DCDanceBlog

nurejev was on tv. is it just me or is there something very erotic about him?

so i watched him. and it made me think of what it is that i like about movements. because i kept looking right next to his moving body. not at it. not at the muscles and limbs and hair and head and all that. but right next to the crazy complexity of his moving body. right next to where the body parts where swishing around in the air.

and i sort of know why i do that. because that’s where i feel the movement is. right next to where the body just moved. in the air that has just been pushed to another place.

funny. now one of the people that they interviewed in the documentary talks about nurejev’s dancing being erotic. as i understand it, she’s talking about the execution of his movements and his persona on stage being erotic. to me it just always seems that he had that horny look in his eyes.

but he was amazing. and i ashamed to say it, but the whole ballet dancer/russia exile thing is so romantic in the stupid artsy way. it’s just so hard to resist the heroic story of nurejev and baryshnikov. and white nights didn’t get any worse by throwing in the destiny of gregory hines character either. gosh… i miss movies with isabella rossilini.
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(old post about what i think is the same thing as what i was thinking of when i watched nurejev:)

i realised the other day that what i am attracted to in dance and
choreography is the movement. the very actual movement. the body that
moves.

not the body in a shape, a form, a pose, a formation.

but the body that moves between shapes, forms, poses and formations.
what i can’t touch. the movement that is gone once it happens. the
body that moves between and through shapes, forms, poses and
formations.

it’s the between i like.

the form is necessary. but it’s the going to it and from it that i like.

that’s why i can’t love ballet. or paul taylor or petipa or
cunningham, or any dance that strives for a form, a pose.

and that’s why i love the dance that doesn’t treat the pose as the destination.
that’s why i love the dance who’s destination is the path to and from.

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i have never thought about this before. it’s crazy.

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wait, i take it back, i take it back. i should say: that’s why i can’t
love ballet or paul taylor or petipa or cunningham, or any dance that
strives for a form, a pose, AS MUCH.

because ballet or cunningham’s stuff travels. a lot. and it has
elements that isn’t pose oriented. but it definetely goes for shapes
in a way that in turn shapes the dynamics of the overall movement of
the choreography. it many times feels as if the shapes are the whole
point of travelling in space at all. this makes me think of what
cunninghams pieces would look like if the still shapes (the “breaks”
in the flow of the movements) were taken out.
also, it makes me think of how this is one element that is very hard
in terms of technique. meaning, it’s the moving parts of movement that
is hard. not the arriving.

and to never arrive, never go into shapes, is the hardest.

i saw gesel mason’s performance, whose body is this?, at the millennium stage yesterday. i really enjoyed it. it contained a variety of dancers, a spoken word artist (who may also be a dancer), a live musician, text by the dancers, and video.

one of the things i loved about the piece was that gesel used the space in a very novel way. instead of putting the whole performance on the stage, where practically no one can actually see anything, she added a second, smaller, platform about 30 feet back, and then split the chairs so that they were on either side of a walkway between the two stages. it meant that just about everyone could see, and it added an intimate and playful feel to the space that changed it completely. usually i find the millennium stage to be sort of awful, almost like the kennedy center doesn’t care enough to make it user-friendly, but this arrangement fit perfectly with a performance that was emotional and very varied.

gesel’s dancers were great and it seemed that each one’s personality was able to shine out. i liked the choreography, as well as the text spoken between two women who were just being themselves, not playing roles.

another thing i really noticed was how wonderful and captivating it was when the spoken word artist piped up. she seemed to be trained as an actress, and her voice resonated with meaning and emotion and irony. i must say, she made it immediately clear why certain dance pieces that contain text are more effective than others–so much of it is in the presentation! and most dancers are simply not trained to speak…though i’m sure that can be overcome.

i just got back from dancing in logan circle. i’d been wanting to develop a schedule of rehearsing outside for awhile, but had been putting it off. obviously it’s a convenient thing to do in some ways–no need to get a studio, no times i have to commit to–but i’ve also been attracted to the basic idea of dancing outside for some time. i love the idea of incorporating dance into everyday life, and incorporating everyday life into whatever i create.

it was hard, though. i came down there warmed up and ready to go, and there weren’t many people around, which was nice. but still, the cars would stop at the light and, i imagined, watch me, and there was a constant procession of folks walking their dogs. at first i was so self conscious that my breath wasn’t coming quite normally, and my body felt tight.

but i focused on just moving, and little by little my body relaxed and i was able to be more present. and eventually, to my surprise, i was actually able to create some set choreography! i hadn’t expected that at all, but it came quite easily and i even liked what i did. i’d hoped that somehow the traffic of pedestrians and bench sitters might weave its way into my movement, but that didn’t really happen, though i did remain aware of the comings and goings of people throughout.

instead, what did find its way into my dance was the sky, and the trees, and the open space and the traffic lights and the grass. it was a beautiful day, and being outside made it so easy to “see the space” and let my chest open up to take it all in.

and as i became comfortable in that place, and confident, the people became extraneous. in a way, i was performing for them in my mind, but i was most of all there with myself, in my body, in a space that had become mine.