ccforum: Last 35 Posts

ccforum: Last 35 Posts http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ ccforum: Last 35 Posts en Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:51:27 +0000 levigonzalez on ""Mind and Body at Yale" by Claudia La Rocco, New Y" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=136#post-175 Tue, 25 Sep 2007 23:29:05 +0000 levigonzalez 175@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ Here is another link to an article from Dance Magazine on artists working in universities. Not that DM is on the cutting edge of the dance world, but it means something about the mainstream dance world if they are reporting on a new movement in universities to employ working artists. Tere O'Connor has some nice things to say in his interview... <a href="http://www.dancemagazine.com/issues/August-2007/The-Ivy-Colored-Studio-Choreographers-in-College" rel="nofollow">http://www.dancemagazine.com/issues/August-2007/The-Ivy-Colored-Studio-Choreographers-in-College</a> ccforum on ""Mind and Body at Yale" by Claudia La Rocco, New Y" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=136#post-171 Sat, 22 Sep 2007 10:51:53 +0000 ccforum 171@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ For some background and a report on the debate about dance studies, see Claudia La Rocco's article on this Sunday's New York Times. Focused on several Ivy League universities, it presents the terms in which the struggle is been set up for and against dance as an intellectual, comprehensive endeavor and study. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/arts/dance/23laro.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=slogin">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/arts/dance/23laro.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=slogin</a> lachugar on "Why choreograph "experimental" dance?" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=46#post-123 Fri, 17 Aug 2007 11:52:34 +0000 lachugar 123@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ I mentioned earlier my belief in Dance being like Philosophy, in that it is dealing with questions of the nature of existence and Dance particularly has the power to question dualism which is still prevalent in our society. I was reading a text from Thomas Hirschhorn, an artist I like a lot and wanted to share an excerpt from it that has to do with some of our conversations: "...philosophy is art! Pure philosophy, true, cruel, pitiless philosophy, philosophy that affirms, acts, creates. The philosophy of Spinoza, of Nietzche, of Deleuze, of Foucalt. I don't know Foucalt's philosophy, but I see his work of art. It permits me to approach it, to not uderstand it but to seize it, to see it, to be active with it. I don't have to be a historian, connoisseur, a specialist to confront myself with works of art. I can seize their energy, their urgency, their necessity, their density. [...]There is the affirmation that the work of art is philosophy, and that philosophy is a work of art. [...] I want to make an experience. An experience is something from which I emerge changed. An experience transforms me. I want the public to be transformed by the experience [...]." I feel identified very deeply with this statement! lachugar on "Dance Tasting" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=87#post-122 Fri, 17 Aug 2007 11:24:56 +0000 lachugar 122@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ There is one organization that I know of that is putting some thought and money into that. It's the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography. Not only are they interested in choreographic research, supporting and funding choreographers with creative residencies, but they also require that one as a artist in residence come up with ways in which the community can "enter" into your process. I will be going with my dancers this fall and in talking with the Director of the Center she specifically mentioned that the "entrypoints" are meant to expand dance audiences in general and to shed light into one's creative process as a way of helping people "understand" or appreciate contemporary dance. (i am very excited to be part of this and to think of ways of invite people into the actual process). I am currently in the beginning of a new process with the same dancers that I have been working on for a while. I have a relationship with them of mutual loyalty, not quiet a company because there is no such infrastructure but my work has been about them and my relationship to them so that it doesn't make sense to change dancers with each project. They seem to be very interested to continue because they are interested in the work from an aesthetic and ideological perspective, and I am interested in the sense of history from one work to the other so it makes most sense that it is about the history of each dancer within my work and their growth within it. That is to say that I am working again with Hilary Clark, Jennifer Kjos, JM Leary and Melanie Maar. And we are working on working with the mirrors in the dance studio. Meaning that we are improvising and experimenting with the act of dancing in front of the mirror which happens all the time in the dance studio as you work on movement. We are also talking a lot about why we perform and what is our need to perform in front of an audience and what is our relationship to them and why DANCE in front of them. As always, I am asking myself why do we want to dance at the same time that I am trying to just plunge into making more movement than what I have in past processes. I am considering performing this piece inside a dance studio but I have not yet secured a show anywhere specifically. The idea of inviting the audience into the studio interests me as a further exploration of the 'work of dance' that I have been interested in for the last four years, as well as the desire to be more and more transparent with the process and our performance persona. I have mostly a lot of questions and logistic problems regarding making a piece inside the studio but this are questions that interest me and the dancers a lot, and hopefully they extend to be of interest to a lot of other people as well. I guess you could say that in some ways to invite the audience into the studio is to try to bring them closer to your work and to try to affect them more or touch them in some way, to give them an experience, rather than just showing them us having one. gmworld on "Dance Tasting" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=87#post-121 Sat, 28 Jul 2007 12:59:04 +0000 gmworld 121@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ You make a valid point Luciana, that is it difficult to sow the seeds of awareness or educate people about various aspects of modern dance at an individual level. It requires insitutional support. Are there art organizations that are supporting the cause that we have been discussing? Galleries or dance organizations that organize the sort of events that widen the horizon of a broad range of audience. Setting this discussion aside, why dont you share with us something about your upcoming work? The location? How do you choose the dancers for your piece (apart from availability constraints)? lachugar on "Dance Tasting" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=87#post-120 Mon, 23 Jul 2007 13:36:02 +0000 lachugar 120@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ Yes, I think that this would help. There are many instances where choreographers are asked to do lecture demonstrations or informal showings of their work where they get to talk about their process and explain their specific way of working. However, this does not ever seem to be paired with a run in a theater, except for the one time post performance discussion that always happens and that almost no one seems interested in. What you are suggesting Geetanjali exists more in the academic world (as far as I know) but is not provided much at all for the larger public (especially in NYC). I suspect it has to do partly because of low budgets as Nancy suggests; but probably also because of not knowing how to do this outreach. I am hoping myself to create a website soon in which I would have a blog where I could document some of the process. It seems like that is one way in which we (dance makers) have started to have access to a greater audience without incurring in major extra costs. My dilemma nowadays is having time outside of the job I have to make a living and support my career. So I keep doing the minimum necessary to continue moving forward with making work, promoting it and fundraising for it, and not doing enough brainstorming of alternative models that might make things different. lachugar on "Why choreograph "experimental" dance?" