Back in Theater Academy one of our teachers asked what we think is indispensable for human life. Two of us, a peer and me, ended up defending the idea that beauty is necessary.
The teacher, especially, thought we were being overly romantic. I feel there is something about the concept of beauty that connects it to leisurely overclass and the 18th century Europe. Femininity is never far when discussing beauty. All of the above are negative concepts in the current culture, one way or the other.
Beauty is indispensable for human life. It is not that we will languish and die without access to artful paintings. It is that we will always find beauty, whatever the circumstances. Beauty is awe and hope.
This is why what beauty means keeps changing.
(Also, people like to one up each other so keep changing what is beautiful.)
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
Friday, July 20, 2018
Where do we dance
2015:
Dance Studio
It has been hard for me to love your emptiness and square lack of features lately. You are so clean cut, so devoid of clutter or differences or variety. Where ever I move the surfaces are the same. I don’t have anywhere to turn my gaze to. There are no distractions to keep me interested in working. No colors, no objects.
Under my feet you feel flat. There is no topography for my body to adjust to, no forms to adapt to, no textures for my skin to sense. It has been straightforward going from beginning to end. I am offered a distraction free situation to set apart and deep-clean my movement practice. I’m dancing in a laboratory pretending that it reflects or resembles real life. Except it is real life: secluded, sheltered real life.
I am sorry to have resented you that way and for having taken you for granted, dear Dance Studio. For you are here and open for me, you give yourself for me to enter. I don’t always have access, but often I do. Even though I know you are unaccessible and exclusive for many others with much less means, even though you are this clean thing halfway up the air, you have made exception to me and you have welcomed me and you have supported my dancing. You have granted your floor under my feet and my feet have learned many things (but not how to wrap into the embrace of the earth), accomplished many things (but not running up a hill) and failed a few (in all categories).
I return to you time after time, dear Dance Studio. Even after rolling on a beach or burrowing my body under the forest bottom, I come back. I have the option of dancing on the streets but I rarely use it. It is here within you where I experiment, get wild, shake it. On the street and out in the world I walk, I run, I sit and I stand. Further and further into this categorization of movements and bodies — sedate bodies, formalized bodies, socialized bodies and dancing bodies, expressive bodies — we go by each act of separation we commit.
You, dear Studio, have given me asylum from the street and its ruthlessness and sweetness. Under your roof I have been sheltered from rain, cold, sun; but not always (mostly, though) from harassment or aggression.
Bodies brown, black, white, failed, scarred, marked move in the world and that movement is categorized and defined so it can be streamlined into suitable spaces. This categorizing fails us when resources fail (if not before), and it is the individual body that carries the experience and discipline of not fitting into defined spaces. We respond by creating more categories. More categories create more violence against individual bodies. This is how I keep coming back to you, dear Dance Studio: the shelter you give feels precious. But more categories just make more bodies fall outside. Access is not distributed evenly.
***
I wrote and spoke the above letter to Dance Studio during Chrysa Parkinson’s workshop yesterday. (I have edited it a little, mostly the day after the workshop.) Navigating art spaces and a city as an artist is a complicated mess of challenges and privileges. The previous day we (the workshop participants) had walked outside on the streets in Soma of San Francisco in twos, talking of another exercise. We strolled back and forth for the allotted 14 minutes engrossed in telling each other our thoughts. My partner and I were harassed by some men but hardly noticed from working and passed by it without reaction.
Later in discussion Chrysa commented that working creates a boundary. The boundary here was different from the one I had experienced during a residency in the Tenderloin of San Francisco two years earlier. This time the boundary by working made us as women resilient to harassment. The boundary we unknowingly had around us in 2014 was one that seemed to prevent harassment.
(Right now I am not talking about this in order to find what people do or don’t do when they encounter street harassment.) I am interested in thinking about the technologies or architectures inside of and outside of bodies that define whether the presence and movement of bodies is allowed or disciplined in various places. Meanwhile my ideal is a boundary around every conscious being - a boundary that is respected by all others regardless of time and context, and that helps us to treat each other kindly. My ideal are places that are hybrid and open according to need for shelter and creative activities.
