Thursday, July 31, 2008

vaudeville & stepping


I can’t really explain it any better: all I want is to make dances that have no steps.

I think that there is something fundamental in this inquiry. The presence of steps makes me aware of a creator of steps. I am looking at the origin of the material as though the dance maker where upstage under a spot light – in my mind, always keeping me at arms length from the experience of the event.

I was having dinner last night with a friend, a very accomplished dance maker – one of his reflections this year were that he wanted to feel greater connections with the performers within a dance – a human desire to be connected. This is an internationally recognized choreographer, and he, above all, wanted to FEEL a closeness with the performers, rather than the craft of step-smithing.

My experience as a performer currently is that I must acknowledge the audience when I perform. In some way I must do this. I don’t have to literally look at them and wink, but, I energetically must acknowledge that “here we are together in this room”. You are looking at me and I am up here doing things to try to be appreciated by you. But underlying that is an essential requirement to acknowledge one another. That is really what an audience member wants. This is what I imagine what the pre-cinema vaudeville culture delivered – performers connecting in a very raw direct way with people.

[This line of thought in performance, always begins to get close to contradicting everything I believe in - a desire to deliver authenticity in within the performative environment, but within the right context, I at least imagine, that those early vaudeville shows were hysterical and at moments heart breaking.]

I wonder in those early performances, probably in basic spaces placed in neighborhoods for workers, if there was a focus on an investigation of step making, or on making people laugh, or scream or cry or to simply take a trip within the energy of the performers.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

SFCD - choice/authorship/illusion


Artistically and philosophically I am uninteresting in being the sole decider of the choreography. I am interested in facilitating to a dancer a developed skill set for which they can learn how to make their own choices for their dancing, to give them the experience of what it feels like to have to take responsibility for their dance, their choices, their actions.

[I also frame this passage with the assumption that the dancer/dance maker is already clear that with this sense of responsibility for make their own choices, that they respond to the responsibility of their audience. I believe there is an underlying assumption, with few exceptions, that a performer is working toward connecting to their audience, to actually have an intention to transmit some kind of information – not to fall prey to egotistical self-indulgence. Part of this exploration is to articulate this space where within the context of communication, in some way, freedom meets responsibility.]

I am not currently interested in giving value to the content of the actions (what one does), but rather, that the action of the choice itself becomes the subject matter. The timing of choices, the placement of choices, the engagement of formal or anarchistic composition, the continuity of the development or subversion an ongoing set of ideas – how the choices moves the ideas along, like in a conversation. This is what I am interested in, in terms of choreographic material. Given that of course, the content of a choice affects an enormous amount onto the dance, but the content is often what is only seen - its context of placement and relating-ness is often deprived of investigation.
We watch the choice making AS choreography. Impulse, judgment, decision and then action - is choreography. And implies much more.

I want to expose my students to the premise that as a dancer (one who creates through the body), they have autonomy and choice. I want this also to be interesting and fun to them. Sometimes this is an issue that comes up late in the dancers development, since when a dancer is younger there is still an emphasis on wanting to be told what to do and to receive affirmation from the one who gave the orders.
This is a huge step from conventional models of dance expression, where the dancers are the ‘fulfiller’ of the choreographic desires of an external source. Choreography by its literal definition is ‘body writing’. The act of dancing suggests this SENSE of self-authorship.
My interest choreographically, is to pass the baton of authorship onto the dancers themselves. It is only when a dancer is given this space to make choices within the dance, that the dance can transcend from the space of the illusion of something real, to something that is real. All choreographers worth a grain of salt are after the same thing – a dance that feels as through its actually happening for the first time, right there in front of you, a human experience occurring.

Why not actually train that way?

My opinion is that the experience of a living dance cannot be duplicated or controlled no matter how skilled at illusion the performer or director may be.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Thinking Motion - teaching notes from San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, summer program 2008


Energy is real.
Energy is language.

“Asking Motion” “Thinking Motion”

How can we re-illuminate the real –ness of energy in dance? How can we recognize physical intention or physical actions with the same level of clarity that we recognize choreographic steps?

(In Dance)
What we see is not so much the physical steps and sequences of steps, as building blocks that exist separate from the body – instead we see the human being as their true selves, in ‘thought motion’. The bodies movements can be seen as residual effects of choice making and intention. The body becomes a medium to the content – similar to how linseed oil carries the raw pigment for a painting.
Rather than objectify dance as something that is outside the human being which must be mastered, we instead witness the state of a human being living within the moments of the dance context. In this sense, dance becomes the record of the human experience. We become the vessels, to and for, our own expression.

(For Performance)
We practice physical and mental skills that enable us to negotiate the variables of an ever shifting circumstance. We work with an expressed intention of articulating our experience that is only relative to our capacity to perceive through our senses. We work with developing our awareness of inner perception, such as being conscious of our ever shifting impulses to move, and practice exercising free will to either respond or not respond to these impulses. We are also working with perceiving the immediate external environment that we choose to perform within, as well as any conceptual -criteria that we deem to work with.
The performer is applying all that is perceived from their life and history, their desires, prejudices, fears, tastes, intentions, aesthetics and abilities - smacked up against the moment of the now. Also, taking into account the responsibility of the performer toward their audience. With a greater range of freedom of expression, comes greater responsibility to be sensitive to the use of that freedom. Remembering always about being a host to your guests – assuming that there is a conscious desire to communicate and not abuse.
If a performer is interested in connecting to their audience, the audience needs to know what the parameters are and what is expected of them. This is basic psychology, if you want somebody to trust you and follow you, you have to make the feel comfortable. This has nothing to do with content, but everything to do with communication. Otherwise you end up with a passive audience feeling bewildered, objectifying the performers in a state of confusion and distrust. Which unfortunately is an all to common experience in dance today.

How do we continue to further this language of communication within the performance environment – human to human in real time and in real space.