something is flat so I take a hammer rather than a chisel to it. This almost always gets scrapped and we revert to the previous place. Why? One- I was not entirely confident with this choice but felt obliged to try. Two- the dancers find this frenzied attempt too disconcerting.
So back to original ideas in dances. I'll start with changing the PROCESS in baby steps. For me, changing the rehearsal times and time frame I work might do something new. For one, this time frame change creates different rules for preparedness. Coming to one of only 6 total rehearsals only with earlier noodle phrases is NOT ENOUGH. Good. I'm going to deal with this in two weeks. Will start THE NEXT BLOG on all the possible artillery I can pull out at rehearsals.
------------------------------------
I found it interesting the other day when I had to describe my work to someone. I felt speechless. What is my aesthetic?
I only ever know what I am working on next or what I am currently working on and this is always vague. I just am in a process of making a new dance- not sure I am in control of it as much as I should be but I know I am making a dance. How is that an aesthetic?. I fall back on my formulas of dance making because 1) acceptable versions of something usually result this way. 2) I can also respond with: "There isn't necessarily a process that is the same every time" but this is a fall back response to such a question, it isn't me being sophisticated and elusive and deep. It's me averting the question. SO what is my work? I think I'm trying to find a category to feel comfortable in, a club to feel worthy to be a member of. To say I make dance theatre work- is that fair? I've only dabbled. I think in describing my work to someone, I'll stick to this for now:
I make work that tries to invent interesting and beautiful movement in interesting and beautiful ways, sometimes accompanied by text, sometimes not. I try to make something interesting via a process that is interesting. My work is currently under construction, getting its foundation retrofitted however. Stay tuned for updates.
Note to self: ask my students to describe their work. At various intervals throughout the semester.
I'm working today with Lisa Race in a two day intensive called "Making a Dance Fast"- 10 hours essentially of making a dance, crammed into two days. This is especially intriguing to me as I approach the one-week long residency at UNCG- one week to make a dance for 12. I've always only made a new dance with my students in the semester long time frame. Twice a week, 2 hours or so each time. So figure 4-5 hours a week, for around 8 weeks -30-35 hours or so? In doing the math here, it seems like this whole dance-making thing can become a bit formulaic. I work in these parameters and the following results: a ten - twelve minute dance (my usual dance length), made for a college dance concert, generally attended by friends and parents of the performers, and my colleagues and friends who are good enough to attend (or obliged to attend). This dance will be one of 8 or so in a concert, nothing really threading these dances together other than a lighting change, costume change, and cast change. Oh, and some applause. The dance will feature anywhere from 4-12 students (my usual cast size).
It will be so good to be inside someone else's choreographic process, albeit a very condensed one like this. Working with different time limitations in a rehearsal process can do wonders to stir the pot of how you work, I think. For me, the same time frame has probably been a huge reason or crutch that has kept my dances looking pretty similar. I never thought about that but it seems inevitable, doesn't it? When you work within a certain time frame consistently, your body gets in a rhythm- it knows what and how to operate and thus, the product is probably pretty predictable.
So let me think about what my rehearsal processes have been like w/ my students at WFU.
The process is usually something like this:
I start with movement ideas...noodling about in the studio for a while renders some phrase material. This phrase material may have began with a certain image or idea that I am working with, or maybe it's just movement accumulating itself, for the joy alone of stringing movement moments together, and somewhere in that accumulation do I realize that the movement seems to have an "aboutness". Ah, I keep falling and coming back to my vertical. Ah, this seems to be about anxiousness. Or so it goes. Then as I keep accumulating do I keep exploring more of those ideas, or challenging them, or a bit of both. Music may or may not accompany me in this noodling stage. If music is around, it is almost never the music I will use in the piece. This material comes to the audition. I present it to the students to see "who gets it". I cast my dance. This is an artful negotiation, because 7 other choreographers are auditioning the same cadre of students. So I have a cast and we meet the following week.
I usually start without music when its time to make a new dance. I have always sort of worked this way because I think I've feared that I would become really complacent with the music, or get really bored with it, or both, and the movement would also, as a result, feel bored next to the movement. I think this stems from a couple of things. First, I don't have a music background, so my experience working with the music in rehearsal can only be so deep. Second, I have had adhered to this school of thought from readings, and the words of so many teachers along the way: working with set music first = becoming something you are enslaved to. In other words, you end up just sort of spitting out a movement score of what the music already does. A cheap and unoriginal replica. The audience isn't stupid- it can "read" the music without a visual accompaniment to translate. I don't want to do this, for heavens sake. So by avoiding music until later in the process, I've felt safer (in my mind) of these pitfalls. But if I think about this more now, it seems pretty escapist on my part. I think I am being sophisticated by not working with music until later, and I keep working away with the movement stuff, shaping something just with physical intuition to guide me. The absence of music is always there though, lurking in the rehearsal process, tapping me on the shoulder saying "uh, how much longer will you ignore me?" This is a habit, just like movement invention for me can be habitual and an unoriginal replica of something else too. In addition to the ignoring the music thing, it probably deters from my movement invention possibilites as a result too, not to mention it deters from the possibilities of what I can do with my dancers, too. I'm distracted because a really big chunk of this dance is missing! So now, without music, its sort of like proceeding with a blindfold on. There are so many possibilities for me to shape in the dance and the absence of music is like a dance without a map. So I just keep noodling. Wow, I never thought about it this way before. What am I saying here?
