Minna Harri on choreography

Dead/Alive

2011-11-29T15:33:00.000-08:00

We had a photo session with the amazing Robbie Sweeny again.

Dead/Alive will premiere in February 2012, but I'll show sneak-peak of the process this coming Wednesday and Thursday at Garage.

Ronja Ver, the unparalleled Finnish-born dancer will appear on video.

Get your tickets in advance, these shows will sell out!

For tickets and info visit http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/205571

Dead/Alive is about dealing with mortality. It's going to be ugly: pain and loss. In the end everybody will die. What's not to love? Ronja Ver (on video), Emily Leap (on video), Minna Harri (live) perform.

Uncanny Colours

2011-06-05T22:25:00.000-07:00

Aged four or five I sneaked into the walk-in closet in my maternal grandparent’s house. Really a narrow and deep storage room it housed seasonal clothing currently not in use, piles of folded sheets, boxes with linen handkerchiefs (some with vintage cartoon prints), long forgotten fur hats, silk gowns last worn a quarter century earlier. I think I was told not to go there, but I went anyway. I was very quiet and made sure not to make a mess.

Center of the floor there was a hatch atop an earth cellar. I had no intention of going THERE. I had been warned against it, but that was really not necessary. The cellar was a dark and murky place, chilly and small. You had to hold an electric torch to find the right jam, bottle of sherry, or the bag of potatoes you needed. I had often seen my Grandma open the hatch, then lean it against the wall while she climbed down the ladder a few rungs. She directed the flashlight with the other hand. She was always fast. (She is always fast, whatever she does.) Ostensibly I had to keep an eye on the hatch so it wouldn’t bang close. Probably she appreciated the company, the connection to other people while down in the cellar.

The most magical thing in this secret room was a ball of yarn that my Grandma had around that time. She had a broad, shallow basket where she kept her yarn and mending needles. (She never knit.) I crept under the hanging winter coats and saw the basket. And there was a round, perfect thing of unidentified nature. I took it out and brought it to light for inspection. I had never seen anything simultaneously so vibrant and so unreal. It was wool, but I had never seen the color before. It seemed to radiate, to suck the now grey environment into its own universe. There was plenty that looked familiar, but unmistakably it was not that familiar thing. It wasn’t blue. And it was not green. I found it breathtakingly beautiful.

Recognizing familiar in something new and strange is uncanny. I later asked my parents about it. It was dark turquoise. They found it nothing special.

No colour combination has ever sucked me into beauty the way green and blue juxtaposed does. You’d think that’s everywhere in the nature. Maybe that’s why.

There used to be a whole theoretical construction in Western art criticism that defined shape and line as rational or related to concept, to the male principe. Colour was irrational, emotional, physical, feminine. Of course, the idea of intellect, emotion and somatics being separate entities or forces in humans has turned out to be an illusion - as is the division between feminine and masculine. Understanding the uncanny of a colour entails acknowledging the conceptual nature of our perception of it.

Laura Arrington has been working with the colour teal lately. She clothes dancers in teal leather pants. She covers guitars, megaphones and large areas of fabric in teal sequins. She paints everything else she gets her hands at, teal. For me no other color like that to mark the remove from everyday. The shade of teal she has chosen is flat. Not the deep, vibrant turquoise of my childhood, but the blunt, opaque teal of inexpensive man-made materials.

Facing something unrecognizable while acknowledging its familiarity is uncanny.

Apart from choice of shade, the strategy Arrington employs here is excess. Everything must be painted same colour. You don’t much see that in the wild. Objects are not decorated with a few sequins just so here and there, they are doused in sequins. The actresses don’t just let their tears roll down, they SCREAM and trash around on the ground shooting with fire arms. This excess swells inside a spectator from unknown sources opening the places I did not know I encompassed.

Soloists and Moving Masses

2011-05-19T18:14:00.000-07:00

Being involved in two separate creative projects simultaneously is good. TOXIC and Things are in many ways each others opposites, doubles.

TOXIC is an ensemble piece in the meaning that there are no soloists. There is a continuous movement between a choir and a group of dancers. Performers keep switching and swapping roles. Things, on the other hand, is performed by a bunch of soloists that sometimes involve themselves in duets and group scenes. Considering the basic concepts in these two pieces it makes sense.