In 2014 the main event of THIS IS WHAT I WANT Festival (or TIWIW) took place in the new CounterPulse building 80 Turk Street. CounterPulse is an arts organization that supports cutting edge performing arts, especially dance. It has a history of activism and community building, but moving into Tenderloin was a move by an established arts organization into one of the poorest San Francisco neighborhoods. In recent years the largest social change in the Bay Area has been displacement of low income people, communities of color, mom and pop stores, and small art spaces by affluent people, high end businesses and tech companies. In the spring of 2014 the TIWIW resident artists (of which I was one) were acutely conscious that creative professions are usually the first ones to move into “affordable” neighborhoods and that all those (other) privileged groups often follow.
We found ourselves in the act of possibly creating displacement through the afore mentioned mechanism. Lead by TIWIW artistic director Tessa Wills we wanted to take part in the neighborhood outreach CounterPulse was doing — and it needed to be concrete acts that would shape our creative process. There are some problems in this, as whether it was more gesturing than socially effective, but what remains is that human connection was the foundation we wanted to build. The first we did was to just hang on the street in front of 80 Turk and to talk with people. The building was an old porn theater with paintings of exotic dancers on its window panes and a giant sign that read “Dollhouse”. We all were youngish female-identified artists. Standing in front of the building seemed to create confusion in area residents and the police alike. We had plenty of opportunities to explain who we were and what we were doing: artists working in the recently converted building seeking to connect with the community. Everyone we talked with was friendly and respectful.
In all cases I described in these texts we — female (identified) artists — were working but the boundary it created or that was built around us was different.
***
2018:
For how long should I walk and sit and stand on a street in a strange neighborhood that belongs to people from a very different culture than I am from, for how long should I connect with those people to start to know something about the area, and to belong a little to those people? Is it possible for a bunch of artists from more or less white middle class circumstances to come into a new neighborhood and connect with the local people by doing the same thing we do everywhere else?
How long should I stay outside in a neighborhood and dance on its alleys and in little venues instead of dedicated, empty studio space, before I feel comfortable dancing in the world? Is it possible for anyone to be (fully) comfortable dancing outside in the urban environment as long as there are dedicated, empty studio spaces with selective access? Is my question at all relevant to people from different circumstances?
This reminds me of this: There is a person who has talked to people on the streets of San Francisco for many years with the purpose of documenting their creative projects and entrepreneurship. You can find his photos on Instagram under the name Mission Gold. The work is about the people he encounters. He has connected with this community for years. Yet he himself lives in a very different world. I respect his work based on the little I know about it. What I learn from his work is this: when one goes out into someone else's world the work necessarily always is about the people in that world. Respect and lack of illusions about own place in that world are the basis of the work. Your own process is about you in the "new" reality, but your own process should be private (unless it will help someone maybe.). Your private process should be about you growing. When we make work which is not about and serving someone else that work should happen in your own world. But in my case, what is my own world? The empty studio? What a wonderful and privileged and empty and sad that world is. What other places do I belong to? What questions do those places have to offer? What dances will we dance there?
I'm in the process of finding those places. What and how I can dance in the worlds I belong to are forming.
Dance Studio
It has been hard for me to love your emptiness and square lack of features lately. You are so clean cut, so devoid of clutter or differences or variety. Where ever I move the surfaces are the same. I don’t have anywhere to turn my gaze to. There are no distractions to keep me interested in working. No colors, no objects.
Under my feet you feel flat. There is no topography for my body to adjust to, no forms to adapt to, no textures for my skin to sense. It has been straightforward going from beginning to end. I am offered a distraction free situation to set apart and deep-clean my movement practice. I’m dancing in a laboratory pretending that it reflects or resembles real life. Except it is real life: secluded, sheltered real life.