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=46#post-119 Mon, 23 Jul 2007 13:23:10 +0000 lachugar 119@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ In my last work "Franny and Zooey" the exploration of identity happened in a much more abstract way than in my other works where I was choosing to speak more specifically about the female body and the dancer as working class. I came to identify the form of dance with those individuals that have lost any means of power or voice in our society other than the power of being in their bodies. Those whose means of production is the labor of the body, with no assets but their own body. I began to view dance as the blue-collar art. And we (the performers in my work as performing the labor of the body. This was very much what I focused on when making "Exhausting Love at Danspace Project". In "Franny and Zooey" the idea of identifying dance as labor went more into the idea of actual work of the creative process. Therefore, the identity of the piece became the piece in itself, or rather the work involved in making the piece. That is why I decided to use the documentation of the process as the thing itself. Also, in "Franny and Zooey" I was searching for a way of performing that could be as uncivilized a way as I could be in my body as possible. This relates somehow to identity for me because I think that we constructs ourselves through our image and through our relationship of ourselves to our own body; be it gender, race, class, style, etc. And one level of identity that is always present in being in our bodies is the history of evolution and animality that is always present in the pure act of having a body that has fluids, hair, sexual desire, hunger, thirst, instincts and so on. I was exploring ways of being less civilized in my body and that is how I noticed that the cats had been there watching me the whole time and that they represented a presence that I was seeking and that I wasn't gonna be able to reach ever. Another layer in relating to identity in this piece had to do with the identity of dance as high art form and what the value of that is. That is why I was interested in arriving at the "chicken noodle soup" dance because that is dance but considered of a lesser value and I have a lot of questions for myself and our form about what is considered "good" dance and what is not. And what is made for a theatre and what is not. Let me know if this answers your question or you were wondering abut something more specific. thanks, grrrcia on "Dance Tasting" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=87#post-118 Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:43:02 +0000 grrrcia 118@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ Yes, I think that this kind of commentary would help people understand the nuances involved with dancemaking as a practice and as an art form. The problem is that the DVDs that do have this kind of commentary are usually of high and low budget films. Even low budget films have bigger budgets than what is considered a high budget dance project. Once the performances are over, the budgets likely don't include things like post-production documentation. If you taught yourself a few easy video and audio editing skills and familiarized yourself with some basic video/audio equipment set-ups, you could easily add an audio track of commentary to your edited dance documentation. I also feel that dance organizations should publish the equivalent to the visual art world's "artist editions" or "artist books," but by dance artists. Choreographers out there, question: how many of you have tons of writing, pictures, drawings or other type of publishable documentation that is/was part of your choreographic process? Making that type of information available would add yet another layer to an artist's work and to an audience's understanding of that work. grrrcia on "Why choreograph "experimental" dance?" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=46#post-117 Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:32:34 +0000 grrrcia 117@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ Luciana, Do you mind expanding on this statement you made in response to Geetanjali's question, "Why make experimental dance:" "That is also why I have ended up making work that has mostly to do with identity and how that is intertwined with our being in our bodies." How did you explore identity and how it relates to being in our bodies in your last work, "Franney & Zooey?" Thanks! gmworld on "Dance Tasting" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=87#post-115 Sat, 30 Jun 2007 03:01:42 +0000 gmworld 115@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ Have you ever attended or presented in a format where a live performance or video presentation of a dance is interspersed with live commentary. The focus could be on the precise movements / theme / a particular dancer / how that portion of the piece evolved. What was the starting point of the piece, how the team experimented with various movements/music/light/space concepts before finalizing either a particular portion or the piece in totality? The commentator need not be the choreographer. It could be someone else who is technically knowledgeable and speaks from the vantage point of independent judgement. Often times the DVDs of acclaimed movies contain a section called Director or Review's commentary. There is so much to learn and appreciate once you understand the technical nuances and peel the first layer of perception. It is not necessary an interpretation of the Director's thoughts and ideas but more focussed on bringing to light the technical brilliance which may otherwise not be noticed by a vast number of viewers. It is a way to train the eye and mind of the audience to view the same medium differently next time. Do you think an occasional presentation in this format could help widen the audience net for your art form? gmworld on "Disconnect between 2 types of audience" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=49#post-105 Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:12:44 +0000 gmworld 105@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ Luciana, What a coincidence. I was at another modern dance show choreographed by your peer. I thought the show was unique in its use of partitioned space and repitition across space and time. The rest of my friends viewing a performance of this nature for the first time were intrigued, confused and had similar questions that I grapple with. However their 4 year old daughter enjoyed the show the most. She was not encumbered with deciphering a meaning. The audience was free to move around, so she enjoyed following the dancers. My friends had an opportunity to chat with the dancers after the show and address some questions (which mostly began with "why"). The conversation made them appreciate the piece so much more because they could understand the intent of the artist and follow the thought process behind some of the moments. I found that the brief interaction trained their minds to interpret the show each in their own way. Otherwise they were stumbling for a starting point. Your interview following the performance in Nothing Festival was also along the same lines, although more technical. Perhaps setting aside the "why" and just marinating in the moment is the best starting point for the audience. Being open to the new experience without the need to compare with what is already known, what is already understood. So that the unexpected leads to enjoyment, rather than the unfamiliar leading to bewilderment. That brings me to a full circle on this discussion thread that it is more a matter of acquired taste. Most items of selective delight require smart promotion and marketing skills. Perhaps an alternate approach worth considering is presenting "tasting events" for those interested in acquiring a taste. Or creating the shallow end of the pool to prepare for the deep dive? Does anything come to your mind as a means of educating the audience and inviting them to get a taste of the potions you concoct. lachugar on "Disconnect between 2 types of audience" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=49#post-103 Mon, 25 Jun 2007 13:57:47 +0000 lachugar 103@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ Also, I am not sure what you mean when you say that to the unexperienced viewer the theme is more important. Do you mean that you search for a specific meaning? I think it depends on the work you are seeing. In my work there is a lot of meaning and "statements" going on, and I hope people can enjoy it in a simple visceral way and at the same time come out with some kind of thought provoking internal dialogue as well. I find it interesting that experimental dance is thought of as so much more alienating as say ballet and yet, for my six year old niece my concert at Danspace Project was a lot more fun than the ballet she had just seen a couple of weeks ago. But she wasn't trying to judge it, she was having her own experience with it and she loved being able to run around and follow the dancers, she felt more involved and engaged than when she was taken to the ballet to see a classic. This doesn't apply to all audiences but I find it kind of interesting that the ones that really loved that piece were my six year old niece and a few pilates clients of mine who are not dancers and range from 40 to 70 years old. lachugar on "Disconnect between 2 types of audience" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=49#post-102 Mon, 25 Jun 2007 13:47:34 +0000 lachugar 102@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ Hi, Geetanjali! I am sorry it took me so long to answer. I was preoccupied with a lot of other stuff... I am well aware of the how unpopular contemporary dance is and I go back and forth between feeling sad and depressed about it to feeling that it is