I'm wondering if the choice in its egalitarianism - in both cases - is very Finnish. And then again, maybe it is more symptomatic of the arts in our time. Contemporary performing arts rarely contain large supporting troupes anymore. A soloist doesn't need them when they have the audience to relate to. A group of people forming a backdrop for the individual artist would be redundant. (Obviously I'm sidestepping possible practical reasons, like physical resources, here.)

At this point the idea of a large 'corps de ballet' behind soloists becomes fascinating again. Class and narcissism are seen very differently from 100 years ago - or are they?

I hear that locally Catherine Galasso is experimenting with a big supporting group. I haven't seen that work yet, and don't know about the underlying ideas, but I suspect it will be interesting.

2011-05-16T15:47:00.000-07:00

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS:

We are looking for curious, generous participants for Dance Camp, an experimental dance incubator to be held at The Garage (975 Howard) from 10am-5pm on Saturday July 9th, 2011.

Dance Camp follows the model of an unconference: it is a flat hierarchy where all participants both lead inquiries and support those of others. Dance Camp is not about sharing what you have made in the past or generating something for immediate performance, but about taking the risk of really going into a new idea. Participants bring preoccupations, fixations, questions, and curiosities --- be they about choreography, dramaturgy, writing, curation, or generating material --- and explore them with other generous folks through short discussions and workshops. Think of it like a collaborative mini-residency.

The deadline for Dance Camp applications is Friday June 3rd, 2011. We are looking for people at all stages of their careers, who are doers and talkers, who are excited about their own work, but also willing to invest in the processes of others. All camp-ers are expected to stay for the full day.
To apply, please send dancecamp@somethingmodern.org :
1) a short statement about something you have been exploring in your own work, and how you might want to share that inquiry by testing it with others
2) a previous or ongoing work that you would like to share with the organizers (online links or attached documents much appreciated; email if you would like to send a dvd).

There is no fee for Dance Camp.

Organizers:
Kate Elswit (Something Modern / Stanford University)
Minna Harri (Minna Harri Experience Set)
Petra Kuppers (The Olimpias / University of Michigan)
Joe Landini (The Garage)

Some photos of TOXIC

2011-04-29T17:29:00.000-07:00

Robbie Sweeny, a brilliant San Francisco based photographer took some pictures of a TOXIC rehearsal last week. Check out his other work as well, I really like it.
http://inguttersandstars.blogspot.com/
TOXIC, of course, will premiere on June 10&11 at Garage.

International Home Theater Festival

2011-02-02T21:43:00.000-08:00

This March I'll be showing new work during the International Home Theater Festival. This fine event was conceived by the Berkeley based writer and performer Philip Huang last year. Makers create an event in their own homes and invite the public to participate or witness.

What I am most excited about is the opportunity to think of a performance event in a new context. The architecture is decidedly different from a theater or studio space. There will be no built divide between audience and performers. What will that mean in terms of performing? Will I acknowledge the closeness and intimacy by peeling down layers of performative state - or will I rather go further into the realm of representation?

The intimacy of a private space that becomes semi-public space for a moment is an enticing opportunity. This will surely effect the experience for all parties. For me as a choreographer this is a chance to build a more immersive experience than in a performance space. The structures, sounds, smells, lights and knick knacks of a private home will become a part of the work and start interact with it both loaning meaning to it, and taking meaning from it.

I have no way of knowing what the audience expectations will be, but it will be interesting to experience the encounter. I'm composing audience surveys, and I find it thoroughly exciting!

Philip Huangs's idea is to empower artists to take initiative. Philip wants to set our minds free from third parties; this might mean institutions, funds and curators whose intervention is often seen elementary for the process of making and distributing art. His Home Theater Manifesto urges artists to make art in whatever circumstances they find themselves, with the resources they do have. A work of art doesn't become more worthwhile if it has been funded or produced by a third party - by someone outside the artist themselves or the immediate audience. This second year of its existence Home Theater Festival will go international. Events are scheduled to take place in Australia, Japan, North America and Europe.

http://philiphuangpresents.blogspot.com/

A prettily gowned princess politely covering her screaming mouth with a lily white hand

2010-12-10T14:03:00.000-08:00

I'm composing a piece called TOXIC with six performers. Movement and bodies are in the center of my investigation. I started asking questions about bodies in myths and fairy tales. What kind of bodies inhabit them? Are those similar to our bodies?

