Time Line Phrase

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I'm currently collaborating with Katie on a new duet that is based on a story from the Ellis Island archives. It is about a young Russian woman who comes to the States in 1905 to marry a man from her village - upon seeing her he decides not to marry her, leaving her stranded on Ellis Island. In developing this work Katie wrote a time line of all the important or transformative events in her life - out of these events she picked ten to which she created a short movement phrase. We took these short phrases and put them together in this longer movement phrase. We did this exercise because this young Russian women is currently at a big moment in her life and we wanted to tie them to some big moments in Katie's life. This video is a slightly edit version of the phrase. ;

Meditation and Movement

In rehearsals lately we've been exploring how different movement-based meditation practices can be framed for a performance setting. Last spring we started with sitting meditation and explored just what would develop if we took a sitting practice into a movement practice. Without trying to get too intellectual about it, we just sat and waited until we felt like moving. We tried, and continue to try, to use the same structure of simply keep coming back to your breath (if we're sitting) or our movement (if we're moving) when ever we get distracted. We have applied this to different contexts and structures including a walking meditative structure, one involving moving from one shape to another, and a duet structure in which one dancer is 'meditating' on the other.

What we've found is that when you put your attention on being attentive to the thing your doing (breathing, moving, walking) you move into a state of, what psychologist Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi calls, flow. This state can be described as single-pointedness, full immersion and operating with one's complete expanse of skills. This state of flow of course happens all the time when one is fully engaged, but by bringing in a meditative approach it seems to up the percentage of reaching such a state.

We'll be presenting this work in February at Joe's Movement Emporium in an intimate studio setting with the audience seated in the round. More details as it gets closer.

Follow and Follow and Follow

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We've been working on a number of improvisational structures with an internal, or even meditative aspect. This exercise is about following the point of physical contact with your partner without leading nor initiating. Both dancers are trying to just, simply follow with neither leading. It is not as hard as it sound and quite a bit of movement is created. At first we stay finger tip to finger tip, but as it develops we allow the point of contact to shift to different parts of the body. This video is a short excerpt from when Katie and Carrie were allowing the point to shift around.

Dancing, Healthcare, Belfast

Ann, Jenny and I after getting interviewed by BCC Northern Island

Earlier this month I, along with colleague Ann Berhands, went to Belfast to work with Jenny Eliot exploring dance in health care settings. Ann and I both work at Lombardi Cancer Center at Georgetown Hospital working with cancer patients, their families, nurses, and administrative staff. We go into individual patients' rooms to get them moving, work with people in the waiting rooms, staff at their desks, I teach a weekly dance class and we direct creative projects. Jenny, in Belfast, is an artist in resident at a psychiatric hospital as well as other facilities. We were in Belfast exchanging and learning with Jenny about the potentials for dance in health care.

Jenny is an amazing artist and teacher who runs a dance company for men who have suffered traumatic brain injury, works with a group of mentally challenged adults and recently started a senior dance company whose average age is over 90 years old. She also has created a training program for health practitioners in how to integrate dance into their daily work as well as teaching special workshops to a variety of populations. While in Belfast Ann and I followed her around for a week watching, learning, participating and teaching.

It was immensely useful to work with Jenny in the different settings in which she works, but equally useful was talking with her about bringing dance, and the arts in general, into health care. She is, as Ann and I are, very clear she is not doing dance therapy. But, instead, she is a dancer and choreographer who is engaging with people so they can participate in the culture of which they are apart of. She talks about creating an atmosphere in which dance is a recognized part of what happens in these health care settings, in which people have a right to participate in their culture - both as viewers and producers - and, in which these activities are not unusual.

I look forward to moving ahead with my work at Lombardi and figuring out ways in which dance can become an accepted, assumed part of what happens at a hospital. One of the things that I have noticed is though hospitals are a place for healing the body, the people who work there are often disconnected from their own bodies. And, at the same time, people who come into the hospital have their body examined as parts and pieces without attention to the whole. Dance and dancers have something to share with hospitals and the health care world about the wholeness of one’s body. So, I am going to stage an insurgency to integrate dance into Lombardi and the Georgetown U Hospital (big announcements coming in next month or so). Wish me luck.

Evidence #2

As I mentioned in my last post, I worked with Amii LeGendre this summer on her project Evidence - a solo performance created specifically for a single audience member. Again, in my last entry, I discussed the first solo I made for a fellow performer. The second solo I created was for a person I had never met, didn't know what she looked like and all I really knew about her was what she filled out on the questionnaire. It was a challenging work to create. Luckily she turned out to be awesome and we had a great time.