Well, there have been a few cases where I did start with music, as was the case with Schubert's Winterreise. But it is not the standard for how I work.
Back to process:
I come to the first rehearsal with movement phrases we saw at the audition. We repeat these and for no other reason than "this is the first set of ingredients I have", these movement ideas become a base. The next subsequent rehearsals become the following: more noodling (so the creation of new material), and then manipulation of the earlier phrases with these newer phrases. Dancers contribute material in there too, certainly. I usually pair them up, give them a movement problem, and they solve it in various suitable ways. In there, I serve as the editor of their problem solving, tweaking moments by asking them to repeat something, slow something down or speed it up, eliminate something else, or turn it somehow into...a trio, a solo, a more physical version of itself, a version that involves more contact, etc. Essentially, these ideas are textbook for me and everyone else - they are part of the formula that I have followed. Many of these ideas emerge from what I think the movement ideas need to feel more complete, other things come from impressions I have held onto from others' work that I have been a part of. I edit, and then hope material is remembered. I rarely, if ever, videotape. Some of this is laziness, some of this is simply "is it really that good that if it is lost, it will be a tragedy?" This editing process is something that I know my students, when they rehearse their own material, work with too. These ideas or some similar version of them are transparent and then appear in their work. So it goes. On and on. When I have something new in this rigmarole, I work with it, and they'll apply some watered down version or interpretation of it somewhere in one of their dances too. Original ideas are hard to come by.
So yeah, essentially, if the above description is stage two of the dance process (the editing) and stage one was the initial creation of material to be edited, then stage three is the putting it all together: the music comes in, the dance finds itself organized into a 10-12 minute package: a series of phrases with transitions essentially. The dance is subdivided into sections that the cast and I have labeled certain things along the way: "mother wind" for instance, was a section in my dance "Postponing Descent". I think I like the title for this section more than I like whatever the movement looked like in this section. But I digress. Back to the formulaic dance. It has sections, they have been edited, transitions come last, music is added, music is often edited, the relationship of all parts together is investigated and determined, costumes get finalized (we always have beautiful costumes, thank you Lisa Weller) and then we are in tech week. Now the dance gets its legs, so to speak, and it becomes a familiarized and comfortable thing for the dancers more and more. It is essentially their dance now, not mine. I sit and watch and find moments that are interesting that I didn't notice before for a long week in the theatre. The dance has its own powerful way of doing that- having moments- split second ones often- that are better than its creator is responsible for. These moments are few, but I love them. Then the moments that I, the creator, did spend some serious time thinking about, crafting, organizing and categorizing in a time frame, with thought given to the tempo and moments that preceded and post-ceded them, seem less interesting to me when the whole package is up there. But I'm fairly certain I'm the toughest critic when it comes to the stuff of those moments. I also sit and take copius final notes: someone's arm pathway was different and distracting, someone was late on an entrance, the section called.... was really tight tonight. The dance happens 4x - one long weekend- and then its over. We have a good video documentation of it, and I promptly never watch this. I'm not sure I've made a dance I really want to study again. I do think I keep making dances that get clearer and more interesting each time. The next dance is a slightly better version of the one that preceded it. But in terms of why, or what it is that makes them slightly better, I am unsure. I do know that I am hopeful and excited over and over again with the beginning stages of each new dance. I get giddy and passionate and delighted that I am making something new. Then I get lost, wonder what the hell I'm doing, wonder why these people keep coming to rehearsal and trusting me. Then something gels, and I feel confident that yes, this dance will be complete and will be punctual. Then I sweat it out, dream and think about the dance and its potential incessantly. Then I share frustrations with the cast, and ask them to help me figure things out. They always do. They love helping, as well they should. They have big investments in this! Then we have a throw away rehearsal some where in there because it is important to not always take this so seriously. Or maybe because I'm tired, spent, creatively depleted, or all of the above. Or maybe they are. So we eat candy and talk about whatever, usually. These rehearsals, I am convinced, help shape the piece, yet I cannot say for sure HOW exactly. Then we have rehearsals where we run the hell out of these dances and I keep changing things. They oblige, every time. Then there are rehearsals where dancers make suggestions to be more efficient. They, in the doing of this dance, know where the dance needs an oil change. I listen, and the changes almost always make sense so we apply them. Sometimes, something fairly significant gets altered in rehearsal, just because I'm usually nervous that something is flat so I take a hammer rather than a chisel to it. This almost always gets scrapped and we revert to the previous place. Why? One- I was not entirely confident with this choice but felt obliged to try. Two- the dancers find this frenzied attempt too disconcerting.