These stories harken back to very old times: feudal times, agrarian times, pagan times. They are this old and still alive in us. I believe they are important. The narrative structures are imprinted in us.

Can we believe in the Victorian image of a prettily gowned princess politely covering her screaming mouth with a lily white hand? Beauty, ugliness, dirt, old age, laziness and industriousness are always mentioned. People do terrifying things to each other in fairy tales and myths. Gods do awful things to humans, and to each other.

When we started workshopping with this in mind, we began with monsters. Being a creature that is one and clearly defined became the first notion to question. When we created movement from that position it became obvious upright and down low were taking on new meanings. In the Genesis of the Bible up and down, light and dark are put in order - and put in order of preference. From between the pages monsters and demons fall, drop, glide and tumble out and take cover in other books.

In that perfectly organized world grows a fruit that will always be tasted by a young woman, no matter what the warnings. She will know, she will fall down in sleep, she will cover herself, she will let down her guard and kiss.

We live surrounded by narratives. My favorites are those seemingly detached from everyday life: myths, legends, fairy tales. They touch both the unnamable and the acknowledged experiences in me. I wonder how much these stories formed the very experiences through which I relate to them.

I go old school; I cherish the traditional fairytales with poor girls and fair princesses, wizened grandmothers, magical objects and golden fruit. The ones that share elements with ancient mythologies. They are gateways to shimmering, cruel worlds.

Fall grain: A sneak peak to TOXIC

2010-12-09T12:22:00.000-08:00

During this fall we have regularly come together for workshopping with six dancers. My goal is to present a new, full length piece during next year.
I wanted to grant both the performers and me a chance to long term development. We have had weekly studio time and I scheduled three showings for the end of the season.
In every event we have presented a different scene-in progress, seeds for the piece that will form during 2011.

The last showing this year will take place this Sunday the 12th at Counterpulse, under the 2nd Sundays program. The event is at 2PM, and you can find Counterpulse on Mission @9th Street.
The dance presentations are followed by a facilitated discussion between audience and the artists. The purpose is to allow for the audience to get to air their questions and appreciations, as well as to allow the artists to get feed back.

Welcome!

There is a link to a clip in the comments. Blogspot apparently doesn't allow links to Vimeo.

Scale

2010-10-06T21:43:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking of scale right now, and explaining through this concept dance practices that often are talked about in different terms.
A contemporary choreography may break into wild running and climbing all over the performance site.Or a dance performance may include dancers staying seemingly motionless. In Jesse Hewit's Strong behavior (2010) female dancers' minute movements and changes of expression on their presumably blank faces build a breathtaking drama.
It is clear that these two involve focus on different scales. The first on the largest movement possible for humans un-enhanced. The second concentrating on the minutiae. Both reset our perception. The first will hopefully change our awareness of space and place, maybe even make our hearts pump faster. The second operates on personal levels, opening psychological and inter-relational vistas.
In both cases there is a change from the traditional scale of proscenium dance - a change that occurred decades ago when the futurists turned their performance events into general riots, Trisha Brown put dancers on rooftops and the sides of buildings, and performance artists presented bodies in specific places. Later addition: after re-checking Marvin Carlson I need to mention the early 20th century Russian avantgardists here, too.
We were invited to relate to the events and actions on another scale than the defined-limbed-bodies within the square/cubical space of the stage, presented by more traditional western dance forms.

