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.
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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.
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