Today was our last rehearsal in the studio - yea! yikes! Monday morning Arachne Aerial Arts and I meet at 11am to rig their fabric for tomorrow night's first rehearsal in the theater. Today we ran through the piece from beginning to end without stopping and it went amazingly well - everyone mostly (mostly) knew what they were doing and doing it at the right time. We're still working on certain transitions (if I'm allowed to use that word) as well as clarifying intent in certain sections - but overall I think were getting there and right on track.
I've mentioned this before, but again, I find the hardest thing is the translation of language between the companies - I mean, we all speak english, but the language of intent, meaning & image is very different in post-modern dance, West African dance, Classical Indian dance and even aerial dance - in addition to the musicians. Each form - really everything - has its own short hand words and phrases for things that we don't often acknowledge or recognize on a day to day basis. So, when working with other forms all these short hands need to opened up and examined. One example is using just plain walking in the work - in post-modern work this is not uncommon and understood (at least by the performers) to have evolved out of a history of using common place movements in performance works. But when artists who don't know that history nor is it apart of their history then walking becomes something that you have to explain in some way or another. This process has been great for me as there are now many things that are apart of My ocean is never blue that would never have been apart of the work if it was just left up to me, or even my company. I look forward to performing all this work together on stage, with lights and an audience.
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