Subtracting, Leaving Out, A Fond Farewell

What makes a dance that dance? I mean, what makes it it and not something else? Yes, I know - a dance is a work of art that explores a subject using a specific set of movement phrases or structures to specific music with specific costumes, or not. But, what I mean is - how much can you remove and a dance still be that dance? We are finalizing the structure for our upcoming Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center show and I am wrestling with including our Falling Section or not. This section was inspired by Rachel Carson's The Edge of the Sea - an interesting, if overly detailed, look at the tidal zone of the Eastern Seaboard. It is a physical section with a strong athleticism to it - not so 'dancey'. But, for our upcoming show it doesn't fit in with the more etherial material of the other sections. I feel conflicted leaving it out since it has been central to the work since its beginning. The other sections that have been in each performance include H2O Trio, Christine's Solo w/ Bulking, Hurricane Solos, and some version of Drench. Additionally there are statistics about water always used as part of the sound score. Now, for this last performance, we aren't using the statistics nor the Hurricane Solos, and (I guess) the Falling Section. It would be interesting to see how much I could remove before My ocean is never blue stops being itself.

Music, Glorious Music

Up to this point we have not have had much music in our rehearsals because most of the music for this newest version of My ocean is never blue is being played live or is being recorded specifically for this performance. But in our last rehearsal (Sunday) we had almost all the music - with the exception of alittle that still needs to be recorded. And, predictably, it was amazing. I mean, we had to slosh through a lot of nitty-gritty details of when people play and how transitions will work, but to have 3 afro-cuban percussionists, a classical piano/string quartet and a post-modern guitarist all playing live is pretty great. I think one thing that worried some was how all these styles of music (and dance) would work bumped up against one another and I myself had moments of being worried too - but, after today it clearly is not going to be a problem - it just works. There is something pleasing starting the piece with a recording of Indian music that's meditative and have Jonathan's guitar slide in over that as we transition into the next section. And, there is something pleasing to hear the classical music follow some repetitive pattern on the guitar. The similarities and differences between the Afro-Cuban percussion and Indian percussion is wonderful to hear - at one point the Indian music began and you could see Sam (a Afro-Cuban percussionist) just smilling as he was listening. As I said after last week's rehearsal about the dancers, I think today was important to get the musicians understanding how the piece was working and that each group is not seperate, but we are overlapping, supporting and juxtaposing each other. It certainly was a dense rehearsal, but really a good one.

A Big Rehearsal

Today's rehearsal felt like a big deal - like today could make or break this project with these four companies. We started to put our different sections together in bigger "chunks" and, honestly, I wasn't sure it was going to work. I was worried because I wasn't sure how we would connect the different material, and secondly I wasn't sure dancers of the other companies were buying into this project. I am asking people to step out of their comfort zone in a number of ways and have felt some resistance to the process. But the other company directors and I had a good meeting this week and I think they talked with their dancers to get everyone focused - and I think it worked. I kind of took charge of today and we put together about 40 minutes of material - that was good. Some sections are individual companies, some a mix of companies and the transitions between sections. I am trying to make transitions fairly straight forward, simple and not a big deal. In college (undergraduate) my teacher and mentor, Viola Farber would say that "there are no such things as transitions", which I love - either it is something or not. So, I'm trying to make keep transitions moving - not making them a big deal. After the rehearsal a number of dancers from the other companies expressed how impressed they were with how material was weaving together, which made me happy - mainly because that means they will be more engaged as they become more interested. It was a good day - though exhausting. Of course, next Sunday we have the all the musicians coming and they have to start getting along...

JMU Post-Post

Despite my desire to report on our week at James Madison University I only spent time on the essentials - rehearsing, planning, teaching, some sleeping and too much driving. In one week student and community dancers learned and performed "My ocean is never blue" with the company, and I created a 15-minute work for the Virginia Repertory Dance Company. Aot of time, organization and creative umph was needed to get through the week. The dancers in "ocean" did a great job with the material - which ranged from simple walking structures to improv scores and athletic choreographed phrases. We spent time talking about the content of the work, each section's origin, how its evolved and fitting the pieces into the whole. It has taken us - the company – time to develop and clarify all this and getting new dancers on the same page was a challenge. But, as I said, they did great and both our performances were really wonderful. I, and the whole company, felt that they were some of the most satisfying performances of the work.

The work I created for the Rep Company was an outgrowth of the works I created this summer. I combined this previous material with new material, created a new sound score and came up with a dance for 9 dancers. This work is an exploration of 'home' and 'leaving home' and are the first bits of a larger project that explores human migration and immigration. As I started researching this larger project I wanted to clarify this idea of home for myself – both as a place we leave and as a place we create or arrive. Right now the work is pretty abstract, but as the project evolves I plan on bringing more concreteness to these topics/issues. I, again, was really satisfied with the students attention, creativity, commitment and dancing.