So back to original ideas in dances. I'll start with changing the PROCESS in baby steps. For me, changing the rehearsal times and time frame I work might do something new. For one, this time frame change creates different rules for preparedness. Coming to one of only 6 total rehearsals only with earlier noodle phrases is NOT ENOUGH. Good. I'm going to deal with this in two weeks. Will start THE NEXT BLOG on all the possible artillery I can pull out at rehearsals.
------------------------------------
I found it interesting the other day when I had to describe my work to someone. I felt speechless. What is my aesthetic?
I only ever know what I am working on next or what I am currently working on and this is always vague. I just am in a process of making a new dance- not sure I am in control of it as much as I should be but I know I am making a dance. How is that an aesthetic?. I fall back on my formulas of dance making because 1) acceptable versions of something usually result this way. 2) I can also respond with: "There isn't necessarily a process that is the same every time" but this is a fall back response to such a question, it isn't me being sophisticated and elusive and deep. It's me averting the question. SO what is my work? I think I'm trying to find a category to feel comfortable in, a club to feel worthy to be a member of. To say I make dance theatre work- is that fair? I've only dabbled. I think in describing my work to someone, I'll stick to this for now:
I make work that tries to invent interesting and beautiful movement in interesting and beautiful ways, sometimes accompanied by text, sometimes not. I try to make something interesting via a process that is interesting. My work is currently under construction, getting its foundation retrofitted however. Stay tuned for updates.
Note to self: ask my students to describe their work. At various intervals throughout the semester.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
more on the structure of the dance
So I'm thinking more about structural things. Foundations. The plans on large white pieces of paper in an architect's tube that require some serious explaining and spatial relational understanding. (Reading a drawing to scale is so not my strong suit). But I have structure on the brain. Especially since I'm making a new dance for 12 graduate students at UNCG in a couple of weeks. I have seven rehearsals to make this dance, with hopeful check ins along the way. I am working with a series of written details that will work in the piece... (questions I asked the dancers to answer about what it is they love about dances they see and what it is they love, in general). I am curious to see how and where the things we love in general are also of key importance in dances we love. Are they the same? Not always but sometimes?
Not sure how their responses will gel together but, channeling some of my Joe Goode workshop experiences, I know there will be material that will emerge from the collisions of these ideas too. There is lots to explore and I am feeling like there should probably be a script of some sort but that feels like a scary place to start. I am not a playwright, even if the material I'm writing has already been written. Furthermore-how much can I edit when it's not my stuff? Well, these and other scary questions that emerge when you're working with WORDS are all up in my face. I know that if all else fails, I have three moments from ATdK's work that I can't stop thinking about that I want to extract, change in a way that is suitable to me and respectful of that work, and present anew in this dance. I know that now, but will I still know that when I'm in the thick of rehearsals? Well, let's say yes.. and so for now, I'll call these three things this:
1) The moving group statue
2) The lineup
3) The hand holding
But before I go any further, I want to talk briefly about ownership in dances. I believe that these moments that are filmic in my brain are by no means the actual choreography. They are my reading and interpreting of a text (the Rosas dance) and my ability to paraphrase something from that text in a conversation with someone else (the students at UNCG). I will reference this dance when I have this conversation but these dancers are in no means recreating that dance. The group moving statue for instance involved 8 dancers, and some pretty complex lifting, resting, falling and shifting moments. I can only see the THOUGHT of them as a moving statue. I cannot recreate it, nor would I ever dream of doing that. I am in love with the experience I had witnessing that moment at that time, and it is THIS experience that I wish to recreate somehow. The same is true of the line up moment, and even the simple hand holding idea too. I loved how I felt when I watched them. I believe all that I have written in regards to these three ideas is actually a high compliment to the Rosas dancers and to ATdK. It is not disrespectful or a dishonest act of stealing their material. I believe we as artists do this all the time...try to recreate the things or experiences we love and we do it consciously and /or unconsciously all the time. I am being much more conscious about it here. (blatantly so). I am also (on a more subconscious level, I think) doing what I asked the UNCG dancers to do: write what it is they love about dances. I loved those moments. I loved so many more in the work but these three are rising to the surface, after a few days (and new cities) have passed me by. I love them because they are clean, they are going to be a snapshot, a whiff of what my brain and body felt and they will become new moments.
what else:
I also know that I want a microphone, downstage right, where dancers will reveal something about themselves, comment on what is happening around them, ask a question to the audience, or just sing something. I want to know who speaks other languages too.
