Rehearsal Wed Jan 26: need to narrow it down!

In The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp talks about ruts and grooves. I don't remember quite how she proposes one move from a rut to a groove, but I'm sure glad I made it out! This semester is so much better than the last- now I'm groovin. I have ideas upon ideas, and now have the task of determining which ones to use for the upcoming "unshowing" next Monday.

Today in rehearsal, we started with contemplative dance practice (meditation, personal movement, and group interaction). I structured the group part to ask the dancers to engage with the little torn up bits of paper I introduced on Monday. Then I asked them to move the papers together to one point, with the idea that the air was thicker at one end of the room to make the dimensions of the original graph present. (I soon decided this wasn't necessary-I was directing too much at once, and was more interested in other things.) Tasks within that goal of moving the points included to move the papers on body parts other than the hands, and to work together so that one of them was the vehicle and the other assisted. For a little while I also challenged them to make their goal point somewhere in the air (decided on without talking about it), and to solve the problem that their papers wouldn't stay there without their help. They ended up with papers piled on their heads. I especially liked how they had to search for more papers without looking in order to keep the rest balanced.

Next I set up some gym mats standing up on their ends as obstacles, and put the goal point on the other side of the room. I asked them to get the papers across cooperatively, and taking turns so that whoever held the paper was stationary while the other repositioned to receive it again to continue the chain. This gave some fun results, especially when the paper didn't do exactly as they planned- when it fell on the ground, both dancers reacted by remaining stationary as if they still held it, as they tried to grab it up again from where they already stood. Last, I asked them to repeat this process with an imaginary piece of paper, which left us with a beautiful cooperation of careful movements. I'm glad I began with open space to let them explore with the paper alone first, as their discoveries and curiosity there carried over to this new landscape in a fun way.

As the two dancers moved around the obstacles, the images were very interesting. When they disappeared from my view at one point, something funny happened that I missed- that was a significant loss of information, which I was going for. Another time, they had the paper behind one of the mats, and lifted it over the mat to where I saw it again. I was really intrigued by what I could see when parts were also hidden from me between the two of them- I think this is more interesting than working individually or in full view. Some sense of the process is lost with the blocks, but with what is established in view, I can guess and sense that the tentative and awkward movements were also continuing behind the mats.

To continue what we began Monday, I read free-association words to CT, while CM took photos. We created CT's phrase, and I asked CM to take photos from the perspective of the floor. We'll work more on this Monday.


More importantly, I need to decide what to do for the unshowing on Monday evening. My assignment for comp class is to do a trio. Well, I've only got two dancers, so it's fortunate for me that what a trio is exactly is up for interpretation.

I'm debating between having a guest either from the audience or from my Visual Language class come to take photos as the third person with both dancers moving, or whether to have them do as we did Monday and today with one photographing the other, and considering the camera as a third person. ...I also have the choice between showing their free-association phrases for this, or using the idea of the paper transport and obstacles. Is that too much to do both ideas?

If I have a guest take pictures while my dancers work together across the obstacle field, that would be an interesting situation, for sure... How it relates to my purpose to address emotional stimuli is a harder question. I'd be covering the loss of information in media translation through the effect of the blocks, the passing of the paper and reinterpretations of how to handle it are like how we each handle the stimuli differently, and the photos are the media themselves and bring up the falseness of preserved emotional moments... I don't think that's what people will take from it, but I'm up for any odd feedback. I just need to decide if it really should be narrowed down. Or heck, maybe I don't want to anyway... In Monday's rehearsal I'll let them know what we'll be doing.