DCDanceBlog

i saw merce friday night. first of all, that harman hall is really amazing. dc is lucky to have such a gorgeous new performance hall right downtown.

ok, about the performance itself…i had a lot to say, but some has dissipated by now. i enjoyed it a lot, much more than i expected to. i hadn’t even planned on going initially, but got a free ticket at the last minute. the pieces were great–crwdspcr, second hand, and eyespace. the first in particular struck me as classic merce: absolutely unemotional, no clear relationships between the dancers, just clean, clear movements and a constant interweaving of dancers.

that’s what i took away from the entire show: finally, an understanding that merce’s work is only about pure movement, with nothing that can be interpreted as feelings, relationships, narrative, or even a connection to the music. just movement–although, frankly, i find that the movements he uses are not all that interesting to me, not all that inventive. they seem overwhelmingly based on ballet and a handful of clear, simple forms that fail to come close to utilizing the wide range of human movement. but then again, perhaps if one is trying to avoid creating any sense of emotion, it makes sense to steer clear of more evocative movement styles.

i also found that merce frequently seemed to transcend basic conventions about things like timing–for example, the transitions between movements within a piece often happened very quickly, without waiting the typical “beat, beat” as one section ended, before the other began. it seemed like there were a number of times when he failed to do things the “normal” way, and at first it struck me as jarring, as if he’d done something wrong. but i began to wonder then if i tend to find something attractive simply b/c it’s what i’m used to, done in the way that’s considered “good,” but that doesn’t necessarily have any innate aesthetic appeal.

it brought to mind a quote that john cage, merce’s partner in life and art, supposedly once said. to paraphrase, “i asked myself the reason why i found a particular thing beautiful, and when i looked more closely, there was none.” ie, nothing is inherently more beautiful, at it’s core, than anything else. anything can be beautiful. i’m familiar with this feeling–actually, i stopped participating in the field (the lab for watching and discussing choreography) b/c i found that anything could become beautiful to me if i watched it enough, and so i lost the ability to view pieces critically. that leads me to think, then, that if anything can be beautiful, the only element that’s vital in creating good and compelling art is remaining committed to an idea–sticking w/ it so that the parts cohere to the whole. and being honest w/ one’s self when something is filler vs when it genuinely contributes to the thrust of the piece.

one question the performance raised for me was about why we make art. a big reason i’m interested in art is the ability of the artist to move the observer emotionally. but b/c merce’s work isn’t about emotion, it’s appeal is largely aesthetic and intellectual–and i’m not sure most people can appreciate that. maybe that’s why people say merce is ahead of his time.

he was onstage that night, and i was really impressed w/ him. he got a chance to say a few things (despite a moderator who seemed uneasy about giving him the mic) and his insight and breadth of vision–even at 89–really struck me.

what’s interesting is that i’d thought i finally “got” merce and what’s he’s about–simply movement, no interpretation, etc–and then the next morning there was a review in the ny times about thursday’s performance in dc. and what it said was that the 2nd piece, second hand, actualy has a theme–the death of socrates! wow, that was a shock. that’s about as opposite of the “no meaning” idea as one could get.

and i heard later that merce’s longtime principal dancer, carolyn brown, suspected that merce always had a theme/meaning in mind for his dances, but that he never told anyone for fear of influencing how they approached the dance.

The Dinner Party: An evening of experimental dance, music and performance art

Tuesday, April 1, 8pm
The Warehouse Theater, 1021 7th St., NW
$5

In an effort to expand DC’s venues for in-progress, experimental, and new work, the Dinner Party is a new series of monthly open showings that will take place on Tuesday nights in the Warehouse Theatre downtown. The evening will end with a short facilitated audience discussion.

We are seeking performers of all kinds for the April 1 show! This will be a chance for dancers, musicians and other performers to show work to each other, and to present pieces that may not be fully polished or ready for a bigger venue. The Warehouse Theatre stage is small/medium and simple lighting is available. Pieces should be no longer than 15 minutes. To sign up, contact me at abramsamanda@hotmail.com.

We look forward to hearing from you or seeing you there!