-------
I also know that I am tired and sore from walking around Bratislava and then later this evening, throughout Sweden platz in Vienna. Who knew it was so difficult to find hand sanitizer here?
Today is the first time that Jeffrey and I both remarked that we are ready to get home. So is Evie... although I'm actually not totally convinced she wants to leave Vienna. She loved watching the powerful hydrofoil motorboat disrupt the water as we sped down the Danube. She also admired a street performer today - her first street performance! You know, the ones ...who dress in silver and pretend to be a statue that move very minimally and only when you toss some euro in their hats... She also will not tire of chasing pigeons, dogs, or other children around the plazas. I'm not tired of chasing her, either. No really, I'm not.
Movement practice today: WALKING. Lots of it. Now I will stretch for 20 minutes and take a shower.
Not sure how their responses will gel together but, channeling some of my Joe Goode workshop experiences, I know there will be material that will emerge from the collisions of these ideas too. There is lots to explore and I am feeling like there should probably be a script of some sort but that feels like a scary place to start. I am not a playwright, even if the material I'm writing has already been written. Furthermore-how much can I edit when it's not my stuff? Well, these and other scary questions that emerge when you're working with WORDS are all up in my face. I know that if all else fails, I have three moments from ATdK's work that I can't stop thinking about that I want to extract, change in a way that is suitable to me and respectful of that work, and present anew in this dance. I know that now, but will I still know that when I'm in the thick of rehearsals? Well, let's say yes.. and so for now, I'll call these three things this:
1) The moving group statue
2) The lineup
3) The hand holding
But before I go any further, I want to talk briefly about ownership in dances. I believe that these moments that are filmic in my brain are by no means the actual choreography. They are my reading and interpreting of a text (the Rosas dance) and my ability to paraphrase something from that text in a conversation with someone else (the students at UNCG). I will reference this dance when I have this conversation but these dancers are in no means recreating that dance. The group moving statue for instance involved 8 dancers, and some pretty complex lifting, resting, falling and shifting moments. I can only see the THOUGHT of them as a moving statue. I cannot recreate it, nor would I ever dream of doing that. I am in love with the experience I had witnessing that moment at that time, and it is THIS experience that I wish to recreate somehow. The same is true of the line up moment, and even the simple hand holding idea too. I loved how I felt when I watched them. I believe all that I have written in regards to these three ideas is actually a high compliment to the Rosas dancers and to ATdK. It is not disrespectful or a dishonest act of stealing their material. I believe we as artists do this all the time...try to recreate the things or experiences we love and we do it consciously and /or unconsciously all the time. I am being much more conscious about it here. (blatantly so). I am also (on a more subconscious level, I think) doing what I asked the UNCG dancers to do: write what it is they love about dances. I loved those moments. I loved so many more in the work but these three are rising to the surface, after a few days (and new cities) have passed me by. I love them because they are clean, they are going to be a snapshot, a whiff of what my brain and body felt and they will become new moments.
what else:
I also know that I want a microphone, downstage right, where dancers will reveal something about themselves, comment on what is happening around them, ask a question to the audience, or just sing something. I want to know who speaks other languages too.
-------
I also know that I am tired and sore from walking around Bratislava and then later this evening, throughout Sweden platz in Vienna. Who knew it was so difficult to find hand sanitizer here?
Today is the first time that Jeffrey and I both remarked that we are ready to get home. So is Evie... although I'm actually not totally convinced she wants to leave Vienna. She loved watching the powerful hydrofoil motorboat disrupt the water as we sped down the Danube. She also admired a street performer today - her first street performance! You know, the ones ...who dress in silver and pretend to be a statue that move very minimally and only when you toss some euro in their hats... She also will not tire of chasing pigeons, dogs, or other children around the plazas. I'm not tired of chasing her, either. No really, I'm not.
Movement practice today: WALKING. Lots of it. Now I will stretch for 20 minutes and take a shower.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
The place is the thing...