Teaching Not Creating

I spent the afternoon working with students at James Madison University today. I first taught an improv class to 35+ dancers and then started rehearsing the Big Group cast for My ocean is never blue - which will combine The PlayGround with the student dancers. It went really well and I'm the good dancing-for-6-hours kind of sour.

It is so interesting setting My ocean is never blue on yet another group of dancers. When we were originally creating the work it was a real process of trying, changing, developing, dropping, editing, discussing and figuring it all out. Now, that same section that took many hours and rehearsals to develop takes almost no time to "teach". I'm struck by the difference between creating a work and teaching it. I try and guide the new dancers through a process to experience some of the same development that the original dancers did, but it is not the same - I am artificially leading them through the steps instead of us discovering the steps through the process together. This has to effect their experience, understanding and maybe even their dancing.

Tomorrow I have rehearsal with the dancers from 10am until 5pm so we will be going over everything again, add in some new stuff and start putting it in an order. The PlayGround's core company comes on Sunday so we can put it all together.

Kimani Fowlin's "Womantra"

A Journey for Performers and Audience

by Daniel Burkholder

Choreographer Kimani Fowlin slowly rocks in a fetal position within a red sand circle at The INOVA Arts Center at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Audience members move to the edges of the room. A couple enters the red circle as they bend down to gently place one of the rocks each audience member was given into Fowlin's hand. With this act the couple crosses the line between performer and audience, and is an apt metaphor for the performance.

“Womantra” continues as Fowlin rolls, crawls, walks and finally propels herself outside the safety of the circle into the presence of artist/performer Teri Wagner. Confronted with this possible mother figure or goddess, Fowlin sacrifices herself as she is manipulated, tied up and led away with the audience following.

Wagner washes Fowlin's feet in a large ceramic bowl in the middle of the second gallery. Fowlin, for the first time, acknowledges the audience as she playfully splashes them with water and the work, quite suddenly, shifts from a private act to a public one.

In the third gallery Fowlin enters a trance-like dance as she follows a snake-like path of flower petals. Fowlin appears lost in increasingly intense rhythmic, African-derived movement, but breaks out to make momentary contact with audience members. Fowlin, exhausted, falls into an embrace with Wagner.

In the final gallery Fowlin and Wagner thoughtfully walk, use simple gestures and quietly recite a poem. The work ends with each audience member placing a rock onto the alter of goddess figures, abstract sculptures and the performers' family pictures.

“Womantra” is an important journey for Fowlin, rich with images and symbolism. But this performance is not only for her as the audience is invited to reflect on their own, sometimes winding journey.

Complementarity / Integrative Collaboration

Feeding off my last post I wanted to comment on a book I've been reading - Creative Collaboration by Vera John-Steiner - in which she marks the difference between complementarity and integrative modes of collaboration.

Complementarity collaboration is acknowledging that "each individual realizes only a subset of the human potential that can be achieved at a particular historical period" (pg. 40). Basically, each person brings their unique skills to the task at hand. The synergetic coming together of all the participants' skills creates a product (thing, performance, whatever) that would be impossible with out the contributions of each individual. This is probably the more common form of collaboration.

Integrative Collaboration consists of individuals suspending differences in regard for the making of something new, unexpected and revolutionary. John-Steiner uses the example of Picasso and Braque in their quest to create Cubism. For a number of years they explored the same concepts, daily looked at each other's work, wouldn't "finish" a painting until the other said it was finished and some paintings are even signed by both of them. John-Steiner writes that this melding of artistic goals needs a prolonged period of committed activity, thrives through dialogue, risk taking and a shared vision.

When thinking of complementarity collaboration the examples that come to mind are most performances where the movement, music, lighting, costumes, text, video, everything else are all created by different people - usually organized by one person that's the director or choreographer. The example that comes to mind most readily for integrative collaboration is Goat Island Performance Group out of Chicago - they seem to have come together to create works that transcend individual preferences - I'm not sure it feels like that on the inside, but from the outside it seems this way.

My experience with improvisational performance certainly moves back and forth between, or should I say along, this continuum. Often when performing with Sharon Mansur, who've I've performed with for over 18 years, I feel we are in an integrative mode. What we do together is so singular to what we do together, it is only possible with that history. In other situations I see that people clearly bring their different skills - the amazing dancer, the funny one, the one who likes to partner, the talker, etc... - and these meld into a whole.

Obviously both these modes are valid though I do wonder how we can identify which modes works in what situation - what works best when? Is it a matter of time, outcome and/or individual personalities? All? Something else?