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Improv!! “jackie and wilson” by hozier

I went into this article thinking I was going to read a review; little did I expect there to be so many of the “big questions” about dance explored and packed into a relatively short conversation.

The article caught my eye because I worked very heavily with the solo form in my first few years choreographing. It really is a completely different process trying to translate your own ideas into another’s head, to make them understand and feel the pathways and momentum and flow of the sequence when they can never precisely experience it with you. Especially when choreographing a solo on someone else, not just setting choreography on a group, a choreographer really has to consider and come to understand the dancer’s body, how it likes to move.

But I’m interested in Lasica’s idea that creating work is really “trying to figure out what people are doing in space.” Not just seeing what it looks like, but really being able to read what people are DOING--whether this includes actual codified dance vocabulary or more everyday, pedestrian movements. Interactions and movements onstage can’t really be viewed in a vacuum. Spectators view these actions and spacial relationships through the lens of their own understanding of physical behaviors and their cues/meanings, just as we read other people’s physicalities in everyday life in order to get a more complete sense of what they’re trying to convey. In this case, how might people of different demographics/identity groups experience and understand pieces in different ways?

#dance

also http://www.laban-movement-analysis.com/content/who-was-irmgard-bartenieff-and-what-are-bartenieff-fundamentals-bf

and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A52tRjSIbqg&index=1&list=PLw1n5P8VJNSzOaem03AvKpSJ9ILlpWbir

I've been hearing (and identifying) the name "Bartenieff" and the concept of "Bartenieff Fundamentals" for years, but I've always felt like there was never a time where I was able to hear the whole story and philosophy...just a quick overview before launching right in. (And this happens a lot in dance classes. Also in life.)

But it's good to be reminded of the theory/methodology I HAVE learned while gaining a more thorough understanding of what I was doing. The idea of developing neuromuscular connectivity through practice and repetition not only reminds me of the body's ability to pick up physical habits (and that one may have to work hard to unlearn and change inefficient habits). But especially in using the term "bodymind," this really makes me think about the plasticity of the brain. Not only are the parts of the body all in connection, each affecting and relating to the other. The body is also connected to the mind---and with continued, structured practice, the brain can adapt, learn, and refine new actions and patterns of movement. While Bartenieff Fundamentals are useful to keep in mind in order to cultivate the muscular efficiency of the body, they also offer the hopeful suggestion that one can learn and that, with practice and patience, one can expand and refine one's abilities---a very comforting idea.

#dance #bartenieff

Lots of musings tonight.

First, it never ceases to amaze me how small the dance world really is. The fact that I know a good amount of these names, can picture their faces...that I've actually taken class with a couple of them...It definitely teaches the power of networking, certainly. But also, I'm just blown away by the interconnectedness of the dance world....The person I saw in this piece is now in a piece by someone who's taught me or some of my friends, this choreographer and that choreographer actually work together, etc...It's hard to wrap my head around.

But on another note, it was very interesting to read such short descriptions of pieces. And reviews are like that a lot...But how are we supposed to reconstruct a piece, an experience, with only a few sentences and the major details? What does it ask the reader to think about, to meet the text halfway with imagination? Again, the translation/distillation of dance into words, however carefully chosen, can be...tricky.

But I'm also interested in GIllian Walsh's concept of dance as non-fiction...the body is a concrete reality, yes. Is that more or less important than the stories it can tell or the questions it can ask?

#dance

I am SO very glad that I decided to look up Alexandra Beller as a micro-history exploration. Her expertise in and cultivation of release technique is immediately clear. Her dancers have an excellent sense of their bodies' relationships to gravity. At one moment, they will seem almost light and buoyant. But most notable is the way in which her dancers suddenly, smoothly, sequentially find their way into the floor from any lifted position. Paradoxically, there is certainly a specific kind and level of control needed to achieve that look and feeling of effortlessness. They know how their bodies want to and will move.

On another note, I am greatly amused by the subject manner of "Give Up, or A Bird Lying On Its Back." While humorous, it definitely exposes the difficulty in explaining dance with words...and in being able to express something specific and articulate with pure movement. Of course, that does not mean that we can't keep trying. But it also poses a question: is any one mode of expression most effective? Or is a combination of two (or more) necessary to get a full understanding of something (if even possible)?

#dance #alexandra beller

"more than just an amusing exercise in blending dance and technology"

This is fascinating! It completely challenges the definition of dance as something that champions and celebrates the human body. Rather, this incorporates an almost post-humanist element to the discussion--is dance more about the movement than the variety of body that produces it? (Myself, I have gone through so many definitions, noticing inconsistencies or exceptions to the cases everywhere as I learn more about the field, that I've settled somewhere around "existing and being present in space and time.")

Most interesting is the notion that the robot's "performance" actually inspires emotion in viewers. The robot is not simply a technical aspect of the piece, a formalist or purely aesthetic structure. It is a player, a participant, part of not simply a human-robot interaction, but a relationship depicted onstage. (This introduces another question: would it still be considered dance if there were not a human body onstage to interact with the robot?) Conversely, the human creator of the piece was inspired by his tendency to adopt the "obedient, emotionless characteristics of a machine." Can a human body feel and look robotic while a robot inspires kinetic empathy in an audience? Or is a robotic, manufactured, mechanical body simply the perfect metaphor for a human who has cut off their emotions? Is our emotional capacity the key and essence to our humanity? How do we address or capture this onstage?