I am sorry to have resented you that way and for having taken you for granted, dear Dance Studio. For you are here and open for me, you give yourself for me to enter. I don’t always have access, but often I do. Even though I know you are unaccessible and exclusive for many others with much less means, even though you are this clean thing halfway up the air, you have made exception to me and you have welcomed me and you have supported my dancing. You have granted your floor under my feet and my feet have learned many things (but not how to wrap into the embrace of the earth), accomplished many things (but not running up a hill) and failed a few (in all categories).
I return to you time after time, dear Dance Studio. Even after rolling on a beach or burrowing my body under the forest bottom, I come back. I have the option of dancing on the streets but I rarely use it. It is here within you where I experiment, get wild, shake it. On the street and out in the world I walk, I run, I sit and I stand. Further and further into this categorization of movements and bodies — sedate bodies, formalized bodies, socialized bodies and dancing bodies, expressive bodies — we go by each act of separation we commit.
You, dear Studio, have given me asylum from the street and its ruthlessness and sweetness. Under your roof I have been sheltered from rain, cold, sun; but not always (mostly, though) from harassment or aggression.
Bodies brown, black, white, failed, scarred, marked move in the world and that movement is categorized and defined so it can be streamlined into suitable spaces. This categorizing fails us when resources fail (if not before), and it is the individual body that carries the experience and discipline of not fitting into defined spaces. We respond by creating more categories. More categories create more violence against individual bodies. This is how I keep coming back to you, dear Dance Studio: the shelter you give feels precious. But more categories just make more bodies fall outside. Access is not distributed evenly.
***
I wrote and spoke the above letter to Dance Studio during Chrysa Parkinson’s workshop yesterday. (I have edited it a little, mostly the day after the workshop.) Navigating art spaces and a city as an artist is a complicated mess of challenges and privileges. The previous day we (the workshop participants) had walked outside on the streets in Soma of San Francisco in twos, talking of another exercise. We strolled back and forth for the allotted 14 minutes engrossed in telling each other our thoughts. My partner and I were harassed by some men but hardly noticed from working and passed by it without reaction.
Later in discussion Chrysa commented that working creates a boundary. The boundary here was different from the one I had experienced during a residency in the Tenderloin of San Francisco two years earlier. This time the boundary by working made us as women resilient to harassment. The boundary we unknowingly had around us in 2014 was one that seemed to prevent harassment.
(Right now I am not talking about this in order to find what people do or don’t do when they encounter street harassment.) I am interested in thinking about the technologies or architectures inside of and outside of bodies that define whether the presence and movement of bodies is allowed or disciplined in various places. Meanwhile my ideal is a boundary around every conscious being - a boundary that is respected by all others regardless of time and context, and that helps us to treat each other kindly. My ideal are places that are hybrid and open according to need for shelter and creative activities.
In 2014 the main event of THIS IS WHAT I WANT Festival (or TIWIW) took place in the new CounterPulse building 80 Turk Street. CounterPulse is an arts organization that supports cutting edge performing arts, especially dance. It has a history of activism and community building, but moving into Tenderloin was a move by an established arts organization into one of the poorest San Francisco neighborhoods. In recent years the largest social change in the Bay Area has been displacement of low income people, communities of color, mom and pop stores, and small art spaces by affluent people, high end businesses and tech companies. In the spring of 2014 the TIWIW resident artists (of which I was one) were acutely conscious that creative professions are usually the first ones to move into “affordable” neighborhoods and that all those (other) privileged groups often follow.
We found ourselves in the act of possibly creating displacement through the afore mentioned mechanism. Lead by TIWIW artistic director Tessa Wills we wanted to take part in the neighborhood outreach CounterPulse was doing — and it needed to be concrete acts that would shape our creative process. There are some problems in this, as whether it was more gesturing than socially effective, but what remains is that human connection was the foundation we wanted to build. The first we did was to just hang on the street in front of 80 Turk and to talk with people. The building was an old porn theater with paintings of exotic dancers on its window panes and a giant sign that read “Dollhouse”. We all were youngish female-identified artists. Standing in front of the building seemed to create confusion in area residents and the police alike. We had plenty of opportunities to explain who we were and what we were doing: artists working in the recently converted building seeking to connect with the community. Everyone we talked with was friendly and respectful.