1.  one of my yoga teachers said to the class the other day, “god is in the hips.”

any sense to this? i think i might buy it.

2.  i recently noticed while meditating that it suddenly became much easier to genuinely feel my breath moving through my body. it made me realize that frequently in the past, i’ve only imagined that i’ve felt it. so will this affect the way i move and how connected i am to my body?

The performance at joe’s the other night was great, really great. It felt much like what I’m imagining for an open showings series in dc—informal, cozy, pretty well-attended, and with quality performances on show. I think most people were pretty impressed with what they saw. Each performance was surprising in its own way, I thought, and each had a freshness about it.

After the performances, we had a boogie. It’s funny about boogies: sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. I’m a massive fan of them, so I was feeling sort of disappointed at first when I didn’t find myself genuinely inspired or feeling completely free. I thought maybe it was the fact that the audience’s chairs were still set up, so that some folks were lounging and watching us as we danced, making us feel sort of on show.

But as more dancers joined the group, I upped my moving and grooving and forgot about the audience. What I love most about boogies is just how free they can feel—how welcome everyone is, and how we’re all completely able to be our full freak selves, together and individually. At one point we gradually found ourselves following each other, until we wound up in a big circle going round and round and round. I was smiling so hard. I mimicked my friends, danced sensuously, jumped up and down, all depending on what music was playing. It was the greatest, most welcoming place, and the evening just took care of itself.

this photo is from a performance miss el and i did a couple weeks ago, at the joesphine butler parks house. it was part of “on the eights,” a show curated by nancy havlik.

i felt really great about the performance–it’s so nice to be able to feel that way once in a while. we’d worked on the structured improv for a month or so, trying to get the sections mapped out and develop our sense of what we were doing. it was hard, harder than i thought it’d be. i’m not sure if that was because there were two of us, two strong willed women with very different ways of approaching creativity and performance, or if sometimes it’s just hard to figure out what you’re doing, even as an individual. and can having two creators make the piece doubly strong, if it works at all? just a thought. i felt like there were certain elements that were a little weak, but the strong parts more than made up for them.

one thing i noticed about my own creative process is that i think a lot about overall structure and whether or not the various sections make sense as parts of a whole, and in the way that they flow together. i wonder if that’s partially b/c of my background in writing, where things have to connect and you can’t hide behind the mystery of abstraction. i’m not sure if others view the pieces they’re working on in the same way–or if they aim for a similar result.

i thought about that the other night, watching pearsonwidrig dance theatre at dance place. they did a piece on new orleans and hurricane katrina that, frankly, i wasn’t all that psyched about. i’d done a master class w/ them earlier in the week and it had been quite interesting, but the piece turned out to be surpsringly unsophisticated. there was definitely something still enjoyable about it, but it wasn’t what i’d expected. also, there was remarkably little dance! lots of running, jumping, rolling and posing, but not a lot of dancing–something the washington post’s barbara allen also remarked on in her review yesterday. tzveta kassabova, who was in the piece, did a solo was more dancey than anything else in the show–and was the best part of the night.

all this is to say that i wonder how peason and widrig viewed the separate elements of their piece during rehearsal, whether they entered into it and really gained a sense, or tried to, of the path the audience would travel. and whether they really tried to figure out exactly how the video would complement the dancers. i assume they did–and they’re very accomplished artists. it just shows how hard it is sometimes to really make something come together, especially something that unites a lot of different elements.

Performance / Dance Party
March 21 @ 8pm @ Joe’s Movement Emporium

Join Daniel Burkholder and the members of The PlayGround as they present an evening of daring dance and music followed by a rocking dance party!

Come early to see what we’re up to.
Stay late to party! (and check out the yummy bake sale)

Dance party will feature a wide range of music from world beat to techno to good old 70s funk.

With Amanda Abrams, Stephanie Quinones Bass, April Betty, Brian Buck, Daniel Burkholder, Ilana Silverstein, Lotta Lundgren, Roxann Morgan, Heidi Schimpf, Christine Stone Martin, Jonathan Morris, Boris Willis, Kathryn Harris and Lori Yuill and more suprise guests!

with SPECIAL GUEST DJs:

Monkey Knife Fight
featuring
DJ Evil Robot

The Details…

Friday, March 21st @ 8pm
Only $5!