I am on a train from Prague back to Vienna. I just passed a beautiful lake- it is a clear day and the light at this hour (5:15pm) is beautiful. Evie is sleeping, Jeffery is watching Avatar on his ipod. We splurged on first class tickets for this and it was worth every euro. Riding a train can be so civilized, relaxing and contemplative. Tomorrow, we will board a hydrofoil train and head to Bratislava, Slovakia. Will the 90 minute boat ride feel as good? This train ride feels a bit like a marathon at 5 hours but the comfort of a first class car, our traveling away from one new foreign city and back to another, makes it feel like we've really lived today. Traveling has its ups and downs, certainly but I want to savor it now for the days when I am in Winston Salem and feeling particularly frozen or landlocked in that space. I am moving on a fast speed train and I am loving it. I am eager to return to Vienna...
Vienna and Impulstanz are both magnificent. I feel like I have only scratched the surface of both though. How do I get back for another summer- teaching a class at Wake's Vienna program or somewhere else in Europe? Or both?
Today, the highlight of my Prague trip was this morning. We visited a beautiful convent in Prague, right by the Maximilian hotel where we stayed called Convent of St. Agnes. It is a convent that began in the mid-late 13th century by a woman named Agnes who defied the path of marrying into a political marriage that her father, king Wencellus of Bohemia had pre-determined for her. Instead, she organized the means to have a convent built. Nuns came from Asisi (Italy) and the convent served to help the poor and the sick. She was a bad ass, basically and I wonder how a blockbuster movie about her staring someone like Julia Ormond has not happened yet. Agnes is actually St. Agnes I think- as in a saint...and if not- she should be; after reading her short bio on the convent wall entrance, I feel compelled to read more. Her tomb is on the grounds of this convent now, as is a medevil art gallery with extensive biblical art paintings and sculptures from the 1200’s-1500’s. They are in surprisingly great shape and are beautifully displayed there; it is the largest medevil art collection in Europe. What is most magnificent though is the convent itself, which you can tour through for free.
Immediately, passing through these tall vaulted ceilings, stone and brick walls and wide open, sparce rooms did I think about making something for this space. It begs for a site specific performance. How do I get back there to do this? I am reeling, and am imagining the following ideas:
-somehow exploring the idea of piety in performance. what does pious mean?!
-how is there camaraderie amongst a group of women who are nuns?
-what does it mean to love and worship something or someone who you cannot see? How do you feel Him? React to his grace? Respond to his good will? How does this translate in a space with movement?
-how is movement like prayer? How is it ritualistic? How does it move from habitual to meditative?
-When is it done privately (even if someone is watching)? What does movement look like when it is communal and shared? How does the space and place transform in both of these scenarios?
-how does singing happen in that space (with its tall, domed ceilings that echo incredibly)? What is sung? Who sings? Why sing- how does God hear singing and respond to it?
-how do we tap into the spirit of Agnes and recreate her character in performance?
It’s amazing when a place speaks to you in a performative way. I don’t think this has happened to me before this morning. Immediately, I wanted to be in this space in a movement research way. Why a convent? I was so drawn to go there when we arrived in Prague yet I had no idea why. I remember as a young girl my mother showing me a picture of her friend Donna dressed in a nun's habit. I don't know why I saw this picture. Did I find it? Did we visit with her and then my mom showed me this? I knew Donna has a husband and children, though so what possessed her to lead a life as a nun and then leave it?
All of this site specificity is of course connected to Anna Teresa de Keersmaker’s work that I saw at the Odeon theatre in Vienna last week. ATdK and her company originally performed a piece in Avignon, at a particular historical site that had some sort of significance (which I am forgetting) and the dancers worked with musicians who played instruments and sang songs from mid evil times. It was so stunning. She is kind of a genius, I think. It was great to see the piece and then talk about resonant moments with Kathleen Hermesdorf and Lilly Dwyer, two SF dancers that I met (or re-met) with this past week. The space at the Odeon theatre was a large, open, pillared room with gargoyle-type figures at the ceiling. It was old, and worn yet still chiseled and intact. This space in the large theatre complex was modern in a way, even if it felt really old, too. That pretty much sums up Vienna to me, too. An example: the space had floor to ceiling windows that looked out to another apartment building whose tenants had a television set on for instance. What an interesting juxtaposition of old and new: musical instruments from the 1500's in a room that is dated probably 300 years later, with a 21st century television show in the background for those who noticed.
The piece used natural light in a phenomenal way. It was amazing to watch light literally disappear as the sun went further down and down until there was nothing left to see but a solo dancer in the space, naked; his sounds more visible than any movement. Basically- these dancers were so just so beautiful it was as though I knew I was experiencing something special and I kept getting tingly just thinking about it. A few memorable and particular structural notes:
-walking patterns from left to right and right to left, simple patterns, some more complex. Focus intense and direct with one another. Moments when dancers held hands with a light connection (almost courtly) and then a hand would leave this connection as the other dancer watched this, remaining in place.