I'm thinking what the possibilities of choosing and using scale are for dance/performing artists. I'm thinking what using scale has meant to the work I have produced in the past, and what I can do with the artists I'm currently rehearsing with creating "Toxic".
Last spring "Life sustenance" was generated and performed in an intimate gallery space. There was minimum technical equipment, and the performers mixed into the crowd of viewers in some instances. There were hints in the show to indicate that the viewers had a double duty as guests. Towards the end they were served soup and bread and drinks. Aside from that the show deliberately mixed represented and real action throughout. The audience was let in something that was between them and us, not a public presentation of dancing skills.
The choice was not made out of theoretical concerns, nor out of taste preferences. The choice was borne from scale. When the distance between people in a space is short it feels artificial to me to hold on to the divide between stage and audience. The play with that distance, and the dichotomy artificial / natural, is often where I focus a lot when composing work. It has a lot to do with the role and place of audience. This game can naturally generate different outcomes.

The scale of focus and detail in a given performance might well be one of the most important traits that direct it's impact: where it is resounding in and after it's showing. What kind of questions it will help surface.
And most importantly, scale has everything to do both with site, and the place audience holds in it.

There is another deep running change going on in the dance world

2010-09-10T14:14:00.000-07:00

To Gia Kourlas, writer of “Time to put choreography back on its feet”

In the New York Times on Sunday, Sept 5 2010

Thank you to Gia Kourlas for writing an article about what is going on in the contemporary, or experimental, dance. Media takes up this area of creativity very rarely, editors choosing more conservative, classical, or commercial dance to focus on.

A choreographer and dancer, I live and work in the middle of the change in western contemporary dance. It is a pleasure to read weighed words about that slowly churning, but intense, tumult from outside the circle of colleagues. For the art form it is important to have a record of the dialogue in and about it.

There is another deep running change going on in the dance world that Gia Kourlas didn’t mention in their article.

Both in Europe and in North America contemporary western dance is evolving, and dancers’ professional skills are a part of it, whichever way the causality may run. G. Kourlas gives the impression that one reason why new dance pieces “contain so little dance”, is that dancers can’t afford expensive technique classes, or choose yoga or pilates instead, and are thus less skilled than they should be.

Since I see fabulous movers, even virtuosic dancers around me, I was prompted to comment on this idea.

While what Gia Kourlas writes might sometimes be true, there are other reasons for skipping the traditional dance class. Dance technique, as it is taught today, is often dated. In many cases these techniques don’t prepare for the demands of experimenting with movement. Surely the aesthetics of most modern techniques and ballet doesn’t agree with many young and mid-career choreographers. Good, or any, contemporary technique classes might be difficult to find.

Even more pressingly, traditional technique classes are based on dated perceptions about anatomy and kinesiology. Dancers learn from their injuries and gravitate towards training that promises healing and maintenance, along with strength, stamina and flexibility - be it mental or physical.

Like Gia Kourlas writes, we do indeed live exciting times, there is promise in the air, and dance artists are breathing deeply. There are teachers, kinesiologists and dancers that are developing systems of teaching and training that support healthy movement. These dedicated people can be found in different dance disciplines.

I am hopeful that dance training is in the middle of a change of paradigm, slowly but surely. I feel fortunate to live these times, especially because I harbor a love and appreciation for deep rooted traditions, too, ballet most of all.

This development in technique is a very natural thing as sports and dance medicine are both evolving. A related example is the breakthrough in how we perceive running, and how more and more people are starting to run more naturally.

An ongoing evolution, rather than lesser dancers, is the status quo of contemporary dance. And I spy a lot of joy in movement when I work with my colleagues, or when I see their creative output.

Truly yours,

Minna Harri

Choreographer and dancer

San Francisco, USA and Helsinki, Finland

Lets have a look at us

2010-06-01T12:21:00.000-07:00

We are five people of different ethnicities and from three different continents. All but one speak English as first language. In contemporary America we are all categorized as whites. We represent three different Christian denominations and atheism.

We all have enjoyed higher education and have degrees. Two of us wear make-up daily. Two are vegetarian. One person is a parent. Two of us are married, one is getting married this year, and two are singles. One person is gay. One of us owns their home. Three of us have pets. One would like to have a cat. Three of us own a car. Four of us own a bicycle. No one has a unicycle.

Life Sustenance - am I talking about things that are same for us all, everywhere in the world? Are the things that sustain life the same for all of us? All people need water, but our understanding of water and how to get it, and what its place in the whole is, differ.