probably an acquired taste and that it takes a long time to get through to those who are not already converted to loving this form. I often think of making dances as being more akin to writing an essay on philosophy and aesthetics than being a pure entertainment. When I think of it in that way, I often realize that I am making a dance for my colleagues, in my imagination I am having a dialogue with the other artists creating work. However, I am also working really hard on making work that is also a SHOW!!!! Meaning, that I strive to make work that is accessible in many different levels; in an immediate visceral and emotional level and in a more conceptual one in which I am also in dialogue with the other work I see. I think that the more mainstream forms of dance are popular because they are what people know about dance already. They are what most people think dance is. That is not to say that I have no respect with those forms of dance. They are about a very primal and necessary connection to the body, a celebratory, very physical and exciting feeling of being alive in the body (I am referring here mostly to folk dancing, ballroom, etc. Ballet is a whole different thing in and of itself). I think that one has to do what one has to do. With that I mean to say that if it will take years for people to connect to the kind of dances that are being created in the experimental/contemporary scene, so be it. It took years for people to understand and accept what Isadora Duncan or Martha Graham or Merce Cunningham were doing at first. But it is the job of the artist, especially the ones that dare to be broke in this time in NYC, to introduce new perspectives and ways of looking at dance or the body or our attitudes about seeing a performance onstage. It is of no surprise that it is more popular to see virtuosic movers flying across the stage and spinning countless times, the same way that sports are even more popular. In my opinion it has a lot to do with our societies still very superficial relationship to our own physical selves. And it is far easier and/or more digestible to observe physical tricks on "perfect" bodies than to be faced by work that is coming from a more complex and loaded relationship to our physical selves, or rather, work that might be about the inseparability of our physical, emotional and spiritual selves; or work that might be questioning the values of a capitalist system because it is just about the value of experience and being. With all this I don't mean to put down any of the mainstream dances you speak of. I have a lot of respect for them. However, I have a lot of love for the work that my peers and I do and I will definitely welcome any suggestions to widen the audience, just as long as I am not being asked to let go of my ideology and my vision. meech on "Because:" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=50#post-96 Wed, 20 Jun 2007 21:10:50 +0000 meech 96@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ My name is Demetrius Klein. I am a dancer/choreographer living and working in south Florida. I am also pleased to say I was in attendance at the ballet research seminar June 2nd. I found the panelists quite knowledgeable and passonite. My first observation is that it seems the panelists were discussing the idea of training dancers from multi-disciplines using ballet technique. It also seems to me that several of the audience members were discussing what ballet class would mean to them as dance makers. I felt like this point was not clarified clearly. The idea that you can use ballet to cross train dancers of any discipline is at this point not a fairly unique or ground-breaking idea. The idea that you create dances without the aid of ballet is also not a radical or new idea. You really don't need ballet to become a great dance maker. However, as a dancer, ballet is just another tool to be used at the dancers' discretion. The next point that I found interesting was, no-one made the distinction between ballet and classical dancing. I know this seems like a somewhat silly statement, but I feel it is of great importantance. I use ballet in the classroom and as a trianing device, it is my first language I think,in ballet terms, I even take ballet class, still, even though I no longer preform. I do not, however, work with pointe shoes, tutus, foutte turns, classical music, double tour, or et al. One of my collegues is a former dancer with ABT, she teaches classical dancing. She will argue with you re: hand placement, head placement, leg placement, and what is "classically correct". Similar to what Zi said I tend to nod and say "Okay, that sounds good." this is an important point. Because I feel, this is where many contemporary dancers get alot of completely useless information about ballet. This is where alot of the problems come from in regards to body image, eliteism, exclusivity, and class/social hierarchy. Ballet when taught from a human point of view is a great, open and enabling art form. I got alot of great information and food for thought from this seminar. Many thanks to all the panelists and festival organizers. Thanks, Meech chase on "Mtg Notes from 05.21.07. riffs, modulations and melodies." http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=44#post-91 Tue, 12 Jun 2007 23:08:31 +0000 chase 91@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ I feel that our (Jon and I) use of the word boredom in titles has caused people to mis-read or confused people on how to approach our performances. I figured I would offer a short statement I recently wrote on our use of boredom. This is not a complete statement but possibly a starting point. If anyone has questions or comments I hope they will potentially use this forum as a place for that discussion. The use of boredom in our titles refers to work that does not attempt to entertain. Boredom is thought of as an active place of thought and contemplation. By titling our work boredom we do not claim the work to be boring but rather is an investigation into a specific passing and development of time. Boredom is seen by us as a place of production. It is not a static state but rather something more along the lines of feedback*. The use of boredom allows for discussion in regards to the performance and content of the performance. Boredom is a slowing down of time, an opening of space that allows for interpretation and possibility. For a definition of *feedback check out <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_feedback">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_feedback</a> Chase. jmleary on "Monday June 4" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=66#post-89 Sun, 10 Jun 2007 23:57:08 +0000 jmleary 89@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ in attendance: Felicia Ballos JM Leary Laurie Berg Michael Mahalchick why did the little girl fall off the swing? because she was dead what do you get when you cross a rhinoceros with an elephant? elephino how do you know you've been to a gay BBQ? The hot dogs taste like shit a pirate walks into a bar with a ships wheel in the front of his pants and the bartender says to him "you know you have a ship's wheel in your pants?" and the pirate says "I know I do matey, It's driving me nuts!aaarrrgghh!" A hasidim walks into a bar with a frog on his shoulder and the bartender asks "Where did you get him?" The frog replies "In Williamsburg, there's a ton of them." Did you hear what happened to the guy who tried to pet the angry computerized dog? He got a megabyte! When asked about it he said "it megahertz!" What do you call a lesbian dino? Lickalottapuss. What did the mom on the beach say to Michael Jackson? Get outta my my son. Melinda on "from Marjorie Mussman" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=56#post-88 Sat, 09 Jun 2007 17:30:49 +0000 Melinda 88@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ For my body it is just not as simple as Marjorie suggests: Â“If a dancer understands a non-rigid axis line, itÂ’s not difficult to leave it [ballet] for other physical and stylistic expressionsÂ” or as Tessa says: ItÂ’s not a matter of WHAT (ballet vs. release, Alexander, yoga, the treadmill, whatever) but HOWÂ….Â” Since the panel IÂ’ve been thinking about training as creating a prepared body. A ballet body is predisposed to certain ways of working, Â“myelinized,Â” as Christine pointed out, to perform certain kinds of movement with great skill. But itÂ’s not as easy to de-skill/unprepare a body because thereÂ’s the physiology of myelination (etc.) involved. The body is altered. The decision to raise my center of gravity by studying ballet is a WHAT, a specific choice that I make when I choose my trainingÂ—with a consequence. ItÂ’s not a coat that I can put on and off, but a commitment to changing my physiology. Maybe others have more facility at slipping in and out of different Â“bodies,Â” but for me it wasnÂ’t that simple. This is where Release technique, Alexander, Feldenkrais come inÂ—these works give you options to your patterns, ways to change movement pathways, re-educate movement. These Â“techniquesÂ” arenÂ’t of the same order as a ballet or Modern technique class, which train specific pathways. They are doing something entirely different with the body. The interest in them spurred by a return to the pedestrian body in dance, a legacy of post-modernism. So when choosing what class I want to take itÂ’s important for me to know what I want to do with it. What is my purpose? Do I really want to move in the specific way that a particular technique creates? Do I want to train a facility to slip between different Â“bodies,Â” that seems so necessary in todayÂ’s contemporary dance world? Am I interested in creating my own movement pathways for choreography or investigating movement as a tool for communication? These would each require different ways of training, different focuses for different bodies. I would love to hear more from Barbara Forbes on this issue if she is checking these postsÂ—how she sees Feldenkrais training working with ballet technique. Does she see it helping dancers to fulfill the demands of ballet technique more functionally for their bodies? Or is she actually shifting the use of ballet itself to be a way for the body to find options? It would be great to hear from some people who were able to attend her class. ---Melinda B. Melinda on "Where ballet is heading?" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=61#post-84 Wed, 06 Jun 2007 16:09:17 +0000 Melinda 84@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ This article is copied here for purely educational purposes. Make sure still to buy your June Dance Magazine with ABT's Divine Sarah Lane on the cover. Warning: read the article with your pink satin colored glasses on. What interests me about it is in relation to the notion of the panel--why study ballet in a post modern world. What I see happening in some contemporary dance, esp. the downtown variety, is the use of ballet as a reference rather than a vocabulary. Curiously, seems you need the vocabulary to do that. But of course mostly we do! I also get the sense of ballet used in some works in an almost "take back the night" kind of way--"I love doing ballet and I don't care if I live up to your ballet world standards, I am going to use it because I want to." Kind of "in your face ballet world." Clive, sadly, doesn't get into this more post modern usage, nor did we have time for it at the panel. I couldn't help myself and added some bold emphasis here... Melinda B. DANCE MAGAZINE June 2007 ATTITUDES By Clive Barnes Thirdstream dance is more easily defined than Â“postmodernÂ” dance, which always has seemed a vague nomenclature to me, or even that favorite, passed over from art criticism, Â“postexpressionist,Â” especially as so many people who use the term are uncertain about precisely what defines expressionism. Compared with such lexical vagaries, thirdstream is almost self-defining: It is dance that finds a certain common ground with both modern dance and classical ballet, performed usually in ballet slippers but occasionally barefoot or even in toe shoes. But where did it come from? Who started it? It's difficult to pin down. Yet I think we might make a useful beginning with the Nederlands Dans Theater in the early 1960s, and zero in on the late Glen Tetley, the American choreographer who, like fellow-American John Neumeier, is markedly better known in Europe than the United States. Thirdstream dance is not just a crossover mix of the two predominant theater dance genres of the past century. Classical companies started sizing up modern dance as early as 1940, when Richard Pleasant of Ballet Theatre sent out feelers to Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey. Valerie Bettis worked with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1947, the same year that Merce Cunningham created The Seasons for Ballet Society. In 1970 Jose Limon gave The Moor's Pavane and The Traitor to ABT and the floodgates opened with Graham, Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey, Murray Louis, Kurt Jooss, Twyla Tharp, and many other moderns working with classical companies, winch were desperately eager for creativity and finding precious few suitable recruits within their own ranks. But not too many of these works, TharpÂ’s apart, were genuine thirdstream ballets. They were basically modern dance works adjusted for the differently muscled feet and cleaner soles of classical dancers. Perhaps hints of the first thirdstream pieces came even earlier, quite unexpectedly from England, with Tudor's 1957 Dark Elegies and his neo-expressionist 1938 Judgment of Paris. Tudor was aware of the German moderns, so these ballets did not exactly run in from left field. Then, in 1940, arch-classicist Ashton staged his extraordinary Dante Sonata, where the women, led by Fontevn no less, went barefoot. But I still stubbornly think thirdstream dance found its beginnings in the Hague, that staid capital of the Netherlands. The Nederlands Dans Theater was founded in 1959 bv Carel Birnie and the American teacher and choreographer Benjamin Harkarvy. The young Dutchman Hans van Manen enlisted, later to be joined by the Americans John Butler, Glen Tetley, and, on a visiting basis, Anna Sokolow. Harkarvy was a pure classicist; Butler and Sokolow were moderns. So it was really van Manen and the more experienced Tetlev who came to formulate the emerging aesthetic of thirdstream dance. It was an exciting time. I often saw the Dutch company in England and Holland. Tetley's growing influence was reinforced when in 1996 the British choreographer Norman Morrice, himself Graham-influenced, reinvented the old Ballet Rambert into the Rambert Dance Company, with Tetley making a major contribution. Tetley was a remarkable man, an intellectual with the sensibility of an artist. His first stint with the Dutch had started in 1962, the year he created Pierrot Lunaire, his choreographic breakthrough. Although for a time he sporadically maintained his own American company, from then on he made Europe his creative base. Many of Tetley's works found their way into both The Royal Ballet and ABTÂ’s repertoire, notably the 1973 ballet he made to Poulenc's VoluntarieÂ’s, originally for the Stuttgart Ballet as a memorial to John Cranko. Its sweep and power, its use of classical technique underlayered with a modern dance spirit, made it a controversial template for thirdstream dance. It was typical of the style which first inspired that fascinating wave of European choreographers in the 1970s, including van Mancn, Rudi van Dantzig, Morrice, Christopher Bruce, Jiri Kylian, all with a classical background. The worldwide effect todav of that style has been considerable, even if largely subliminal. It is an influence that, I believe, has suggested to some modern dancers a freer approach to technique, closer sometimes to classical dance than the old cardinal virtues of the Graham and Humphrey schools. To classical dancers this very same influence opened up the possibilities of a more emotive expression within the balletic vocabulary. Here then were the beginnings of a fusion, the start of a thirdstream that doesn't replace, but extends, the other two. Senior Consulting Editor Clive Barnes also covers dance and theater for the New York Post. Melinda on "Where ballet is heading?" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=61#post-82 Tue, 05 Jun 2007 18:07:01 +0000 Melinda 82@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ Dana Casperson's (of Forsythe Ballet) expanded definition of ballet from a blog at the Walker Art Center. For the whole post see <a href="http://blogs.walkerart.org/performingarts/2007/04/09/categories-beauty-and-dance/" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.walkerart.org/performingarts/2007/04/09/categories-beauty-and-dance/</a> Especially the part way below interests me: "I see the balletic primarily as a set of ideas about relationship: the body's relationship with itself and with the room. I don't think that it is an aesthetic system." this makes me think of Mary Overlie and how she makes a dance in relationship to a room. yet I wouldn't call her dance ballet! Anyway, the whole thing is thought provoking in light of some of the ballet panel discussion. enjoy, Melinda B. Dana is responding to a post by Lightsey Darst: As I was saying to the kids from the performing arts high school, to be highly trained in multiple techniques, to be skilled, does not imply increased artificiality and does not detract from the ability to be authentic, but rather, in the best case, creates a situation where the possibilities for detailed expression are increased. The more subtle one's grasp of a language, the greater the possibility for depth of expression. When I am working with people on dancing I am thinking with them about possibilities, not in order to limit the set of possibilities, but to enlarge it. Thinking about your comments on ballet and beauty: My other thought is about ballet. Ballet is, importantly, a aesthetic system. Its rules describe a canon of beauty. To turn the leg out this way and point it, always with the toes extending the line of the leg and the heel coming back toward the ankle, is beautiful; to turn the leg in and sickle the foot is ugly. At least, that's what ballet technique tells us. We've been talking a bit about the space-defining nature of ballet-its geometry-but we haven't addressed its description of beauty. I see Forsythe as taking that standard of beauty and warping it this way and that way-not to be perverse, but because our imaginations have changed. We now see the purposely