-a line up of dancers from downstage to upstage, vertical and staring leftward. A series of different beginnings ensued, some doing the same thing, others leaving. Simple idea yet executed beautifully.
-dancers joined together to re-enact these moving sculptures. They repeated this, with their fronts changing, and we were treated to a new perspective. This made me feel like I was in a piazza and walking around a sculpture, examining it from many different viewpoints.
It just occurred to me that these structural ideas could be "starters" in the act of creating something new. Generating new material is not the hard part. Structuring it, organizing it, putting it together with multiple people ...is. I like the idea of starting with something that is so specifically structurally based. Force myself to organize whatever movement ideas I spit out within these structural parameters (or any, really, that one comes up with)...
It's like telling a choreographer that her movement, which is chicken, is acceptable but it must be grilled chicken with creamy risotto, blanched asparagus and orange-infused beets. Go- make the meal.
Vienna and Impulstanz are both magnificent. I feel like I have only scratched the surface of both though. How do I get back for another summer- teaching a class at Wake's Vienna program or somewhere else in Europe? Or both?
Today, the highlight of my Prague trip was this morning. We visited a beautiful convent in Prague, right by the Maximilian hotel where we stayed called Convent of St. Agnes. It is a convent that began in the mid-late 13th century by a woman named Agnes who defied the path of marrying into a political marriage that her father, king Wencellus of Bohemia had pre-determined for her. Instead, she organized the means to have a convent built. Nuns came from Asisi (Italy) and the convent served to help the poor and the sick. She was a bad ass, basically and I wonder how a blockbuster movie about her staring someone like Julia Ormond has not happened yet. Agnes is actually St. Agnes I think- as in a saint...and if not- she should be; after reading her short bio on the convent wall entrance, I feel compelled to read more. Her tomb is on the grounds of this convent now, as is a medevil art gallery with extensive biblical art paintings and sculptures from the 1200’s-1500’s. They are in surprisingly great shape and are beautifully displayed there; it is the largest medevil art collection in Europe. What is most magnificent though is the convent itself, which you can tour through for free.
Immediately, passing through these tall vaulted ceilings, stone and brick walls and wide open, sparce rooms did I think about making something for this space. It begs for a site specific performance. How do I get back there to do this? I am reeling, and am imagining the following ideas:
-somehow exploring the idea of piety in performance. what does pious mean?!
-how is there camaraderie amongst a group of women who are nuns?
-what does it mean to love and worship something or someone who you cannot see? How do you feel Him? React to his grace? Respond to his good will? How does this translate in a space with movement?
-how is movement like prayer? How is it ritualistic? How does it move from habitual to meditative?
-When is it done privately (even if someone is watching)? What does movement look like when it is communal and shared? How does the space and place transform in both of these scenarios?
-how does singing happen in that space (with its tall, domed ceilings that echo incredibly)? What is sung? Who sings? Why sing- how does God hear singing and respond to it?
-how do we tap into the spirit of Agnes and recreate her character in performance?
It’s amazing when a place speaks to you in a performative way. I don’t think this has happened to me before this morning. Immediately, I wanted to be in this space in a movement research way. Why a convent? I was so drawn to go there when we arrived in Prague yet I had no idea why. I remember as a young girl my mother showing me a picture of her friend Donna dressed in a nun's habit. I don't know why I saw this picture. Did I find it? Did we visit with her and then my mom showed me this? I knew Donna has a husband and children, though so what possessed her to lead a life as a nun and then leave it?
All of this site specificity is of course connected to Anna Teresa de Keersmaker’s work that I saw at the Odeon theatre in Vienna last week. ATdK and her company originally performed a piece in Avignon, at a particular historical site that had some sort of significance (which I am forgetting) and the dancers worked with musicians who played instruments and sang songs from mid evil times. It was so stunning. She is kind of a genius, I think. It was great to see the piece and then talk about resonant moments with Kathleen Hermesdorf and Lilly Dwyer, two SF dancers that I met (or re-met) with this past week. The space at the Odeon theatre was a large, open, pillared room with gargoyle-type figures at the ceiling. It was old, and worn yet still chiseled and intact. This space in the large theatre complex was modern in a way, even if it felt really old, too. That pretty much sums up Vienna to me, too. An example: the space had floor to ceiling windows that looked out to another apartment building whose tenants had a television set on for instance. What an interesting juxtaposition of old and new: musical instruments from the 1500's in a room that is dated probably 300 years later, with a 21st century television show in the background for those who noticed.