Even the list of basic necessities might look different at some other time, or in another place. I have no illusions of being able to make universal claims. For me the the piece we are making is an amalgamation of strange and recognizable. The experiences the performers have shared are both special and trivial; things that sustain us five.

Life Sustenance Friday 4 June at 8PM in Subterranean Arthouse, Berkeley CA

Sleep and other banalities

2010-04-30T18:33:00.000-07:00

The project I'm currently working on is about the banal things that make human life possible. The shortlist is based on personal experience and bias, but I venture that certain things are universal, like breathing, sleep, water and nourishment.
Sleep is researched more and more widely, and the results are shocking. Even acute sleep deprivation has an enormous averse effect on the human brain. I woke up to the negligence with which we treat the most important things, when I recreated an old performance on sleep in January. I started forming quite another perspective on the project, than what I initially had in Finland in 2001.
That night I had agreed on appearing in a small performance art event in Helsinki. I felt exhausted after the previous night's premiere. So I borrowed the idea of sleeping with the audience from a fellow student (she had hidden under a thick blanket and had audience members read books to her. As an explanation of this act of borrowing I'll offer that we all used to borrow ideas from each other all the time while studying. Isn't borrowing what is known as the biggest compliment?) I gathered the audience around me and spoke to them about sleeping, the rituals I employ when going to bed, and putting my son to bed, and about the childhood memories I have of being put to bed myself. During the process I fell asleep, and woke up a moment later in total silence with smiling people looking at me.
In January in the Subterranean Arthouse I had a rather different focus. I still fell asleep surrounded by the chamomile-tea-sipping audience - or rather was unable to fall asleep. But this time I became more and more conscious of the importance and simple necessity of sleeping, and the paradox of our way of life pushing sleep into the margin.
After the audience feedback I received, and the ensuing discussion, I decided I want to make a performance that addresses sleep, but also other every-day trivia that sustain life.
In addition I was seduced by the incomparable amount of shared, private and cultural implications these phenomena have. This is subject matter that lends itself easily to the way I like to work: creating shared experiences through physically sharing activities, time and location.

There are issues I need to address in this process, and my next blog will be my thoughts about the particularity versus universality of our basic needs.

"Life Sustenance" will premiere at the Subterranean Arthouse Friday June 4 at 8PM. Tickets through brownpapertickets.

Fantasies

2010-03-26T23:06:00.000-07:00

An unfinished list of projects I want to make happen:

A performance that begins in the middle the way a child eats the center out of a sandwich first.
A very small show in a huge space.
Continuous pulsing, syncopated, rhythmic, evolving movement that whirls through and around the audience.
A journey through the ten dimensions some scientists say probably exist in our universe.
A performance that will make people feel at peace.
A performance that will prompt people think about something they had never thought about before.
A performance that will help people notice that their brain is the whole of them, not just inside their heads.

The magic of breaking sticks and writing manifestos

2010-01-31T00:18:00.000-08:00

I drove out to Mills College to see Yvonne Rainer today. She had been teaching Trio A in the morning, and in the afternoon she would talk. I had noticed an e-mail announcing this event just this morning and thought I shouldn't let a chance to meet a legend go by. I was totally unprepared to what my own reaction would be upon actually witnessing Rainer's lecture.

Ms. Rainer was introduced, and she walked on to the stage while I found myself crying huge tears (and getting embarrassed and trying to hide the fact from her). For the first time in my life I realized just how big an influence Yvonne Rainer's and her Judson Church colleagues' work had had on my life - decades later after the Judson Memorial Church group was active.And I mean my life, much more than my work, at least directly.

One of the things she mentioned was how she comes from John Cage. That was the actual way she expressed it: "I come from Cage." Although I never met him I have a personal relationship with him, too. John Cage visited the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland when he was already an old man, and I saw tv-footage of that gig when I was very young. Seeing him talking to people and making music out of breaking sticks and the silence in between changed 1: my understanding of music, 2: my understanding of what composing is, and 3: my outlook on life. During that tv-program I became a part of the paradigm shift of which John Cage was one of the main proponents.

This was possible although there were several generations between Cage and me. I had spent my childhood in ballet school, and was raised by two ballet dancers. My idea of creativity and creating was hierarchic. My idea of what dance and music are, was pitiably narrow. Well, that changed, and it felt as a great liberation.