sickled foot as another form of beauty. We love complexity and difference where our ancestors longed for simplicity, universality. I'm oversimplifying, of course. But it's worth remembering that ballet's beauty arose in a time and place. What beauty fits this time and place? (Lightsey Darst) This is another interesting subject. I tend to agree with Roland Barthes that the classical is relational. I see the balletic primarily as a set of ideas about relationship: the body's relationship with itself and with the room. I don't think that it is an aesthetic system. Classical balletic vocabulary is a language, and its expression lies with the speaker. For example, I see the piece "The The" as a piece that speaks in the classical vocabulary. Ballet is not a finished project and in my experience balletic technique itself does not direct us toward a particular expression of beauty, but rather toward a myriad of questions as to what it might become. I read a great quote this morning from Lord Tennyson who said "The old order changeth, yielding place to the new, and God fulfills himself in many ways, lest one good custom should corrupt the world." I think it is important to distinguish between traditional ballet repertoire (which in regard to Tennyson I would see as a custom) and ballet as an artistic practice (that which fulfills itself in many ways). The balletic is contained in the great flow of categories of motion that are available to the human body; it is possibility, not end-state. So, I think beauty arises through the classical, but that the classical is not a system predicated on beauty. What do you all think? tessachandler on "from Marjorie Mussman" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=56#post-77 Mon, 04 Jun 2007 11:20:00 +0000 tessachandler 77@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ Thanks to all who participated in the forum on Saturday at 100 Grand, and thanks to Marjorie for this beautiful post. I arrived on Saturday quite unslept after striking a performance that happened the night before, so I didn't grab the microphone, doubting I could form coherent sentences. However, I listened well and applaud the interest that brought the discussion into being. I particularly appreciated the spiritual dimension Zvi and Barbara brought to the conversations around "training," consistently referencing the humanity of dance of all kinds. I welcomed Teresa's no-holds-barred frankness and Christine's elucidation of how multiple practices combine to improve overall skill. And I commend Erika's leadership, Beth's passion, and everyone else who showed up and commented. I have to agree with Bill Young, though, that attempting to analyze trends or create theoretical generalizations around supposed trends isn't all that functional. If you really want to know why people choose to take ballet, you have to ask them personally. But I sure enjoyed hearing these fine professionals speak about their work. If I'd been able to form sentences on Saturday, I'd have asked the panel to share their expertise on the actual requirements/characteristics of ballet. These are the reasons I like to do it. --The turn-out imperative, a constant whole-body orientation which allows for highly efficient upright locomotion and direction-change; --The ability of the dancer to interact with the music as if she were another instrument, by virtue of the unit-like structure of ballet steps and the versatility of the transitions between the steps to evoke precise musical phrasing; --The certain type of music ballet classes usually offer (classical, romantic, show tunes, singable stuff on the piano), often played LIVE, by kick-ass musicians; --The opportunity to raise one's center of gravity, which is challenging and un-pedestrian, for a sense of balance in one's repertory of movement; --And perhaps more than anything else, the opportunity to hop and spin and skip and leap, all of which can be done in non-balletic ways, but which ballet can teach you to do repeatedly without injuring your joints (if you understand that whole-body-turn-out organization well, which is what the barre is for, and if you enjoy yourself while you're doing it). To me it's not a matter of WHAT (ballet vs. release, Alexander, yoga, the treadmill, whatever) but HOW: if an artist takes herself to a dance class with the intention of respecting herself (i.e., Barbara's "taking over the authority," Donald Byrd's "my time") and honing her craft (i.e., Christine's "skill"), then whatever class she's chosen will serve her well. Thanks for reading -- Tessa erika on "from Marjorie Mussman" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=56#post-76 Sun, 03 Jun 2007 23:45:51 +0000 erika 76@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ Hi everyone, I'm so sorry to miss the Ballet Research Panel. I've really appreciated so many valid thoughts and interesting observations in the posts. Thought I would add another perspective. Forgive the pedantry. I just need it for some background. I think ballet technique is one of those many human inventions by which we exceed our physical limitations (weapons, tools, boats, planes, climbing gear, baseball bats, pointe shoes, etc.) in order to survive (some other living beings do this too) and to do more than just survive. It's important to remember that ballet vocabulary evolved from peasant recreational dance...an enjoyable, fun, and harmonious, though often raucous, activity. Court folks liked to have fun too, though more formally, and, from this pleasurable occupation, eventually a "ballet" school and subsidized group of dancers were launched for the viewing enjoyment of the ruling classes. Always underlying this development, lay the human trait to "exceed", as I mentioned before. So while the folk dancers kept jumping higher, turning more, and adding greater intricacies and rhythms and vitality to dance, so were the ballet dancers, only with more idealization of the human body and spirit (after all, they did hang out with royalty): the vertical human being became really vertical; turn-out became a means of traveling sideways while not having to turn to the side, the better to communicate with the audience and to display the developing aesthetic of turn-out; there was extraodinary grace and harmony of movement; and the context was the great agreeableness of life...human endeavor beyond mere humanity. At its purest, ballet is all about harmony and balance, which in ordinary life is quite haphazard but for which we strive. Abstract romantic and classical ballet is about idealized life. Think "Les Sylphides". I'm reminded that in the early ballets, any malevolent characters employed more mime than dance to express their personalities and intentions, as ballet steps and the quality of ballet movement do not inherently depict pathology or dissonance. Remember, those steps came from people having fun. If good ballet training has as it's basic principles good posture (verticality), harmony, and balance, add musicality and you've got tremendous fluidity of movement and coordination (the dancer, of course, has to bring alot to the table as well), and the dancer can take his or her body to any place, design, or use of weight. Dancers trained to tuck under, have rigid necks and spines, tense arms and hands, a forced turn-out, are ungrounded, and roll forward on their feet (or just a few of these items), can only be limiting themselves both in a ballet career and an attempt to cross over into a contemporary style and technique. To me, this type of training is a huge misrepresentation of what ballet is about, and one of the more egregious examples of "style over substance". It is rote training derived from a distorted concept of ballet and, unfortunately, a dancer can become locked into it's habits and have a difficult time correcting them. Style is an expression of philosophy, national temperament, a point of view, a trend, etc., and it's training has to come from an understanding of it's source. Watching a dancer who truly understands a style is one of the most fulfilling experiences for the dance lover, because he or she communicate both athleticism and idea as one totality. As with poor physical training, poor stylistic training can severely limit not only the ballet dancer but those dancers wanting to work in a more contemporary area. Muscles remember long term instructions and it can take them a long time to relearn For many years, modern and contemporary dancers have attended ballet classes...which proves something...and most likely studied with teachers who have forgone the misunderstood frills of style and emphasized a neutral, non-emotional warming of the body, focus, a gradual opening up of the hips, back, and chest, and a rhythmic clarity. Of all athletic training, ballet best utilizes the most muscles properly if done within the context of harmonic balance and posture. If a dancer understands a non-rigid axis line, it's not difficult to leave it for other physical and stylistic expressions. If he or she only works with a tenuous balance or, through gripping and tension, a consistent off-balance, he or she can also be inhibited in movement and rhythmic possibilities. Modern and contemporary techniques have extended an enormous influence and vitality to ballet in terms of options, thinking well, expression, and