The piece used natural light in a phenomenal way. It was amazing to watch light literally disappear as the sun went further down and down until there was nothing left to see but a solo dancer in the space, naked; his sounds more visible than any movement. Basically- these dancers were so just so beautiful it was as though I knew I was experiencing something special and I kept getting tingly just thinking about it. A few memorable and particular structural notes:
-walking patterns from left to right and right to left, simple patterns, some more complex. Focus intense and direct with one another. Moments when dancers held hands with a light connection (almost courtly) and then a hand would leave this connection as the other dancer watched this, remaining in place.
-a line up of dancers from downstage to upstage, vertical and staring leftward. A series of different beginnings ensued, some doing the same thing, others leaving. Simple idea yet executed beautifully.
-dancers joined together to re-enact these moving sculptures. They repeated this, with their fronts changing, and we were treated to a new perspective. This made me feel like I was in a piazza and walking around a sculpture, examining it from many different viewpoints.
It just occurred to me that these structural ideas could be "starters" in the act of creating something new. Generating new material is not the hard part. Structuring it, organizing it, putting it together with multiple people ...is. I like the idea of starting with something that is so specifically structurally based. Force myself to organize whatever movement ideas I spit out within these structural parameters (or any, really, that one comes up with)...
It's like telling a choreographer that her movement, which is chicken, is acceptable but it must be grilled chicken with creamy risotto, blanched asparagus and orange-infused beets. Go- make the meal.
Gotta do it everyday...
A writer writes everyday, or so the adage goes. Certainly, I remember all of my writing teachers in college and graduate school hammering this idea home and with every sermon, I can remember thinking (especially at the beginning of the semester when I am hopeful, fresh, and rested) that writing everyday seems easy to accomplish. So why is it so hard? And why do I care about doing it everyday, anyways? Let's just say I'm feeling a need to really anchor into some daily practices. And writing is one of them. Dancing is the other.
Throughout my adult life, writing in a journal was the standard way of getting stuff down. It wasn't that I wrote everyday but I had some brief successes with journal writing both forced (for a class) and on my own. Contents: usually, the journals had uninteresting ideas about dance making, art in general and its relation to my life at the time, poetry writing (usually bad poetry writing) or whatever else is going on in my life that made its way to a page for some reason. But then it would just sort of halt. I know I am not alone with the half-finished journals that live in a box somewhere. This writing practice (like so many other practices I have wanted to be faithful to) fizzles out.
So why do I want to have a more enduring relationship with writing? This summer has seen some more academic writing on my part so maybe that has prompted a new attention and relationship to writing. Or maybe the existence of this blog is instigating my rant here? Is that what a blog does? Replaces the overpriced journal I have carted around in my bag for years and years and years, always fearing I'll lose it, or worse, my cousin Alexis will read it again like she did when I was 10 and our families were at the beach together and she stole my diary and read all about my crush on a boy from school named Kevin and then teased me relentlessly about this?!?! (deep breath) Or is it that I see the blog as a really functional way to start something larger? Like, uh, a daily writing practice? Originally, this blog's first intended theme was writing about Impulstanz and the artistic questions that are emerging while I am a student and audience member here. I say the 'intended theme' because I find this blog becoming something I want to nurture more. Impulstanz is great but it will be over for me very soon. So how do I take what happened last week and make it linger, transform, and inspire a wealth of future ideas with important questions and considerations that I will flesh out in other art-related writings? I mean, really- who reads blogs anyways? Maybe this blog is a draft for something in print?
But back to the journal for a second (which sits beside me as I type, looking at me forlornly) I think I need to tell it to take a seat on the bench and be happy in its second string role. The second string is not undervalued, I will tell it. It is a noble role, certainly. The laptop has its issues and I can't use it ALL the time. Buck up, moleskin journal, you'll get your due.
So what have I written? My colleague and friend Rian Bowie in the English Dept. at Wake and I co-wrote a paper about bringing our students in her African American Poetry course and my Dance Composition course together last semester for a joint-assignment. We submitted it to JODE after several extensive edits in June/July. I also wrote a performance review about a show here in Vienna and plan to write another before I leave. I have been faithfully writing little commentaries about our trip on the family blog. I mention these not to keep tabs (well, not really). These writing projects are momentum builders, small brush strokes in a large wall-size painting (or a series of paintings for an entire show) that I have to complete. I think what I'm getting at is the importance of the dailiness of writing. These papers happened because I was writing material for them consecutively, consistently, with dedication, etc. I wasn't writing good stuff but I was writing in a way that made me realize at least how long I still had to go before these pieces were presentable. I think this 3 week experience of Vienna is teaching me that everyday I must be actively writing...
...and oh yeah actively DANCING. Everyday I must commit to a movement practice too! Even if its just a little, it has to be daily.
