Photos from Primary/Scale

In May the company presented Primary/Scale at the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival - you can read more about the piece here and here. While we were setting up the tech crew asked if I wanted them to stop people from taking photos, but instead I asked them to give the photographers my business card and request the photographers send me links to the photos they take. We ended up with so many wonderful photos. Below are some of them. Enjoy! And thanks to Don Arteides, Jaedra DiGiammarino and Ted Jamieson.

Primary/Scale from Daniel Burkholder on Vimeo.

Thoughts on Not Sucking

In a couple of weeks I, along with my collaborators Katie, Susan, Stefanie and Stephanie, will be presenting The Chemistry of Lime Trees as my thesis concert for my MFA in Dance from University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. As I've noted elsewhere, this performance consists of two separate, but related works exploring how borders, real or imagined/personal or political, effect our lives. The first half of the evening is a duet with Katie based upon an oral history about a young Russian woman who is left at Ellis Island by her fiance. The second half is a trio for myself, Susan and Stephanie based upon a couple from Sarajevo (he Orthodox Christian, she Muslim) negotiating and living during the Bosnian War of the early 1990s. Both these works deal very specifically with character, plot and storytelling. This level of theatricality along with actual 'acting' is new to my work. In the past I have always dismissed the idea of "pretending" and wanted a "real" physical experience - we, the performers, were always ourselves in the moment. In this work we are definitely portraying other people - in both works, real people.

Because this type of work (theater) is new to me I certainly have a good dose of nervousness about it, as well as questions. Does the story come across? Are our characters believable? Are we pushing it too far, or not enough (the 'sex' scene, for example)? Can I push myself emotionally to the edge I need to get to? Can I help the other performers get there? Can they help me? Will the audience find this engaging, funny, terrifying, sad? Because the work is so different for me I go back and forth on how to judge the work (though that is probably clear by now). How do I make it better? What does 'better' even mean?

And, of course, the big, overarching question is simply, "Does it suck?". Of course, I don't think it does, but then...does it? I guess this is the question, problem or challenge that we all face when we do something - at least something that challenges our normal processes and products. And, I think, this is what we should be doing with most, if not every, project we take on - challenge our norm, push our process, dare to suck!

The show goes up July 15 & 16 here in Milwaukee, then again November 19 in Reston, VA.

Come and let me know if it sucks or not.....

Video from NVFAF

Last month the company created and performed Primary/Scale at the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival. As I wrote about in a previous post, this was an all day event consisting of three 45-minute sections (one with 1,000 bricks, one with 1500 square feet of sod, and the last section in a large fountain). In addition we created a short video that was shown to one or two members of the public at a time. The video was shot, edited and shown entirely on an iPod. Here is that video:


Primary / Scale from Daniel Burkholder on Vimeo.

**Note: there is no sound on the video.

The Chemistry of Lime Trees In NYC

Tonight Susan, Stephanie are up in New York City to perform our newest work, The Chemistry of Lime Trees at the TriBeCa Performing Arts Center. We, along with Stefanie Quinones Bass, have been developing the work for over a year. The work is based on the true story of Bosko and Admiration from the Bosnian War of the early 90s. Boasko (a Christian) and Admira (a Muslim) fell in love while in high school, before the war. During the war they were shot and killed as they tried to cross from the Muslim side of the border to the Chriistian. It is still unclear who killed them.

In developing The Chemistry of Lime Trees we have explored bringing a theatrical approach to the work (more theatrical than my previous work). This means we are very concretely dealing with plot, characters and dialogue. No, it is not straight theater by any means. And, yes, there are sections that are more abstract, more dancey. But, overall we are characters more than we represent ourselves. This makes me nervous since my creative work is more straight dance with the performers being themselves, not "acting" as someone else. There have been many moments when I feel myself run up against my insecurities. But, I do know that Stephanie's dancing and Susan's sing are incredible - and that can't be a bad thing.

The performances are Thursday (6/9) and Friday (6/10) at 8p
At the TriBeCa Performing Arts Center. More info here. http://tribecapac.org/air.htm#lily

Q&A about "Primary/Scale"

This coming Saturday (5/21/11) the company will be presenting Primary/Scale, one of the largest and longest works the company has ever created. We'll be performing 3 45-minute instillation type works, each one using different material - 1,000 bricks, 1500 square feet of sod and, lastly, we'll be dancing in a big fountain with 150 bowls. We'll also be presenting dance films based on these elements during throughout the day on iPods. Come to the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival to check it all out. Below is alittle Q&A about the work. 

Q&A about PRIMARY/SCALE Q: What was the inspiration for PRIMARY/SCALE? DB: As I was thinking about creating a work for the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival I became interested in working with materials in much the same way as painters or sculptures do. So, we decided to create three sections each exploring a different material - bricks, sod and water. Q: Can you say more about what you're going to do with these elements? DB: Yea, at the beginning of each section the bricks, or sod, or bowls will be stacked or set to the side of the performance space. As the work continues we'll move, build, manipulate and create an environment or set with the materials. At the end of each section we will have created something tangable - a set or instillation - much the same way studio artists create an object through their creative process. Q: What about the dance videos on the iPods, how do they fit in? DB: We're going to have two teams of two people with iPods moving throughout the festival showing short videos to one or two people at a time. This comes from an interest in working with scale. Again, thinking about the festival where there will be large sculptures or paintings and very small earings and such, I wanted to explore scale - big and small. The instillation works are on quite a large scale and these videos will be on a much smaller, intimate scale. We're trying to work both ends of the spectrum, as it were.

"Maybe we're..."

Click to Play

Here is a short video of some material Stephanie and I were working on in rehearsal together. The performance piece is based on a story of two lovers who died during the Bosnian War in 1992 - Bosko & Admira. They are often referred to as the "Romeo & Juliet of Sarajevo". We imagined, what if they were other famous romantic couples. This is just the beginning of working on it. We have more text and movement to develop. Enjoy...

Breaking Rules / Expanding Understanding

It is undoubtedly a cliché to say that you must understand the rules to break them, but that is certainly a truth in our work in dance improvisational performance.

When we create an improvised performance we (usually) established some ground rules or structure in which the performance will be framed. These rules can range from straight forward, like "there may only be two people on stage at a time", or "begin in a line, leave the line, return to the line". Or, they may be more subjective, "your goal is to support your partner's choices".

In rehearsal and/or performance there will be someone(s) that break these rules/structure once the improv gets going. Is this OK or not? Well, it depends as there is a difference between knowing you're breaking the rules and not being aware you are doing so. The second case destroys the coherency of the performance, in the first case it may or may not work depending....

There are (at least) two ways to knowingly break the rules in an improvisation. The first way is to break them because they get in your way, or they seem unnecessary or you just want to do something different. The second way is done in such a way that even though you are breaking the letter of the law you are actually expanding or redefining the meaning of the rules. It is breaking them, but not, at the same time. So, in a performance a rule may be "only two people on the stage at one time" and someone doesn't leave when another person enters. This is clearly breaking the rules, but (unless) you are constructing what you are doing in such a way that points to the fact of a duet happening. So, in actuality, the duet becomes more pronounced because of your presence - then, are you really breaking the rules?....This is hard to explain in words because it is an intuitive moment where you take a chance and push the edges of the structure and not break it.

I have often encouraged the dancers I work with to not break the rules but to "expand" the rules to the possible limits (with occasional breaking of the rules, as it's good for your constitution). By expanding the rules we are trying to see what are the limits, where can we go and still stay connected with one another and the work.

See us expand, break and bend the rules Feb. 4 & 5, 2011 @ Joe's Movement Emporium. (www.joesmovement.org for tickets).