fluidity. These disciplines actually support and enhance each other. A few years ago, Dance Magazine asked it's readers to select whom they thought were the best companies, dancers, etc. Best male modern dancers voted for were Mikhail Baryshnikov, Desmond Richardson, and David Leventhal...all originally trained ballet dancers or trained simultaneously in ballet and modern. There you go! Marjorie lise on "Because:" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=50#post-70 Thu, 31 May 2007 17:08:47 +0000 lise 70@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ I love ballet. I love doing it, I love teaching it, and I love watching it. I came to love doing, teaching and watching it EVEN MORE after spending several years working with Nancy Topf, doing improv in various ways with various people, getting very into Feldenkreis, Alexander, etc.... because all of those things gave me a) deeper physical and/or psychic/emotional understanding of what ballet technique encoded and embodied for me. Basically, everything else I did set me free to REALLY love throwing my legs around - because I finally had the vocabulary (physical and in words) to break down what happened when things did or didn't work. And understood in my body, finally, that ballet happens from the spine. What I love about ballet (and yes, I am a Virgo) is that it either works, or it doesn't. That doesn't mean its either: perfect or worthless. That means, you work from understanding. I have never done anything that so completely engages my mind, body and heart on a daily basis. As my dearly beloved Alfredo Corvino used to say: "It is simple but it is not easy." Ballet class, when I was doing it daily, was like transcendental dish washing. Ballet taught me to meditate. Ballet taught me to improvise. The freedom of not having to make up a language gives so much space for experimentation. As does the freedom within its mathematics (as W. Forsythe so succinctly put it in the quote that opened this blog). Its not a dance form built on someones idiosyncratic body, someone who might be really short waisted when you or I am not.... It is like the Bible, the product of many many authors, with many many accents, but one root grammar. I think that for a lot of people pursuing modern dance in New York City ballet is relatively neutral space. I know things have changed alot, but when I first came in the early 1980's, chosing your modern class meant chosing a whole social circle. Ballet didn't force that choice in the same way. I could do ballet AND be in other camps, simultaneously. Teaching ballet is an art form (obviously). To do it well you have to be so steeped in its traditions and ways of organizing space and time and movement that you can play and improvise to what the class needs. To me that never means making it not ballet, it means teaching ballet so that the dancers in front of me understand what the goals are even if they can't quite get there, today. And understanding the goals doesn't mean trapping anyone into a tutu. It just means getting the most for your buck out of class. In most ballet classes for contemporary dancers I miss the part of ballet that is to me what makes it most deeply what it is - the use of head and arms. The top half of the body IS the dancing in ballet. The feet and legs do a hell of lot but generally, they are the propellants and the rhythm. The head and arms are the melody. Besides that, they are gloriously fun to play with. Waltz on! gmworld on "Disconnect between 2 types of audience" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=49#post-69 Thu, 31 May 2007 15:51:22 +0000 gmworld 69@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ If you agreed with my hypothesis in the previous post regarding the disconnect between novice and technically advanced audience, I am curious to explore if there is a way to bridge this gap. I find it is easier to pursuade my friends to watch esoteric movies, still arts exhibitions and plays rather than dance. Do you think that one way to reach out to the main stream audience may be brief opening remarks prior to the presentation and closing remarks to train the minds of the audience to follow the work better? Or do you think there are elements about ball room dancing, Latin dancing, Irish dancing, broadway dancing or even ballet which are more appealing to the main stream audience? Do you ever create work with any particular type of audience in mind? gmworld on "Disconnect between 2 types of audience" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=49#post-68 Thu, 31 May 2007 15:34:22 +0000 gmworld 68@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ Your previous posts may have highlighted one area of disconnect between main stream audience and the more technically knowledgeable audience. As someone not familiar with the technical nuances of dance, I find myself more likely to focus on the thematic aspects of the work. There is a natural instinct to unravel the jigsaw of logic and use the crutches of comparison to the traditional works that I am familiar with in terms of judging a work. On the other hand, for someone familiar with the technical nuances of the art, it is easier to distill the merit of the movement and judge the work on the basis of isolated moments which may be connected by an overarching theme but deciphering the theme is not as important for appreciating the work. grrrcia on "artist statements" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=48#post-66 Thu, 31 May 2007 11:51:26 +0000 grrrcia 66@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ I've been working on a piece since July/August of 2006. Now, 3 weeks before the show and 9/10 months later, is when I have an understanding what I've been making. Now, I can honestly say I arrived at something (if its possible to REALLY "arrive" at something with artmaking). I didn't set out to make a piece about this or that. I had one very simple/bare/minimal concept and allowed that to be the container for the work. I chose this process intentionally from the start. In the past, I would set out to make a piece about, for example, tourism or the death of privacy. Because I chose this route, I didn't have artist statements prepared for submission deadlines for presentation opportunities, artist residencies, etc.. Actually, I submitted applications, but they were all missing the complete statement for my most current work. The panels reviewing the applications must have thought my work was conceptually weak. The truth was that, in all honesty, I wasn't at the point that I could explain what I'd been doing for 9 months. Such is life! I missed the Nothing Festival panels, but in my own way, I understand what the Nothing Festival was trying to get at. Melinda on "from Janet Panetta" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=9#post-64 Tue, 29 May 2007 12:06:15 +0000 Melinda 64@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ In response to AlexandraÂ’s question about practice: Ballet taught my body to be very specific. But it didnÂ’t teach my body to have choice. The point seemed to be to train the specifics until they were habitual so you didnÂ’t have to think about them, i.e. choose them. Then (it was said) youÂ’d be freed up to be emotionally expressive through the steps. (? Â—had the time to think about something else because the physical part was automatic?) It seems to be a professional liability in dance that, because the body is our medium, you really have to take on physical patterns in a way that a visual artist say, doesnÂ’t have to when experimenting with different styles. I donÂ’t know, that seems true, but maybe it isnÂ’t. Maybe visual artists take them on too. But in dance the medium is MY WHOLE BODY. I am my art in a much more immediate and perhaps confusing way. Studying ballet in order to have a taste of a certain way of working is an interesting proposition, but ultimately you are feeding your body patterns. You are what you eat. So I hesitate to do a ballet barre or take a class now, even though I love the feeling of doing ballet, because where I am in my practice I am interested in looking at choice making in my movement. The choice to look at choice on my part is my own aesthetic one. Rather than a question of which movement style for me itÂ’s a question of whether to train or be untrainedÂ—not untrained in the sense of being unschooled, but not highly patterned in movement. The pedestrianism of the 60s was maybe partly a movement trend but it was also a reminder that there are other ways to work with the body than through physical patterning. Yes, there is always patterning, but there are different ways to work with it than to create highly specific patterns. It took several years of intensive training in release technique in order for me to find a different center of gravity in my body than the one I had worked so hard to obtain in ballet class. I did it because I became curious. Then more adjustment when I became aware that the efficiency model of movement was yet another type of patterning that excluded certain other kinds of movement in its own way. When asked Â“Do you know what you are doing?