When I first got the questionnaire back from S. I read searching for a place to start - a clue on where to begin. In response to the questions "Recount a recent or reoccurring dream:" S. responded by writing "sometimes I dream of running around but never getting anywhere". Another questions asks "What do you love to watch?" and S. responded with "I love to watch the water at the lake or the river". These two responses came together in my mind to trigger the place for the solo and the first section. On the UWM campus there is a large circular fountain with benches around it (see photo, I circled the bench where S. sat) - that would be the place. I asked S. to arrive and sit on the bench and wait for me. Once she sat down I ran into the plaza, ran around the fountain 3 times and finally ran up to her saying, "I'm sorry I'm late I've just been running all day...". She laughed, which was good, because it was suppose to be kind of funny.

One of the strategies Amii taught us was to take a response from the questionnaire and see if it can connect to your life or history or experience in some way. From there you use your personal story to relate to the person you're whom your making the solo. Again, the response about enjoying being around water connected to my childhood. So I told S. they sotry of how my family owned a canoe as I was growing up and how we use to go out into the middle of the lake, swim off the side and have lunch. While I was telling her this story I folded her an origami boat which I gave to her. I tried to tie this specific task of folding the boat to my story to her response.

One other aspect of these solo that Amii asked us to explore was to build in a faluire. Do something you don't think will really work very well and then see how you and the audience member deals with that failure. I was thinking of this as I read S.'s response that the thing that frustrates her is having to do something she didn't know how to do. I thought of this man in San Fransisco whom I use to see at the beach balance very large stones on one another in almost impossible ways. He was like a Zen master in that it would take him forever to balance one stone on another and it took such patience to find that balancing point. I decided I would try to balance rocks in the same way even though I have no idea how to do it. As I tried to balance the rocks I told her the story of this guy (Bill Dan, it turns out is his name, see photos here).

Making and performing the solo felt like nothing I had done before - the immediacy of making it specifically for one person and then performing it only for them. As I mentioned I never met her before I performed it for her and I haven't had any contact with her since I've performed it. It is just this simple jewel of a thing that the two of us experienced together and located only in those 20 minutes.

Evidence Report #1

This summer, while in Milwaukee, I worked with Amii LeGendre on her project Evidence - which she describes as "a custom-made solo performance for a single spectator" which "is choreographed based on your response to a questionnaire about your life experiences."  In rehearsals Amii lead us through a process to create, frame and present our solos. Then, from a group of people who requested a solo, we each picked a person, got their questionnaire, and created and performed a solo just for them. The solos ranged in time from 10 minutes to an hour and performed in a site-specific location. And even though the solo was performed in situations in which other people could view it, it was performed for that one person.

The first solo I created was a "practice" solo for one of the other dancers, N., who was participating in the Evidence process. When I began going through her questionnaire I had no idea what to do and felt alittle lost. But over time I just kept reading and re-reading the answers she supplied and slowly ideas, images and movement possibilities kind of bubbled up. One of the first ideas was N.'s response to the question, "Who has helped you recently?". She responded by writing, "My closest friend is always helping me lighten up."I thought that is also something I could help with, so I constructed a section in which I danced (big, peripheral, sustained movements) and then stopped to tell her a really dorky joke - for example, "What kind of hair does the ocean have? Wavey.", or "Why does the flamingo lift up one leg? Because if she lifted up two she'd fall over." Total knee slappers. Another section consisted me doing 5 different movement phrases because 5 is her favorite number. There were a total of 6 sections and the performance lasted about 15 minutes.

What was so incredible about doing this performance was the attention that we gave to one another. For me there was no distraction, no gab between my intention and feedback from N. because it was very clear for whom and why I was performing this dance . She was seemed very focused and attentive during the whole time because, I believe, the solo was only for her. This single focus between us created a bubble in which we were operating and was quite magical. Because there was such an intimacy of communication there was instant feedback anytime I did anything. Even though I was fairly nervous before it started, once it started it felt like everything I did was easy and appreciated in a way that I have rarely felt from an audience - no matter how big or small.

In my next entry I'll discuss my experience creating and performing a solo for a complete stranger.

Dwell: Milioke

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A dance solo with text exploring ideas of home: leaving home, creating a home, being home. Developed over 7 weeks while in Milwaukee away from my normal home and family. Created and performed by Daniel Burkholder with original music by Seth Warren-Crow, DC Improvisers Collective and Chad Speed. Performed in conjunction with University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Dance Department.

Sections include:
Milwaukee German Festival
Yoga/America
Solo for Frank P Zeilder
What I miss most
Dorms
Home Solo