I read about Yvonne Rainer and Judson Church a few years later. That was an encouragement to continue the search for my own choreographic vision. It wasn't easy and it wasn't fast, but since then I have done dance.

Contrary to what I have decided earlier about writing a blog this became a very personal posting, and one that has no direct link to making of performing art in practice. I just owe thank yous to all the courageous artists who have done work that broke away from the tradition. Thank you for the freedom.

Concentration

2010-01-05T02:10:00.000-08:00

I stepped back from my concentration for a moment today in Frey Faust's class and looked at my fellow students. What I saw was a lot of people all investing hard in moving and understanding. There was a sincerity on every face. I'm still smiling as I write this.

I like watching people do their work, or something they love doing. There is something very intimate in full concentration. Seeing that feels like a privilege granted. When I choreograph, or see somebody dance, I prefer dancers to have that attention to movement. I don't want to see anyone go through the moves, I want to witness them rediscovering them.

Laura Bernasconi, a lovely ballet teacher, has spoken of dancing with the ego versus NOT dancing with the ego. She was proposing to her students to let the choreography guide them instead of willing themselves to perform well.

My interpretation of the issue is to concentrate in the movement, on all of it's levels. A dancer needs to manage their body in time and space, and that pretty much fills the mind at the moment of the dance, at least for me. Through that thorough attention it is possible to reach an irreplaceable happiness. Dancing becomes meditation rather than a show. I wish I had the magic words to reach that state every time.

Music is another lifesaver. (Or a precipice, considering how much there is unnecessary mood music in films, theater and dance shows.) To get to mention a third of my favorite dance things in addition to Frey and Laura, the fully rounded - ecstasy producing - flamenco wholeness needs to be listed here. In flamenco, compas is everything. Without compas - no flamenco. It is a 12 count rosary that demands total surrender and weaves together music, dance and lyrics.

The best definition of a performer's presence I have ever heard of, is similar to that. The total presence a dancer grants to their movement translates as something that is often described as stillness, or stage presence. Today at Frey Faust's class I had a glimpse of several individuals surrendering to that simultaneously. Must be beautiful being able to facilitate that.

So there is an extra dimension, that good old together but as individuals experience. It is crucial in social dancing, but a performance situation is a social situation as well. The performers and the audience are doing something together. To get there we need the tools of letting go of the ego thing.

Here a link to a TED talk about creativity. At the very end something worth hearing about dance.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

Time, the radical

2009-12-01T13:31:00.000-08:00

Time is one of the few most important elements of choreography.
I want to write a bit about two of my projects, in which I have focused on aspects of time.

The solo I danced at the Subterranean Arthouse in Berkeley this past weekend is a finale of a 50 min dance piece "Raja", that premiered in Helsinki, Finland in November 2007. In "Raja" tempo is the defining aspect of the piece.
Initially my intuition directed me to try out the movements really slowly. It felt good, but I also wanted to see what it looked like. Sanna From, who was rehearsing "Raja" with me, was my guinea pig. I found slowing down focused viewer attention to the movement. I didn't want the choreography to flow away, I really wanted it to be observed. Immediately the movement qualities became highlighted.
Slow performance demanded a deep concentration that produced stillness, the stillness further enhanced the audience's focus. In this case slowness produced a meditative state that enveloped the dancers and the audience alike (based on audience response).

Slow also has an aspect that is more radical. That's because we don't really like slow. Things should happen fast and snappy, anybody slow is clumsy or dimwitted. Slow performers will fall out of the big competition that is life, fast people simply achieve more. Of course we know that more is not better, so people have the slow food -movement, alternative education, sabbaticals. These are for and by the deviants, the activists, the radicals. How about normal people?
A friend once told me how she had stuffed cotton balls into her nostrils in order to sound like she had the flu - so she could be convincing when she notified the office. She is a high achiever, but she needs a day or two of slow to achieve that high performance. After her confession we were both embarrassed, because no matter how much we like slow times, we definitely do dislike slow times. During high unemployment the difference between one person's busy and another person's slow becomes amplified.