So since I'm writing now- what are the stipulations of these dailinesses? Even if it is not worthy of another reader, it is everyday. Even if it is not spectacular, or inspiring or connected to something larger that I am working on it is everyday. Even if it is not something tidy, or complete. Even if it is nonsensical. But everyday, there is a goal: a movement practice and a writing practice. These events do not have to follow one another. They do not need to happen in the same place or way every time (how can they, for god sake?! I marvel at people who get up and write for hours every morning when they wake up at the same desk.
As I'm proselytizing here about my daily practices, some questions emerge. How long do I have to write and dance everyday? Does the writing and dancing have to reflect each other consistently? How do I record both? In this blog? How much do I edit both practices?
An important reminder: it's one thing to THINK about writing or moving everyday but that won't get me points. "Put your money where you mouth is, Tsoules". (That’s what Jeffrey would say). So I have to go move now. I already wrote for the day.
I guess this blog post is a confession.
And it is a deal I am making - with myself, and whoever else reads this.
Throughout my adult life, writing in a journal was the standard way of getting stuff down. It wasn't that I wrote everyday but I had some brief successes with journal writing both forced (for a class) and on my own. Contents: usually, the journals had uninteresting ideas about dance making, art in general and its relation to my life at the time, poetry writing (usually bad poetry writing) or whatever else is going on in my life that made its way to a page for some reason. But then it would just sort of halt. I know I am not alone with the half-finished journals that live in a box somewhere. This writing practice (like so many other practices I have wanted to be faithful to) fizzles out.
So why do I want to have a more enduring relationship with writing? This summer has seen some more academic writing on my part so maybe that has prompted a new attention and relationship to writing. Or maybe the existence of this blog is instigating my rant here? Is that what a blog does? Replaces the overpriced journal I have carted around in my bag for years and years and years, always fearing I'll lose it, or worse, my cousin Alexis will read it again like she did when I was 10 and our families were at the beach together and she stole my diary and read all about my crush on a boy from school named Kevin and then teased me relentlessly about this?!?! (deep breath) Or is it that I see the blog as a really functional way to start something larger? Like, uh, a daily writing practice? Originally, this blog's first intended theme was writing about Impulstanz and the artistic questions that are emerging while I am a student and audience member here. I say the 'intended theme' because I find this blog becoming something I want to nurture more. Impulstanz is great but it will be over for me very soon. So how do I take what happened last week and make it linger, transform, and inspire a wealth of future ideas with important questions and considerations that I will flesh out in other art-related writings? I mean, really- who reads blogs anyways? Maybe this blog is a draft for something in print?
But back to the journal for a second (which sits beside me as I type, looking at me forlornly) I think I need to tell it to take a seat on the bench and be happy in its second string role. The second string is not undervalued, I will tell it. It is a noble role, certainly. The laptop has its issues and I can't use it ALL the time. Buck up, moleskin journal, you'll get your due.
So what have I written? My colleague and friend Rian Bowie in the English Dept. at Wake and I co-wrote a paper about bringing our students in her African American Poetry course and my Dance Composition course together last semester for a joint-assignment. We submitted it to JODE after several extensive edits in June/July. I also wrote a performance review about a show here in Vienna and plan to write another before I leave. I have been faithfully writing little commentaries about our trip on the family blog. I mention these not to keep tabs (well, not really). These writing projects are momentum builders, small brush strokes in a large wall-size painting (or a series of paintings for an entire show) that I have to complete. I think what I'm getting at is the importance of the dailiness of writing. These papers happened because I was writing material for them consecutively, consistently, with dedication, etc. I wasn't writing good stuff but I was writing in a way that made me realize at least how long I still had to go before these pieces were presentable. I think this 3 week experience of Vienna is teaching me that everyday I must be actively writing...
...and oh yeah actively DANCING. Everyday I must commit to a movement practice too! Even if its just a little, it has to be daily.
So since I'm writing now- what are the stipulations of these dailinesses? Even if it is not worthy of another reader, it is everyday. Even if it is not spectacular, or inspiring or connected to something larger that I am working on it is everyday. Even if it is not something tidy, or complete. Even if it is nonsensical. But everyday, there is a goal: a movement practice and a writing practice. These events do not have to follow one another. They do not need to happen in the same place or way every time (how can they, for god sake?! I marvel at people who get up and write for hours every morning when they wake up at the same desk.
As I'm proselytizing here about my daily practices, some questions emerge. How long do I have to write and dance everyday? Does the writing and dancing have to reflect each other consistently? How do I record both? In this blog? How much do I edit both practices?
An important reminder: it's one thing to THINK about writing or moving everyday but that won't get me points. "Put your money where you mouth is, Tsoules". (That’s what Jeffrey would say). So I have to go move now. I already wrote for the day.
I guess this blog post is a confession.
And it is a deal I am making - with myself, and whoever else reads this.
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