Joe’s Movement Emporium
3309 Bunker HIll Road
Mount Rainier, MD 20712
www.joesmovement.org for directions

a question about smiling. or about expressions, really.

it’s funny how modern dancers are always so serious. if a specific facial expression isn’t written into a piece, we generally try to have no expression–which quickly turns into a face of stone. sometimes it’s a specific “performance” face, with eyes that look only at air; sometimes it’s just a lack of expression that hardens.

sorry to sound harsh. i don’t mean to be. i do it too.

smiling is a whole other thing. if it’s written in specifically, it can often wind up looking fake–unless the piece really supports a spontaneous act of happiness. and yet it’s funny to smile so rarely, since for many (most?) of us, dancing is ultimately about joy, the joy of movement. and audiences like to see happy, genuinely happy, people onstage. but i know it’s also true that a smile gives a piece a tone, a personality that might not align with the overall thrust of the piece.

what about an open face, one where the eyes do see something and the face is relaxed and available, if not smiling? i like that. but someone recently pointed out that dancers are most comfortable working from the neck down (unlike actors, who are the opposite, this person said), so dealing w/ the head and its expressions while also moving is perhaps a challenge. but we have more options; we should use them.

this is so amazing and beautiful!! improv everywhere strikes again! (thanks to shaun for finding this.)

as i walk around today, i find i keep thinking about an article about stretching that i read yesterday in the health section of the ny times. apparently flexible people use considerably more energy to move than inflexible folks! which goes against all my notions about “efficient movement.”

according to a researcher who studied flexbility’s impact on performance:

…Distance runners do not benefit from being flexible, he found. The most efficient runners, those who exerted the least effort to maintain a pace, were the stiffest.

That study involved 100 people who were tested with 11 flexibility tests. Then they walked and ran while the researchers measured their efficiency. Those who were the most flexible expended 10 to 12 percent more energy to move at the same speed as compared with the least flexible.

i guess it does make some sense–the more flexible you are, the more of your body you’re actually moving, and therefore you’re using more energy–but it’s weird that there’s a penalty of sorts for being more fully in one’s body.

photo by grant schmick

last night i led the contact jam at the dance exchange. i generally don’t like leading, which entails providing some kind of warmup exercise. personally, i hate contact classes and exercises. i seem to be in the minority here, but i find they bore me to death. most contact classes focus solely or largely on the physical aspects of contact, but what i love about it is how it integrates mind and body. working on contact exercises that are simply physical winds up making me feel like i’m memorizing “moves,” and that’s the last thing i want to do when i’m doing contact.

so because i don’t like contact classes, i don’t have a good repertoire of exercises to lead with. last night i was going to show up empty handed, but on the way over i suddenly had a brainstorm for a warmup, one that actually excited me. i think what i liked was that it addressed both the mental aspect of contact (being focused) with the physical. it’s below.

i’m so glad i did wind up being prepared, b/c we had a tiny jam that included two new people. i’m not sure if the exercise actually did them any good, but i have a feeling it was better than nothing.

last night’s exercise

• find a partner and think about something that happened to you today–anything. doesn’t have to be interesting. then tell each other.
• next, think of something else from your day. this time, one person put a hand on the other, and through the touch, try to tell what you were thinking of. that might mean leaning in, or breathing into that hand–figure out what it means for you. the other person should use their body to listen as closely as possible.
• now, both partners, think about how you’re feeling right now. one of you put your hand on the other’s body, but this time try to listen through that hand as closely as possible. the other person should try to speak through their body and the point of contact.
• do that a couple times. then use another part of your body to touch, not the hand. again, speak and listen through the point of contact as intently as possible.
• then switch roles w/o anyone having to say “switch.” just read when your partner is ready to switch from speaking to listening.
• then make the switching continuous, so that it occurs completely while in contact.
• and then you’re dancing!