I am excited to see the field continue to ask these questions as technology improves and evolves.

#dance #Huang Yi #Huang Yi & KUKA

" A panel of distinguished women of color in the ballet world will gather for what promises to be a lively and stimulating discussion on how dance as an art form can help organizations and individuals adapt and recover from the stress of racial segregation, diminished resources and social disenfranchisement."

This is a wonderful thing. Dance (and most art in general) is not a medium that gives people easy answers; its very nature invites and debatably necessitates discussion (about everything from the significance of a single gesture to the narrative behind an interaction to the intention and message behind the piece). As this is a project that is meant to tackle complex issues inside and outside of the dance world, it is wise of the company to take an active role in cultivating that discussion, to get the ideas out of individual audience members' heads and to initiate the conversations and connections necessary to enact change. This is not just performance; this is engagement.

It is infuriating that racial diversity and representation in ballet is still a problem. As I've insisted many times, an art form that focuses on and celebrates the beauty and capabilities of the body should not discriminate, should not leave certain bodies out of the celebration. The idea that an entire race cannot fit the "aesthetic" of an art form is ludicrous. Ballet already has a history of prioritizing a certain body type. This is problematic in itself, but using this precedent as an excuse as a means to exclude people of color makes it even worse; it should not be accepted.

But this seems like a prime way to address it, as "the project explores the experience of the black ballerina as a window into issues of race, identity and isolation..." There is no longer room to "legitimize" discrimination with the excuse of the ideal "type," backed by the inertia caused by many years of systematic precedent. There must be a reconsideration of and by the system at large; projects like this can serve as the push to start the momentum forward.

#dance #ballet #representation in ballet

“A good number of museums are really looking at dance and saying how can this art form, which up until now has mostly been presented in theaters and thought of as a kind of entertainment, be integrated into art history.” --Philip Bither

This article (and the movement it describes) really excites me. I have spent several years studying an interarts approach to history--how visual arts, performance, writing, music, etc. have all developed and connected with each other and with the greater social contexts surrounding them. So it is quite a gratifying experience to read about museum curators and choreographers beginning to collaborate--and for dance to be taken seriously enough as a part of art history [and not just a means of entertainment] to be "curated." Visual arts and physical performance are not so different after all. As a stranger once told me on the NJ Transit when we found ourselves discussing our chosen art forms [his photography, mine dance and theatre], "It's all gesture."

There is one difference, however, that might present tension, which I find more intriguing than worrying--performance is ephemeral. Paintings, sculptures, etc. have a physical reality, a tangible, finite nature that does not have to be recorded. They exist statically, stably. Will museum curators find it necessary to play a recording of the dance performance when there are not performers present to complete the exhibit? [Which brings up another question about the values of live vs. recorded dance...] I would be most interested to see how the space, with its works being constantly in display, looks and feels different when a dance is taking place within and around it. What can one see in the space when it's inhabited by performing bodies that one could not see when it was empty? And what can we notice about the form, aesthetics, or artistic intentions of a dance piece when it is taken out of a traditional space and placed in the context of pre-existing, inanimate work? I am eager to see such work--and to see what I find.

#dance #dance in museums #interarts

Dance should celebrate ambition, not just the beauty of motion, says Sarah Crompton

My goodness, what a question.

This article reviews several recent performances and developments within the art form (citing some historical ones for reference) to explore and ponder--"Is this an art form that tells us a story – or one that simply celebrates the beauty of the human body in movement?"

Narrative ballets, which the article discusses, are the first thing that might come to mind when thinking of dance as "storytelling." And while this is certainly a good example and important to the development of the art form, I do hope that more contemporary choreographers do not shy away from dance's ability to tell stories. [Simultaneously, while the human body is of course a central focus of dance, what happens when a dance pushes beyond the idea of exploring the body's possibilities and instead begins to celebrate only the virtuosity that can be achieved by highly trained, able bodies? Part of (if not entirely) what makes dance so powerful, especially as a storytelling medium, is its ability to spark kinetic empathy between the audience and the performers. We all have bodies. We all hold some part of human history in our physical beings, in our DNA. We should all be able to recognize some very human connection through that. But what happens when only idealized bodies are allowed to represent all? And can a project or a piece that prioritizes the form and line of the human body spark the same kind of empathy and effect in audiences as one that prioritizes a storyline that is simply told and enhanced through movement?]

#dance

This article caught my eye because of the photo of Tere O'Connor's Sister--I saw it at ADF this summer. And I am glad that it did! I have never heard of American Realness, but anything that seeks to experiment and push boundaries of dance and performance, to comment and expand on our definitions and beliefs on both, is fine by me. It's also astounding to hear about Sister again and to realize how few images were left in my immediate memory. How do we remember dance? Through still images? Through feelings, through movement qualities? Through program notes? Through memories of going to the performance itself?

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