Past summer I composed a new piece called "Things" at the Garage in San Francisco. In "Things" I am connecting the ideals of tempo and achievement to the ideas of a person and a thing. A person would do, produce, perform, leave traces, move. A thing would do none of these things. What if a person would be stripped of doing, producing, performing, leaving traces, moving? How would we look at that person, and how would we value her/him?
Duration and the rhythm of performance became focus of "Things". The person on stage is first in fast movement, stopping suddenly. On several occasions she is on hiatus for lengths of time. An unnatural and at times uncomfortable slow rhythm of performance feels necessary to bring over the point.
I think I wasn't radical enough with the timing, not sedate enough in the performance. I'm looking forward to putting up a next version of "Things" so I can create, and give myself and the audience the chance to investigate, that physical reality.

My chosen channel of creativity is dance, and western theatrical dance is the tradition that I have grown into. If there ever was a world where high achievement and top performance is demanded for simple survival, it is the tradition of western theatrical dance. Although I identify with the margin that is in continuous revolt against values of traditions past, the hardcore where the revolt is wholly followed through is tiny. I hold no pure convictions myself. So I am composing for an ambiguous audience that has conflicting expectations. I know I have to transgress the limits one of my own comfort zones here, concerning the dark side of pace and achievement. And my mean of transgression will be performance timing.

I'm posting a couple of related links I have enjoyed.

Stefan Sagmeister on time off

Linton Kwesi Johnson: More time

Pilot 55

2009-10-27T20:54:00.000-07:00

The 55th Pilot Project at ODC will show on the weekend of November 21 and 22. Ara Glenn-Johansen is making a piece with four dancers, me one of them.

Several weeks ago we started looking for material through Grotowsky's plastiques-method. I enjoy oscillating between movement and imagery, so there were many happy and fun-filled moments for me. All the four of us are very different movers, performers and bodies, and I think that accounts for much of the interesting moments as well. We accompany and compliment each other on the floor. The next phase has been to carve the selected material into a choreography.

Seeing the process from the viewpoint of a dancer has so far been educational and liberating for me. Dancing is fun! I get to concentrate on one performance instead of the whole. At the same time I must remember to ask if Ara wants to hear my possible ideas about the piece. This crew has had good talks.

Last couple of weeks Ara has been working on a solo with me as well. I generated the material in one of the sessions, and Ara has guided me towards a set dance. I am happy and nervous at the same time.
This is a great chance for me to work with four lovely and talented people: Ara, Dominique, Em, and Jean. Come and see us @ ODC on Sat Nov 21 & Sun Nov 22!

Curving eyes closed

2009-10-26T22:31:00.000-07:00

This morning, lying on the dance studio floor with my head in the hands of a colleague, a thought drifted from my body to my head. There are things your head "knows", and your body "knows", until they connect, and you finally understand the thing.

My fellow dancer lifted my head so that my neck made a large curve, and I ended up facing my own toes. Except that my eyes were closed, and I didn't see the actual toes. Instead I felt every moment on the long journey. How the movement went on and on and on was a revelation. It felt like my body was smiling.
I realized I would not have experienced that had my eyes been open. With your eyes open every movement compares to the scale of your whole body in a different way as with your eyes closed. You see the world around you - and the world is big. How your neck curves is but a sigh in the universe, to put it nicely.

But what an important sigh it is: for the smile in me, and for the understanding of a human body.
The experiences we have "eyes closed" are revelations until our eyes are opened and we see how small they really were. How good that realization is, to put things in perspective. I also thought how valuable those moments of blind understanding are. For a moment we ride a big rolling surf, and the smile swells up in us. Those moments recharge us as creative, caring beings. The experiences we have with our blind body also prime us to understanding complicated concepts because thoughts want to connect to stuff that really happened to us.

Now I'm thinking about that pair of hands, and the person who was directing my head so gently. She did so much: held me, directed me, moved me. I kept my eyes closed and followed. I got to be the audience to my own movement, and the one who experiences at the same time. All I had to do was to concentrate and to release. How much longer the curve was thanks to her, is impossible to say. I guess a lot.