Â” I have to say IÂ’ve been blindly feeling my way through my own movement interests in a changing body. And then balletÂ’s not for every body. For me, to study what it meant to have choice in my movement I needed to give up ballet and other techniques of specific patternings. How ironic! I gave up entrechat (for example) because they required a certain amount of upkeep. It seemed like a loss of choice at first, and that was scary to me as a dancer. But in giving up the upkeep, certain other possibilities became available. A friend of mine trained in Butoh recently told me sheÂ’s been enjoying studying ballet. The idea of feeling her body as one entity seems so intriguing to her after all the work of training different parts of her body to move autonomously. Wow. ItÂ’s nice to have that choice too. As far as choices go though, it seems like there are fewer highly specific movement techniques and that ballet has become the Â“EnglishÂ” of the contemporary dance scene here. I say this because it seems more often I see dancers in modern companies with obvious ballet training. Is it that as there is less funding for the arts itÂ’s harder to sustain the training necessary to create highly individual technical styles? Or that as we become global itÂ’s less interesting to be so specific and more interesting to have a conversation, even if it is limited to a certain vocabulary? I am less inclined to conclude that it is because there is something universal about ballet technique itself as some suggest. Highly specific and with the time behind it to be fully developed maybe, yes. It seems to me like it is a hardy variety that sprang up in the right court at the right time. Â–speculations by Melinda B. Melinda on "What would dance look like if ballet had never existed?" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=23#post-63 Tue, 29 May 2007 11:52:28 +0000 Melinda 63@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ This is a fun question! Some thoughts and associations: Â•Good question for a dissertation or a retro-psychic! Or for Captain Kirk in the Edith Keeler episode of Star Trek (the one where he goes back in time and accidentally stops World War II from happeningÂ…) Â•DoesnÂ’t Indian classical dance use turnout? I have to check my little statue of Ganesh, Yes! He is SO turned out. But I bet elephantÂ’s hips donÂ’t really rotate like that. My dogÂ’s donÂ’t anyway. (My cultural references are sadly slim.) Â•This makes me think of page 182 in Blandine Calais-GermainÂ’s Anatomy of Movement that points out that the hip is most seated in the socket when the thigh is flexed at 90 degrees, slightly externally rotated and abducted. And the sling back chair in the picture looks so comfy. Were sling back chairs inevitable for the same reason as ballet? Â•Yoga emphasizes the parallel foot. All those balancesÂ—parallel parallel parallel. Uttita Hasta Padangustasana. Vrkasana. Ardha Chandrasana. Etc. Â•How my ballet teachers were freaked out by the possibility of one leg in parallel and the other turned out. Susan Klein and Barbara Mahler were heretics, lunatics, for suggesting it. It seemed so daring, so rebellious, and dangerous (I thought my body might implode or something) to experiment with one leg on the barre turned out and the standing leg parallel. To feel how the 2 halves of the pelvis can do different things at the same time, the rationale. (A hidden political agenda in that perhaps?) But there it was in Vrkasana et al. all along. Nobody imploded. Â•So what are the Myths of why turnout? I remember being told (and feeling) that it is more stable to balance with the feet turned out (but not TOO turned out, thereÂ’s the rub on that one) and that a turned out leg is a more beautiful line from the proscenium perspective (totally subjective and court dances werenÂ’t originally done in a proscenium were they??) other peopleÂ’s turnout myths and facts? --Melinda lachugar on "Why choreograph "experimental" dance?" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=46#post-62 Mon, 28 May 2007 19:03:31 +0000 lachugar 62@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ 3. What motivated you to be a choreographer and direct works like Exhausting Love, Franny and Zooey instead of more traditional works of art? The decision to make dances came pretty late in my life. I always thought of myself more as a dancer or improviser; partly because I did not see myself being able to direct other people and/or being in charge and partly because my inspiration in dance comes very much from my own visceral need to express and until recently (last 5 years) I wasn't able to translate to others this specific personal relationship to dance. After years of dancing in other people's work and still feeling frustrated with my relationship with the art form and with performing (i.e.: dancing my ass off onstage and noticing audience members sleeping, completely disengaged or disconnected from what was going on with the experience of the dancers onstage). I decided that I would quit. A few months later I realized my relationship to dance had a lot more to do with philosophy and ideology and a "sensual/experiential" way of life than continuing on with doing the kind of dance that I had been doing. I guess what i'm trying to explain is that my motivation for making work has within it always, the question of why make dance? and what is dance? I did not consciously decide to make "non-traditional" work, except I do try to make work that is "current", meaning that is born out of issues and concerns of being in one's body and experience in today's world. That is also why I have ended up making work that has mostly to do with identity and how that is intertwined with our being in our bodies. There is so much more to talk about in regards to this but I am starting to feel like I am having a conversation with myself and since this is supposed to be a forum, I think it might be more interesting to have you, geetanjali and/or other people participate. please ask, question, agree, disagree, talk about yourself, etc... jmleary on "Mtg Notes from 05.21.07. riffs, modulations and melodies." http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=44#post-60 Mon, 28 May 2007 01:23:09 +0000 jmleary 60@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ In Attendance 05.21.07 Felicia Ballos Jamm Leary Biba Bell Treva Wurmfield Notes: Discussing the show by Chase and Jon at The Chocolate Factory of Boredom (as an amplifier) and the NY Times Review of it: Did the work transcend its subject? Interesting in itÂ’s inconsistency, the casual self-consciousness, focus on interior then gazing at the audience for a brief second, seemingly breaking the interior focus, the audience seeing spike marks and hearing loud music, classically trained boys referencing an anti-institutional punk-rock aesthetic. The set was a space that should be left like after wasted late night band practice and referenced the OCD conceptual art aesthetic, to visibly SEE the effort that goes into creating nothing. Lineage, as it often is, was absent, in the Times review. To what extent are John and Chase, smart guys, aware of their referencing? Early Judson was also boring and self-conscious. The carefully simple outfits of jeans, white short sleeve TÂ’s and sneakers were a uniform for [the 70Â’s avant guard performers like John Cage, Morton Feldman, Steve Paxton Â– donÂ’t know if this is really true]. The show ended with rapper Despot followed by the beginning of Gnarls Barkley's CRAZY.....I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind. There was something so pleasant about that place....which was quickly shut off and free beers were offered. Boredom is a decoy that potentially removes any potential for criticism. BibaÂ’s notes about boredom as a concept, via Heidegger. Boredom has this way in which philosophy deals with animals, released from captivation, pulled to this emptiness. Whatever it is that you are interested in, in will never be fulfilled. It is a subjective state, the feeling that you are going to give the audience. Who is going to be bored? Felicia talked about: Beginning of Dub step parties. Reggea mixed with two step dub? From London. Treva was in Texas doing fund raising with an oil-rich woman with a fluffy cat named grace to fund her artificial heart transplant documentary. She and the woman are new best friends for a few days...going to shows, sitting by the pool. The woman would want to feed her cats and open a door and push Treva in and say Â“exploreÂ” and shut the door. Treva would walk around and then the intercoms say Â“Treva.