In all cases I described in these texts we — female (identified) artists — were working but the boundary it created or that was built around us was different.
***
2018:
For how long should I walk and sit and stand on a street in a strange neighborhood that belongs to people from a very different culture than I am from, for how long should I connect with those people to start to know something about the area, and to belong a little to those people? Is it possible for a bunch of artists from more or less white middle class circumstances to come into a new neighborhood and connect with the local people by doing the same thing we do everywhere else?
How long should I stay outside in a neighborhood and dance on its alleys and in little venues instead of dedicated, empty studio space, before I feel comfortable dancing in the world? Is it possible for anyone to be (fully) comfortable dancing outside in the urban environment as long as there are dedicated, empty studio spaces with selective access? Is my question at all relevant to people from different circumstances?
This reminds me of this: There is a person who has talked to people on the streets of San Francisco for many years with the purpose of documenting their creative projects and entrepreneurship. You can find his photos on Instagram under the name Mission Gold. The work is about the people he encounters. He has connected with this community for years. Yet he himself lives in a very different world. I respect his work based on the little I know about it. What I learn from his work is this: when one goes out into someone else's world the work necessarily always is about the people in that world. Respect and lack of illusions about own place in that world are the basis of the work. Your own process is about you in the "new" reality, but your own process should be private (unless it will help someone maybe.). Your private process should be about you growing. When we make work which is not about and serving someone else that work should happen in your own world. But in my case, what is my own world? The empty studio? What a wonderful and privileged and empty and sad that world is. What other places do I belong to? What questions do those places have to offer? What dances will we dance there?
I'm in the process of finding those places. What and how I can dance in the worlds I belong to are forming.
Friday, January 16, 2015
Brushing with Dance Dramaturgy
I went to a class taught by Keith Hennessy at the 2015 FRESH Festival. Some of the exercises he had set for us posed the question: What is it that you actually do when you arrange a dance for sharing?
We seem to agree on that the kind of analysis of their work I, and many other choreographers, do during the process would be called dramaturgy if done by another person dedicated to the task.
To me it seems that what dramaturgy means in dance becomes defined by how and what you do. Every discussion predictably arrives at it being a wide concept.
Discussing dance dramaturgy seems to be tied to a certain era of European dance. It has a lot to do with resources: who can afford to have a person dedicated to research and discussion in their project. In terms of the projects produced in that time Keith talked about the desire to produce well researched and thematically focused work that eventually seemed to turn every piece more or less the same.
(To me it may look like that after any trend has reigned enough time in Western dance. And how hard are we / am I attached to the Western demand of continuous renewal, reincarnation, rebirth, recreation, renaissance? More of that some other time.)
So, what would dance dramaturgy mean after that time has passed? What now after a while of messier fleshier dance pieces?
Here is what I want, and need as a choreographer and audience: I am still looking for that connection between what should never have been separated because they are not separate, body and mind. Dance dramaturgy is in a pretty unique position to bring it.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
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Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Dead/Alive
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.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Uncanny Colours
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.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Soloists and Moving Masses
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.
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.
Monday, May 16, 2011
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@
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)
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@
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)
Friday, April 29, 2011
Some photos of TOXIC
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.
http://inguttersandstars.blogspot.com/
TOXIC, of course, will premiere on June 10&11 at Garage.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
International Home Theater Festival
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/
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/
Friday, December 10, 2010
A prettily gowned princess politely covering her screaming mouth with a lily white hand
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?
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.
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.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Fall grain: A sneak peak to TOXIC
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Scale
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.
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.
Friday, September 10, 2010
There is another deep running change going on in the dance world
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
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Lets have a look at us
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
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
Friday, April 30, 2010
Sleep and other banalities
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.
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.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Fantasies
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.
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.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
The magic of breaking sticks and writing manifestos
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Concentration
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
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
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