Thank you to Kira Kirsch who taught the class at Studio Gracia, and to Sam who worked with me, and commented on the same curve when we talked afterwards!

About Things

2009-09-12T14:59:00.000-07:00

Have you ever stopped in your tracks and noticed you have no idea what you are doing, and why?

While writing a series of essays on the Uncanny in relation to live arts for my MFA thesis, I came across a column by the Dutch poet and writer Remco Campert. It is a beautiful and simple text about the experience of standing in a room, certain you came with a purpose, but having no idea what that purpose was. You stand and look around, hoping the mundane objects in the room will help bring back your memory and explain your deeds. It is in vain, for the objects are mute, they will not speak to you. At that moment, Campert writes, you realize you are every bit as purposeless as any item on your desk. You did have a reason, if only you could remember it.

I embarked on a quest to create a dance performance about this shared experience—this uncanny place, that resides between our normal existence and death. This is the link that binds temporary memory loss to death and the Uncanny: in both states we all are rendered unproductive and motionless.
What do we go through when and after we notice our reasons and explanation have suddenly disappeared? First, the sudden moment of realization—next the immediate stillness.
“Things” opens with a person happily doing her thing. She does not yet know that she is to embark on a journey.

In this piece I have tried to find movement that resonates with the process of searching—in place of quickly moving past the search phase and honing the sequence into a shiny, fast, unerring performance. Instead I wanted to respect movement in its creative and intellectual capacity. Remco Campert writes about the possible solution to a momentary memory loss: you need to retrace your steps and you go, walk, to where you started. This is a beautiful example of how physical our intellectual processes are.

The challenge for me as choreographer has been to let the person and her movement on stage be bewildered, confused, graceless. That is in stark opposition to what I unconsciously expect a dancer to be.
Another challenge has been the incorporation of stillness into movement and presence. Here, again, I am on ever continuing journey. I have presented this piece twice this past August, and have been rehearsing it for a few months. It has been, and still is, a fascinating path into deeper understanding of the choreography. Every time I dance this piece I understand more the movements and their placement in space. I believe that resonates when I perform "Things".

Tomorrow, on Sunday September 13, I will show the middle part of "Things" in 2nd Sundays at Counterpulse. That is the heart of the piece, where memory loss hits the person seen on stage.

2nd Sundays

2009-09-10T20:17:00.000-07:00

This Sunday - September 13 at 2 pm - I will participate in the 2nd Sundays, which seems already to be a tradition in San Francisco. Counterpulse and Dancers' Group together produce this monthly event, where audience and choreographers meet in a discussion.
Every second Sunday of the month three choreographers get the chance to show up to 10 minutes of material. The demonstrations are followed by a moderated discussion.
The best part is, that the choreographers are expected to prepare the discussion as well as the showing! So I have thought of specific questions to pose to the audience. That way I have to think about what I want to accomplish with my choreography. And I will get live feedback from an actual audience. This is a great opportunity for professional growth, of course.
The piece I will be introducing is "Things", my current project that premiered at the Garage at 975Howard Street on August 26.

Something new

2009-09-10T18:16:00.000-07:00

One way of thinking about life is to see it as a balance between new experiences and familiar routines. In my experience I need both. The routines are there to create stability. Through routines I am able to maintain skill, stamina, the rhythm of day and night, and a role in the community. Through new experiences I get fresh impulses, am blown off balance, am forced out of my comfort zone. That is necessary for further learning and a growing understanding of life and the world.
Some new experiences are small and present only a tiny amount of risk, like tasting a new flavor of ice cream. Some experiences are big. They can be hard lessons. Or they can simply offer you life altering changes.
I am getting there at last: I have begun a new experience today, when I attended the first session of a teaching workshop, the Art of Teaching, lead by Janice Garrett here in San Francisco. I did not anticipate to be so enthusiastic about this. This is not what I planned to write about in my first blog.
I am really looking forward to experimenting in the lab-part of the workshop. It seems a fantastic thing to one day be able to create a safe and inspiring situation for other people to gather and process information. I know I have a long way ahead of me, but Ms. Garrett definitely is a role model there.
It is impossible to say, if this new experience will change the course of my future. But I am sure new knowledge opens up new possibilities.