Â” The womanÂ’s husband walks around with a parrot on his shoulder. EAI Â– Electronic Art Intermix. An archival source. The sister company to DIA. Ubu.com is great! Video Purposes for Dance: Documentary vs A work in itself Treva just got a job with BAC to document dances traditionally performed in Brooklyn. The function of this video is documentary. Dance has not made a transition into video art. Not just for documentary purposes. There is no useful dance notation system. The context is easily lost. Felicia has a vid in a show in LA that was made as a work of art in itself that people really want to watch, in the bar, because it was well shot, a work in and of itself. Why is the Brooklyn Museum Feminist show predominantly tits and ass? Is that what the feminist movement is now? How can we all be brought down to the same level? Taking Katherine Dunham class, the class, a mix of ages, races, backgrounds was yelled at by the teacher, a black man. Was there much reaction to GiaÂ’s article? lachugar on ""theme" versus movement" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=39#post-57 Sun, 27 May 2007 12:16:20 +0000 lachugar 57@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ During the process of making a dance I have always come up with material that is like a melange of ideas (as you say). But in the moment of putting things together I always end up editing out those thoughts that seem like they are unrelated to what we're dealing with in the piece. It is not that I don't believe in the relevance of movement for movement's sake; but more because I believe in the fact that the body can express so much in such a sophisticated and deep way, that I want to explore that capacity instead of making arbitrary arrangement of movement material just 'cause they feel good or seem pretty or some other reason. I think I am trying to find the essence of the material . lachugar on ""theme" versus movement" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=39#post-54 Fri, 25 May 2007 18:30:01 +0000 lachugar 54@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ I don't think either is necessarily more important than the other. However, I do realize that in my work I have consistently given priority to what is conveyed through the material or vocabulary rather than the material itself. Then again, after saying that, I realize that it is not movement as representation that I am interested in either. Prioritizing theme over the execution of movement would possibly mean that you are using movement as a representation of a thought and/or an emotion and that is not what I am interested in. I want to draw the attention of the audience closer to the experience of the presence of the bodies onstage, being in movement or not. For example, in the piece "Exhausting Love at Danspace Project" (by the way this is the real title not "Exhausting Love". It refers to an action or experience that is happening in that specific venue) we are welcoming people as they enter and we do so with inviting arms. The action of inviting people in might seem like a representation of something but is actually the thing in itself. The "theme" that you are talking about, would lie in the actual repetition and insistence of the action of inviting people with open arms, rather than by trying to represent something other. In this case what is important is both the execution of the "theme" and the movement, both being the same; the embodiment of meaning. ccforum on "first answer" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=35#post-50 Tue, 22 May 2007 18:35:51 +0000 ccforum 50@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ 1. How would you briefly describe your art form to the uninitiated audience? This is a very Â“largeÂ” question to address and it would be presumptuous for me to give a sweeping definition of dance as an art form. Especially, considering this website is full of people who have their own specific ideas about dance, but IÂ’ll do my bestÂ… The quickest and simplest definition that comes to mind is that it is a live art, a performing art that has the body as its medium of expression. That it deals with the body in time and space and with moving the body. I think of dance, often, as both a celebration and lamentation of being in our bodies or of time passing as it is experienced through being (which we experience through being in our bodies). However, when it comes to contemporary dance the boundaries or attempts at defining the art form get extremely trickyÂ… anything could be a dance if it is framed as such! This is not a smart ass artsy elitist attitude; but more like an expansion of consciousness and/or a looking glass into the constant research that is going on in the processes of contemporary dance makers, making work from a set of questions about what a dance for me at this point in time might have to be made of, more than from a set of standardized rules. This makes me think of DuchampÂ’s decision to put a toilet bowl in a gallery or museum (canÂ’t remember which). That is to say that it is the framing of it as dance that makes a dance a dance. ThatÂ’s about as much as you need to define itÂ… Of course, I myself was drawn to dance because of the love of the experience of moving and I try to go back to that initial urge to move. That is why I have ended up making dances that are apparently not so much about creating phrases of Â“dancingÂ” but more about trying to express that fundamental desire inherent in the body. Ok, IÂ’ll stop for nowÂ… in case you want to interject something to that and will continue with the other onesÂ… [/b] _________________ luciana. :D jmleary on "Topic ideas for 5/21 Alligator Monday" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=22#post-43 Sun, 20 May 2007 12:39:04 +0000 jmleary 43@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ the Chicago-based Video Data Bank, or VDB, which Jillian Pena talked about in an Alligator Monday, came up as used for this program happening right now at MOMA: Feedback: The Video Data Bank, Video Art, and Artist InterviewsÂ—Reprised May 17Â–31, 2007 <a href="http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/film_exhibitions.php?id=4551" rel="nofollow">http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/film_exhibitions.php?id=4551</a> a lot of good ones have already happened, but it goes until the 31st. it seems like there is a renewed interest in Feminist Art in New York right now? there is new Sackler Center for Feminist Art at Brooklyn Museum, their first first Saturday was "Celebrate the Power of Women," and I feel like there have been retrospectives of what are considered feminist artists at galleries here and there. wonder why it is right now, maybe it's just a revived interest in factions of revolutionary movements. there was recently an article in New York Magazine about the new revolutionaries at Columbia University, how they are looking at the energy, failures, responses of the higher-ups to movements in the 60's that happened at their university, across the county and how different the climate and pressures of today are. the army draft was changed to a volunteer army because the government didn't want university students to unite and rebel against the draft. guess that it really is just a decentralization tactic, against the buildup of energy. creating nothing to stand around, fight for, or against. ccforum on "Introductory Note" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=26#post-39 Sat, 19 May 2007 17:14:32 +0000 ccforum 39@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ Dear Luciana, First of all thank you for the opportunity to be interviewed. It is not often that audience with little guidance to appreciate new-age art gets a chance to get a peak into an artist's mind. Having been recently initiated to your world of art, it is possible that the interview questions may sound trivial or self-explanatory to more mature audience but I am hopeful this will be a rewarding experience. The works presented by your contemporary colleagues and you defy all clichÃ©s that mainstream audience like myself have about dance. I am very curious to know more about your background and experience but more so to learn about the dots that connect imagination and execution. The journey between an idea and a flight. Here are a few questions to get your thought process started. 1. How would you briefly describe your art form to the uninitiated audience? 2. What do you think is more important in your work - the execution of movement or the execution of a theme? i.e. is it more important to execute a sequence of movements which are not necessarily related to each other by a theme but each beautiful on its own conveying a mÃ©lange of thoughts or is it more important that each movement be thought of as a piece of a jigsaw puzzle presenting a theme to the audience? 3. What motivated you to be a choreographer and direct works like Exhausting Love, Franny and Zooey instead of more traditional works of art? grrrcia on "Dance and Language" http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/topic.php?id=24#post-37 Fri, 18 May 2007 20:30:47 +0000 grrrcia 37@http://movementresearch.org/bbpress/ In A. Martorell's post about the Nothing Festival, she wrote "Susan Rethorst also said something compelling and inspiring in this regard: that she is interested in (verbal) language following dance, not preceding it." I'd love for Susan to expand upon this topic. And others. Language is a major part of my process, as a choreographer and musician. I keep pages upon pages of notes, written and on my laptop. The more I write about my work, the more I understand it. The software that I use to create sound has its own set of tools and language that I must learn in order to make it work the way I want it to work. In rehearsal, language is VERY important. -The way dancers verbally communicate with each other, whether it be with counts, whispers or breath cues. -The way that choreographers communicate with their dancers and other collaborators. What do you think about the connection between language and dance? Is it important to consider the connection, especially because we expect dance journalists to more efficiently communicate (via language) with the public?