Process for creating a work Part I

From an interview with dancer and dance writer Emmaly Weiderholt for her recently launched new blog Stance on Dance

EW: What is your process like when you create work, particularly when you create an improvised piece? 

CB: When I create a piece through improvisation I generally have a sense of what I want to learn from the work. I always start with questions about topics that are important to me and determine how improvising might illuminate those topics. Sometimes I will start with a question that has no literal answer, but comes from a philosophical location. For example my last work asked, “What does gratitude look like?” I never intended to portray gratitude in a literal way; I wanted to pursue an expression of the energy of gratitude. For this work the dancing became tinted by this inquiry. When I feel clear I am going to pursue an improvised work I begin a training program based on some of those initial questions. The training becomes the ‘practice’ and the practice trains the mind and the body to align. The hope is to refine an ability to observe (physical/emotional, immediate surroundings, imagination) and then respond to those observations. Only through observation can the performer orient themself within the situation and begin to make choices. In this sense improvisation reflects real-life (we perceive what is happening and we respond accordingly) and the practice becomes the choreography. I refer to the literal translation of the word choreography of ‘dance writing’ – the performer has to author, edit and enact their dancing spontaneously.

There exists a popular assumption that rehearsing an improvised piece is an oxymoron. Since improvisation suggests spontaneous expression, the question is argued, ‘Wouldn’t spontaneity cease to exist if it were rehearsed?’ Everything we know about how to think or behave we have learned and therefore rehearsed. Improvisation is not about creating something that didn’t previously exist; it’s about a way of expressing ideas. To make a parallel, I could say it’s due to my thirty-eight years of practicing the English language that I am able to spontaneously form complex concepts into language out of thoughts or physical perceptions. I can express spontaneously while utilizing my experience from rehearsing how to read and write English. This might sound like a cliché, but the truth of the matter is that we are in a state of spontaneous expression every waking moment of our lives. So to me, creating with improvisation is very natural.

This process of making an improvised piece takes an enormous amount of patience and persistence. You have to keep practicing and developing how to become a more and more effective choreographer, editor and dancer all in one package. The improvised process can be very challenging because it requires one to confront a lot of barriers within oneself. But that’s what it’s about. That’s precisely what can be so beautiful about it, as well as dangerous. You create the language, context, intention and even aspirations of the piece and then have to sit back and let the dancers (or yourself) find their way through. To see a dance actually occur in front of your eyes, knowing that they are creating it on a tissue of support, is a powerful thing to see.